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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 November 2022
Pierre HIRSCH is at it once again. On the 29th, he presented us with a careful selection of ‘avant-garde’ films. Man Ray's L’Étoile de mer (The Starfish): images pass without logical connection, without ‘history’. In it, cinema is no longer photography. There is something else (perhaps only a frosted glass) that makes this short film into a moving painting with stock tricks; a masterpiece. Each gesture borrows symbolic value from the vaudeville ditty. Man Ray seeks: some people laugh and yet their ears hear a melody and they don't try to understand; they enjoy themselves. Why don't their eyes enjoy the melodies?
Ruttmann set images to Schumann's music. And since Schumann had composed his piece with simple notes, Ruttmann composed his film with simple elements, with water, wind; he shows us lakes and boats, and the evening, and leaves rattling, and waterfalls and streams; the splashing of water after an outpouring of notes. The audience understands and doesn't complain that dreams have been imposed on them; and yet?
The third film, The Trunks of Mr. O.F., has been reviewed. I no longer know what the critics said. To me, it's a full-length film about a simple idea. The beginning is perfect, and then the effects become heavy-handed—nothing fails, nothing is silly, it's just that Granowsky is rather logical in his fantasising. I missed L’Étoile de mer.
If you would like to see different films, if you would like to see the curious results obtained by those who seek to photograph or recreate nature, those who, tired of words, compose poems of images, help your mate Hirsch out.
Join the Cine-Club, because Paris is faraway, the Rue de Béthune is full of duds, and ‘films’ are expensive.
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