Category Archives: surrealism

Until his head fills the picture


“The Big Swallow” (1901) by James Williamson

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzFh8rYMl6M&]

“The Big Swallow“ (1901) aka A Photographic Contortion, produced and directed by James Williamson.

The sales catalog of this film describes the film as “A man reading finds a photographer with his head under a cloth, about to take his picture. He orders him off, approaching nearer and nearer until his head fills the picture, and finally his mouth only occupies the screen. He opens it, and first the camera, then the operator disappear inside. He retires munching him up and expressing great satisfaction.”

A terrific piece of early meta-cinema breaking the fourth wall.

This post is inspired by a recent article by Keith Sanborn “Second hand, second person, at a second remove, forms of address in Youtube in historical perspective,” published in Brouillon 4. Keith Sanborn is an American filmmaker, media artist and connoisseur of the cinema of Guy Debord. With Peggy Ahwesh, he made The Dead Man.

I urge you

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbGUr97tIDs&]

Early animation by the Chiodo brothers (of Killer Klowns from Outer Space)

“I urge you, learn to see ‘bad’ films; they are sometimes sublime”. —Ado Kyrou, Le Surréalisme au cinéma, p. 276

Bad films are not only sublime, they learn you about the techniques of filmmaking, all the things we take for granted, the inner workings of concepts such as credibility in acting, continuity editing are exposed in watching and studying bad films.

I found the clip above while researching Elihu Vedder‘s painting The Roc’s Egg (1868) which is said to have furnished Ray Harryhausen with inspiration for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.

The only version of the Roc’s Egg painting I found was this one, by Robert Swain Gifford

I couldn’t find Vedder’s painting.

Update: I found the Edder version, clearly inferior to Gifford’s. I’ll give you both so you be the judge.

The Roc's Egg by Vedder

Vedder’s version of the Roc’s egg

The Roc's Egg (1874) by Robert Swain Gifford
Gifford’s version of the Roc’s egg

Stunning work by Slavko Vorkapić

The Furies (1933)
music: Ludwig von Beethoven
score synchronized by Slavko Vorkapić

“Vorkapich hade complete creative freedom in writing, designing, directing and editing his montage sequences for feature films, his work was often reduced to its bones in the released productions. Here is the filmmaker’s original version of one of his outstanding efforts”

Thus reads the Youtube blurb to this wonderful clip; strange that I cannot find reference to this film over at IMDb.

Slavko Vorkapić (March 17 1894 – October 20 1976), was a Serbian–American film director and editor, university professor and painter, one of the most prominent figures of modern cinematography and film art, best-known for The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra.

See surrealism and film

Unreason vs. reason

Cults_of_Unreason_1974

Adorable seventies graphic design on the book depicted above.

Of course, the classic illustration of unreason is:

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monstersis a 1799 print by Goya from the Caprichos series. It is the image the sleeping artist surrounded by the winged ghoulies and beasties unleashed by unreason.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is a 1799 print by Goya from the Caprichos series. It is the image the sleeping artist surrounded by the winged ghoulies and beasties unleashed by unreason.

Unreason on the whole is a subject of innumerable greater interest than reason. As such, I’ll take the counter-enlightenment over the enlightenment any day. Conceded, there were interesting aspects of the enlightenment, ignored by history, such as the enlightenment of Thérèse Philosophe. See Robert Darnton’s The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France.

Breton’s homophobia

I’ve mentioned surrealist leader André Breton’s homophobia before, so I decided to investigate.

Apparently most of what is known of Breton’s dislike of homosexuality stems from round table discussions that were held in the years 1928 – 1932, long before Kinsey or Masters and Johnson began their clinical surveys. Participants included many of surrealism’s best known figures: Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Antonin Artaud, Benjamin Peret, Jacques Prevert, Marcel Duhamel, Yves Tanguy, Pierre Unik, etc…. Their findings were partly published in the surrealist magazine La Révolution surréaliste. For those of us without access to those magazines (and that is 99.999% of us) there is an English translation available from Verso books with the title Investigating Sex: Surrealist Discussions 1928-1932, which publishes verbatim accounts of all of these round table discussions.

 

Surrealist Discussions 1928-1932, page 5, an illustration of many Surrealists', and especially Breton's apparent homophobia. This excerpt from the first session on January 27, 1928.

Quoting from both sides (pro and contra):

André Breton said:

“I accuse homosexuals of confronting human tolerance with a mental and moral deficiency which tends to turn itself into a system and to paralyse every enterprise I respect.”

Pierre Unik states:

“From a physical point of view, I find homosexuality as disgusting as excrement …”

André Breton concludes:

“I am absolutely opposed to continuing the discussion of this subject. If this promotion of homosexuality carries on, I will leave this meeting forthwith.”

Some surrealists came to the defense of homosexuals, most notably Raymond Queneau who states:

“It is evident to me that there is an extraordinary prejudice against homosexuality among the surrealists.

I’d like to investigate further who was pro and who contra, but I am running out of time here.

Icons of erotic art #18

Via the newly discovered blog aileron comes the film The Lost Secret of Catherine the Great by Peter Woditsch and Sophie Schoukens.

I had first heard about the erotic furniture of Catherine the Great a couple of years ago and even traced the existence of the documentary by Woditsch, but had never actually seen the pieces of furniture that presumedly belonged to Catherine before the collection was destroyed during WWII. Catherine was a strong and independent woman (it helped that she was an empress) who throughout her long reign, took many lovers, often elevating them to high positions for as long as they held her interest, and then pensioning them off with large estates and gifts of serfs. She also cultivated Voltaire, Diderot and D’Alembert — all French philosophes encyclopedists who later cemented her reputation in their writings.

Note: In the erotic furniture category belong art works such as Chair, Table and Hat Stand by Allen Jones and Les Krims‘s Heavy Feminist with Wedding Cake [1] (1970).

Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.

World cinema classics #30

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id4593hoT2E]

Lina: I love you!

Le Far West is a 1973 film directed by Jacques Brel. The film was co-written by Paul Andréota and Brel. It has the dubious honor of a 4.0/10 rating on IMDb. As with so many films, it was my father who pointed it out to me when it was shown on television in my early teens. If I remember the plot correctly, a band of drop-outs decides to create a new “far west” in a abandoned mine. Very funny.

Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.

World cinema classics #28

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCpyqiee-Z8]

El Topo (1970) – Alejandro Jodorowsky

“El Topo is not a Western, it goes further than any Western … El Topo is not a religious film, it contains all religions … This film is bloody… El Topo is miraculous and terrible … El Topo is monstrous and cruel”

This slightly overrated curio premiered exactly 37 years today at the Elgin, New York.

Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.

Introducing Les Krims

Les Krims (born August 16, 1942) is a United States conceptual photographer. He is noted for his carefully arranged fabricated photographs (called “fictions”), various candid series, a surreal satirical edge, dark humor, and long-standing criticism of what he describes as leftist twaddle. Works such as Heavy Feminist with Wedding Cake [1] (1970) has been criticized by anti-pornography feminists and feminist photographers as being fetishistic, objectifying, body despising and a misogynist who uses his photography to humiliate predominantly women. Even though Krims does include men (often himself, nude) in his photos, these critics contend that his primary viciousness is reserved for women.

Tip of the hat to [1].