Ballet mécanique

I was lucky enough to see 'Ballet Mécanique' some eight months ago at a screening of Dadaist films which included work by the likes of Hans Richter and Oskar Fischinger, and this stood out as being the highlight of the programme.

Certainly now one of my favourite films, Léger's vision came about as close to the ideal of synaesthesia as anyone has ever achieved - the visuals are so synchronised with the soundtrack that the filmic experience takes on an entirely new dimension, completely mesmerising the viewer.

Such is 'Ballet Mécanique' that words can do it little justice - the title alone perhaps best describes it. If you get the chance to view this rather obscure masterpiece, make sure you do.

This is just one of many strange films from the DVD collection "Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941" and it's from Disc 3.

In the notes shown on the screen before the film begins, you learn that the original musical score was so complicated and strange that it was not played at the film's original debut. For the film, they were able to recreate the cacophony caused by eight percussionists, two pianists, bells, a siren, airplane propellers and sixteen player pianos! This film is a creation and is made up of a weird collage of machinery, objects and shapes. Being Dadaist, is seeks to defy contemporary ideas of art, provoke the viewer and be anarchic. I liked the cubist intro myself and loved whenever it reappeared (it looked like Chaplin as drawn by a cubist) and thought it rather cute--which would have horrified the folks who made this! I don't think 'cute' is what they were going for with this film! The rest of the film consisted of pulsating objects, upside-down film clips of people, kaleidoscopic effects, random objects that were in primary and secondary colors and, once again, the cubist Chaplin! It all defies adequate description and is not something most folks would like to see very often--but I can respect all the work they put into it.

This excellent surrealist short is a highly imaginative montage of images of people interspersed with machinery. It doesn't have any narrative whatsoever; instead it concentrates on presenting images in a variety of interesting ways. It's more about one central idea – the connection between man and his machines – being expanded on and expressed through an avant-garde art film; in this case via the styles of Surrealism and Dada. The steady pace mimics the mechanised tempo of the machinery depicted in the film. The images themselves are highly imaginative, incorporating a variety of camera trickery and optical illusions, coupled with repeated shots, way before Andy Warhol had similar ideas. It's overall, a very beautiful and compelling presentation. For anybody at all interested in 1920's art films, this is a must. It's well worth 15 minutes of your time.

This comment is on the version with the recreated Antheil score.

There are films that you can experience directly as they penetrate deep. There are films (and other things) you engage with because they help with that, but the experience is still direct and lasting. They are lesser works, and many of then trivial. But over time the aggregation matters. Its a practice. Its a yoga.

And then there are films that may have been one of these in some context, but that context has drained away, eroded somehow. These are schoolroom exercises now. You cannot actually learn the grammar from them because they are immature, regardless of how cutting edge they were. You cannot experience the thrill the original viewers had, the shock, the stretch, the challenge.

But you have to watch them because they were important, and because you'll need to talk to people who learn rather than experience.

It's cubist, and a particular kind of German-influenced reduction based on now discounted notions. It assumes that Cartesian abstraction can be pure, visceral. The score is from a different tradition, one that reduces to ordinarily "pure" phenomenon like machine sounds. These are both bankrupt artistic ideas, silly now. But they are contradictory, and the clash between the two religions is the experience you will find here.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

This one is available online bearing various running-times (the longest being 18 minutes); for the record, the print on Kino's DVD edition within their 2-Disc collection AVANT-GARDE: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA OF THE 1920s AND '30s is a mere 11 minutes, with the one I eventually settled on for this review clocking at 16!

It is among the more famous efforts in that set and one which boasts the approval (as per the opening scrolling text) of none other than Sergei M. Eisenstein as among the rare(?!) masterpieces of French cinema, while "Charlot" (i.e. Charles Chaplin as he was known in France) is given an early "presents" credit! In retrospect, the Russian master of film montage must have surely appreciated its rapid-fire cutting and industrial aptitude (in keeping with his Communist beliefs). That said, the most lasting image here depicts a chubby woman being repeatedly made to go up and down the stairs.