CIN201Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Un Chien Andalou, Dada
Professor Charles Keil Nov. 18, 2016
CIN201 TUTORIAL 10
FRENCH AVANT-GARDE
CHRISTIE (READING)
• Many movements were happening at the same time, but they were all very different from
each other (however, they could all work within the mainstream and without)
- They had in common their impatience with the current French mainstream
- Different outlooks, same preoccupation with cinematic specificity
- Photogénie achieved by the kaleidoscopic editing and simultaneity
- Two different schools approaching Photogénie
EPSTEIN (READING)
• Talks about what cinema should be, as an art, and what it should do
• Should limit itself to the purest expressions of cinema (which, to him, is Photogénie)
• Photogenic mobility exists within a space-time system (cinema is an art of both space and
time and has mobility in both)
• Cinema can endow objects with personality—can endow an inanimate object with
meaning and life
• Only the mobile and personal aspects of things, beings, and souls may be photogenic
(acquire a higher moral value)
• Believes that in cinema, a new reality is revealed, a reality for special occasion (has a
transformative quality that produces a reality that is different from the one we live in—
compares it to music and poetry)
DULAC (READING) “The Essence of Cinema, the Visual Idea”
• Emphasis on the moral essence of the cinematic art
• Extension of scientific inquiry (in the beginnings, cinema was brought up as some sort of
scientific tool)
• The “art of movement” is a unique form of expression, that cannot be captured by other
arts
• In its techniques, nothing links it to the pre-existing arts (even from theatre, which it
shares similarities with)
• Cinema had been seen before as an extension of other movement-based art forms like
theatre and dance—but we cannot consider it in this way if we want to realize its full
potential; “thus far, cinema has seen its potential stifled”
- People had considered it recorded theatre
- “cinema is an art of vision, as music is an art of hearing”
- anti-narrative—rather, argues that it should reach our thoughts and feelings through a
visual idea, rather than through a narrative
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Christie (reading: many movements were happening at the same time, but they were all very different from each other (however, they could all work within the mainstream and without) They had in common their impatience with the current french mainstream. Different outlooks, same preoccupation with cinematic specificity. Photog nie achieved by the kaleidoscopic editing and simultaneity. Cinema is an art of vision, as music is an art of hearing anti-narrative rather, argues that it should reach our thoughts and feelings through a visual idea, rather than through a narrative. Nov. 18, 2016: cinema, by decomposing movement, makes us see analytically, and [decomposes] movement . Impressionism: emphasis on the inner state (vs. german expressionism compare scream painting to a. Monet) temporality (flashbacks, daydreams) reliance on optical effects to convey mental states and emotional states. Older couple, man with the gun (woman dislikes her home life) randomly see stairs from the female"s perspective focus on interiority of one singular character.
