What Is Film? Program 17
Entr'acte, 1924. Videostill
Programm 17
Walter Ruttmann (Germany)
Lichtspiel Opus I–IV (1921-25) 35mm, 20 min (16 B/Sek)
In his first abstract short films Ruttmann was experimenting with new forms of film expression. With colleagues of the avant garde movement, he enriched the language of film as a medium with new formal techniques.
René Clair & Francis Picabia (France)
Entr'acte (1924) 35mm, 20 min (18 B/Sek)
In this film were used such techniques as slow motion, watching things happen in reverse, looking at a ballet dancer from underneath, watching an egg over a fountain of water get shot and instantly become a bird and watching people disappear.
Man Ray (USA)
L'Etoîle de mer / The Sea Star (1928) 35mm, 15 min (18 B/Sek), French.
Originally a silent film, recent copies have been dubbed using music taken from Man Ray's personal record collection of the time. Almost all of the scenes in this film are shot either off a mirror like the final shot, or through diffused and textured glass.
Les Mystères du Château du Dé (1929) 35mm, 22 min (18 B/Sek), French.
The film depicts a pair of travellers setting off from Paris and travelling to the Villa Noailles in Hyères. At 27 minutes the film was the longest that Man Ray directed during his career.
Luis Buñuel (Spain)
Un chien andalou (1929) 35mm, 20 min (18 B/Sek), English.
The first Buñuel's film. It has no plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.