The Grace of Blowing Glass Contrasted With Clunky Automation Set to a Fitting Jazz Soundtrack
In 1958, Dutch filmmaker Bert Haanstra created "Glas", a brilliant Oscar-winning, ten-minute film that compares the graceful, delicate art of glass blowing with the clunky, inefficient efficiency of bottle production machines, utilizing an incredibly appropriate soundtrack to highlight the film's intentions. Aeon Video has brought the film back into the public eye, where it so deservedly belongs.
Glas won master film maker Bert Haanstra a well-deserved Academy Award(R) for Best Short Documentary in 1959. The film contrasts the production of hand made crystal from the Royal Leerdam Glass Factory with automated bottle making machines in the Netherlands. An industrial film with a bebop heart, its lyrical use of light and sound still looks and sounds fabulous, nearly 60 years after it was made.