How did Williams cope with this sudden absence? Jerry Lewis mugged and clowned before the electronic gizmo in "The Delicate Delinquent. (Published 01/27/96)ITS PRESENTATION is almost as elliptical as its subject matter, which makes "Theremin -- An Electronic Odyssey" an appropriately odd, yet precious experience. His chief practitioner was Clara Rockwood, a young, gifted musician who performed on the Theremin for appreciative audiences.But Theremin, who developed a romantic relationship with Rockford, experienced a personal life that dwarfed the strange promise of his invention. Steven M. Martin's documentary about the Russian genius who created the electronic device known as the Theremin describes a fascinating, tragic life that included interracial romance, involuntary exile from the United States, imprisonment in a Russian gulag and espionage for the KGB.At the perplexing center of it all is Prof. Leon Theremin, a frail man now in his nineties who simply accepts his history with nary an existential shrug. Clara Rockmore, the leading practitioner of the Theremin electronic instrument, was misidentified yesterday in Weekend. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on.
Besides, everything director Martin selects (including interviews with collaborators, Moog and the adorably addled Brian Wilson) is entertaining. You've heard it in the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" and on the soundtrack for "The Day the Earth Stood Still." You've heard it in the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" and on the soundtrack for "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Its unmistakable electronic sound is embedded in our popular culture. He seems too old and tired to care, or ponder the bizarre course his life has taken.The Theremin, a waist-high cabinet with a metal loop on one side and a vertical antenna on the other, makes musical use of the tones that can be created from disturbing electromagnetic fields. And in 1938, in front of his horrified wife, Theremin was kidnapped by Stalin's goons and dispatched to the Soviet Union, where he wasn't heard from for seven years.The professor's electronic know-how, it was later learned, was used to strengthen the KGB's secret military work. A Hands On-Hands Off Music & Technology Experience Exploring the First Electronic Instrument. THEREMIN -- AN ELECTRONIC ODYSSEY (Unrated) -- Contains nothing offensive. And yet, as synthesizer inventor Robert Moog marvels, Theremin designed this four-and-a-half octave instrument "by using his ear, the same way that Stradivari designed his violins more than 100 years ago. And when he has a "reunion" with Rockwood (who has continued performing on the Theremin all these years), the scene looks too staged to be spontaneous.Nevertheless, the story is so compelling, it pulls the movie along. At the Biograph. But there are so many things that leave us hanging. He developed the electronic eavesdropping device known as the "bug." What was Rockwood's attitude toward Theremin's relationship with Williams? What this all adds up to is a haunting, lasting impression of an unfortunate, virtually unheralded genius, his strange inventions and his even stranger life. ("CREATING MUSIC OUT OF THE AIR," raved one headline.) Moving from Rockwood to Lavinia Williams, a black ballet dancer (whom he married), the inventor was ostracized by the society that had embraced him. "Its descendant, the Moog synthesizer, is an integral part of modern music. Its unmistakable electronic sound is embedded in our popular culture.