Film Culture (Winter 1963-64)

film was photographed. This was done extensively at that time because they had no color film. Also, "Rhythmus 23" was lost, but a couple of years ago | found (at the Guggenheim Museum) elements of "Rhythmus 23" mixed together with elements of "Rhythmus 2I1;" and at a laborato= ry in Basle more material of "Rhythmus 23," To this day | have been interested in film mainly as a visual art and not as an extension of literature or theatre. To sit through two hours of a eee story is an ordeal for me, with, of course, a lot of exceptions. So | don't go to the movies very often. On the other hand, | believe that the film medium has tremendous possibilities as a purely visual art, which are, in my opinion, 99 or 98 I/2% undiscovered. | have tried to discover some of these possibilities for the last forty years. How do you discover them? Only by experimenting! How do you ex= periment? By studying without prejudice and by using these possibilities unorthodoxically, by just letting yourself go, by following your intuition. | set a scene and try to explore it; in ex— ploring it, | create it! and in creating it, | understand the medium better. In that way I have progressed from one thing to another. Abstract films? Today abstract film people tell me: "You have let us down. You started something as an abstract artist and film-maker and you didn't follow it up." And the Surrealist film people tell me: "You let us down. You also make abstract films." 1 can only fell the abstract film people, | have never promised to follow that up further than | have dane And | have never promised the Surrealists to follow their creed. If I like one thing, I like my independence! | have never belonged to any group, except the Dada group, from 1916 to 1918, just because everyone of us interpreted Dada in his own way. Painting has its tradition that led to abstraction, but film as a new art form has its own set of problems and the abstract form in film has not the same significance as it has in modern art. 1 am a painter who makes films and as a painter, film experimentation still fascinates me. In 1929, just before the end of the Avant-Garde, Louis Bufivel made "Un Chien Andalou. But, Man Ray's "Emak Bakia," 1926, and my "Filmstudy," 1926, were already concerned with the state of the subconscious. Man Ray's film was a free association and mine was concerned with a dream, but "Un Chien Andalou" was the first officially recognized "surrealist"film,and the most brilliant film of this period. One year later, in 1930, Cocteau made his first film and his most fascinating one: "The Blood of a Poet." But it was "L'age d'Or" by Bufuel in 1930 which marked the culmination and with that, the end of the Avant-Garde movement. | was at the opening of "L'age d'Or" in Cinema 28, Montmartre, Paris, which led to a regular riot, with bombs, police, fistfights, etc. As we were sitting there, we knew something would happen. True enough--the screening had gone on for about one hour and suddenly there was a terrific scream down in the orchestra. I was sitting in the lodge, on the balcony beside an elderly man. There was something anti-church or anti-royalist on the screen; not the scene with the skeletons (that was long past). Somebody had thrown a bomb onto the screen, The old man beside me jumped up and hit me over the head! I don't know _ why! There was a battle all over the place. Down below the "Camelots du Roi" were yelling: against the film. Then they tried to storm the projection booth to get at the film, but it was _ closed and they could not break the iron door open. So they destroyed things in the foyer-it was really ashame. They destroyed the famous noise organ that the Futurist Russolo had built; the first of its kind. There were also a number of paintings hanging near the entrance by Picasso, Man Ray, and Picabia which were just torn to pieces. It took the police an hour to clear the whole place of the rioters. After that we continued to screen the film to the end. It was worthwhile; it was really an amazing film. Bufuel had quite some trouble after that. The Comte de Noailles, who had financed the film was excommunicated by the Pope and had to forbid further showings of this sacrilegious film. 1 must say | didn't fully realize its implications during the first screening. What struck me was the extreme violence and dar-ing of the performance. | had never seen a less inhibited film on the screen. As an artistic experience it was really overwhelming. The term Surrealism was very appropriate: it was a new Realism of the inner life. Bufiuel seemed to me the most dramatic and radical of the innovators in film at this period; and what is more, he followed amoral and political credo to . this very day... But there is still one thing | cannot agree upon: His "Hollywood in Reverse" technique; | mean cruelty for its own sake. When | saw "Los Olvidados" and before, his "Land Without Bread," I felt that he had reversed the pink and sugar technique of Hollywood. into one of vinegar and vitriol. As a result, | stopped going along with the film during the screening: to kill chicken or donkeys, to cut an eye open with a razor blade can just as well become a routine as the famous happy ending. Unfortunately, some experimental film-makers. 28 FILM CULTURE