The early Avant Garde films that we were exposed to in week 3 seemed to get mixed reviews in class and that's being generous. It appeared to me as though most of my classmates felt that the filmmakers in the Dada period weren't making much sense or lead to any kind of point with their work. I can understand that point of view as it's hard to digest watching something that doesn't really have a dead set story, as most of us are used to thanks to modern cinema.
The film that I could get a grip on the most of everything that was shown was easily Leger's "Ballet Mecanique." The film both showed clips of many different mechanical mechanisms such as pistons pumping to go along with shots of people smiling, frowning and walking up and down stairs.
I thought the film was trying to portray the relationship between the movements and functions of both anatomy and machine. Two instances specifically come to mind in developing the consistencies between both.
The first is a silver ball of some sort swinging back and forth in a repetitive motion. Soon after that footage was a woman smiling and frowning in the same back and forth fashion as the silver ball.
The next images that related to each other were shots of a piston pumping up and down. Then a woman was shown walking up a flight of stairs in repeat. If you think about the way a leg works, it follows the same pattern of a piston. up and down. They can certainly be related in form.
The Surrealists/Dadaists/Cubists definitely had some interesting perspectives on Art and Film, but it is certainly hard to get a read on what they are trying to say. But I guess that could be the point, right Marcel?
Thanks for the urinal art picture. Not quite what I imagined when it was described in class.
ReplyDelete