Complete title: Oramunde: An Etude on the Theme of Mélisande
Maker: Emlen Etting
Original format: 16mm silent film 1.37:1
Featuring: Mary Binney Montgomery
New music: Rodney Sauer

Oramunde is an illustration in dance of the tale of Pelléas et Mélisande, a story of two star-crossed lovers. The film confirms the belief that archetypal imagination is one of the mind's primitive modes. Stripping the story to its core is a means of penetrating imagination. -R. Bruce Elder

Emlen Etting (1905-1993) was a Philadelphia Main Line society-born painter, sculptor, scholar of French literature, and book illustrator. His figurative paintings and drawings depict the loneliness of modernity and the extravagance of nature. Etting illustrated works by Paul Valéry and Franz Kafka, among others. His three films produced before 1940 are milestones of poetic filmmaking. -R. Bruce Elder