The Printed Signal

Visual music pioneer Mary Ellen Bute’s final film was also her first feature  film. James Joyce’s classic story of Irish tavern-keeper who dreams of attending  his own wake is brought to the screen with a sparkling energy which highlights  its maker’s career-long exploration of kinetic abstract animation. Perhaps best  described as a ‘film poem,’ Passages from Finnegans Wake was the first attempt  to ‘cinematize’ the works of James Joyce, featuring the author’s highly original  language spoken by characters and presented as text on screen.