Week 1 - Collaboration & Alternate Lineages: Surrealism, Animation, Comedic Satire Flashcards
An Andalusian Dog
Un Chien Andalou
Un Chien Andalou by
Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali
Un Chien Andalou visuals
series of shocking, dreamlike images, none of which told a story or had any ulterior motive or alternate meaning.
Un Chien Andalou response
tremendous success
purpose of Un Chien Andalou
to pierce the self-assurance of the powerful. + “a call to murder” against the ‘museum-ifying’ of the celebrations of his centenary
Purpose UCA: While this exaggerates somewhat his radicalism and outsider status, there is considerable consistency in his attacks on the bourgeoisie, whose hypocrisy and dissembling both amused and enraged him.
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effect of uca
Bunuel’s first film would fully propel Surrealism into the artistic forefront in many different ways
the artistic longevity is its deliberate search for narrative incoherence and lack of Western logic. Essentially, Un Chien Andalou is a deconstruction of the conventions of narrative cinema.
EXAMPLE OF THIS
use of inter-titles, which follow in this order: “once upon a time,” “eight years later,” “toward three in the morning,” “sixteen years before,” and “in the spring.”
Cocteau’s Orphée based on
1926 play Orphée
moral of Orphee was
the engagement of the poet with himself, not with causes or parties.
what tdoes Death do for orpheus?
although in love with Orpheus, sacrifices her own feelings and allows the poet to remain on earth.
Orphee shot where?
shot largely in the ruined buildings of Saint-Cyr, the French West Point, which had been destroyed by the Germans during World War 11
what does cocteau retell?
In Orphée, which can best be described as visual poetry, Jean Cocteau retells the familiar tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, but in a original and fascinating way.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the film is how well the special effects are used. EXAMPLE
When the characters walk through mirrors into the “other world”, the effect achieved so convincing that it just has to be real.
On the acting side, it is probably Maria Casarès who is most memorable. Her portrayal of the death princess is both moving and terrifying. She is as cold as an ice-cube, yet her scenes with Jean Marais have a sense of tenderness that gives her character a sympathetic dimension.
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is clearly based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, in which the gifted son of Apollo tries to retrieve his beloved, Eurydice, from Hades. Here Orpheus is Orpheé (Jean Marais), a smug, successful poet reviled by a younger generation who gather at the local café. When a younger rival, Cegeste (Edouard Dhermitte), is killed, Orpheé is believed to be responsible.
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whats the twist to orphee??
instead of rescuing his wife, Eurydice (Marie Déa), he abandons her in his search for the treasures Death may hold.
who controls princess death?
a frightening cabal of wizened white men who comprise a kind of underworld committee that tracks her compliance with their orders and rigorously punishes any deviations.
Recognizable image in orphee
The portal to that world is a mirror that thoughtfully allows the characters to pass through it on their way out of the “real” world.
one of the first independent American sound films, shot in the East to avoid interference from Hollywood’s Adolph Zucker of Paramount Pictures.
Crime Without Passion
camerawork on Crime Without Passion
stunning set against the bizarre special-effects by Vorkapich, which shows, among other things, images of a large eye, the barrel of a gun, a falling body, muttered words.
Opening of CWP
The Furies
The Furies
scantly clad and airborne female Furies peering into skyscraper windows as office workers are struck with hypnotic drives of unbridled passion and the lust of adultery
The Art Deco sets and amazing sound track all add up to create a picture that just has to be seen if you are a fan of dark film.
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vorkapich originally
actor & then Hired by Paramount, and later by RKO and MGM, to construct what were initially called “transition sequences” in feature films,
Vorkapich’s “symphonies of visual movement,” as he called them, were chiefly designed to
advance the story as rapidly and vividly as possible.
symphonies of visual movement
to depicting cataclysms both natural and man-made
When working with filmmakers of an adventurous frame of mind, Vorkapich seized the opportunity to
introduce expressionist elements into his work, and some of his most imaginative effects occur in the montages he devised,
Vorkapich’s “attempts to slice through this cinematic wedding cake are honourable but doomed.” He would have fitted in far better with the pacy, staccato rhythms of Warner Bros.—but Warners, oddly enough, is one of the few major studios where he seems never to have worked.
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As fashions in filmmaking changed towards the end of the 1930s, Vorkapich’s style of montage came to seem outmoded and was decreasingly in demand.
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By a Waterfall by
Busby Berkeley
Berkeley was a
choreographer and director
By a waterfall is a # in
Footlight Parade (1933)
BB episode
Minnie the Mocher
who made betty & why?
Betty was the creation of the Fleischer brothers, Jewish immigrants from Austria, who set out, with financing from Paramount, to challenge Walt Disney
Minnie the Mocher begins w/
with live action footage of Cab Calloway,
minnie learned
Calloway sings, had learned “to kick the gong around,” to use opium, from her boy friend “Smoky” whose drug of choice was cocaine. Although the cartoon does not show Betty taking any drug, she does, to the accompaniment of Cab’s version of the song, find herself in a dream world.
Beginning of Minnie the Moocher parody of what?
The scene is a thinly disguised parody of “The Jazz Singer.”
Betty Boop and Jazz Singer (jakie)
. Like Jakie, she too runs toward jazz music. But, unlike Jakie, Betty runs toward the real thing. No “Toot, Toot, Tootsie” for her.
Minnie, Calloway sings, had learned “to kick the gong around,” to use opium, from her boy friend “Smoky” whose drug of choice was cocaine. Although the cartoon does not show Betty taking any drug, she does, to the accompaniment of Cab’s version of the song, find herself in a dream world.
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Betty Boop & Minnie story
Minnie dreamed that the King of Sweden “was giving her things that she was needin’.” Instead Betty meets a ghostly walrus with enlarged lips who sings the song.
