Unseen Cinema

Description

Unseen Cinema

To mark the 10th anniversary of Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film, 1893-1941, we present two programs from the twenty-program series organized by curator Bruce Posner, producer/preservationist David Shepard, and Anthology Film Archives and Deutsches Filmmuseum. [W]hat makes Unseen Cinema essential for any serious film lover is the argument it makes: That long before the post-war period of Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas, Americans were experimenting with film form and subject matter. There's no more transparently false idea in film criticism than the notion that everything in cinema has been seen and written about—that there are no new discoveries. Unseen Cinema deliciously, deliriously puts a firm stop to this falsehood.”

Revolutions in Technique and Form

Tonight’s program features classics of the avant-garde including Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand’s Manhatta, “a radical modern masterpiece. . . one of the first American avant-garde films and a forerunner of the ‘city symphony’ films,” according to Posner. Man Ray’s Le Retour á la raison, Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy’s Ballet mécanique, and Marcel Duchamp’s Anémic cinéma are grouped with examples of early American cinema that exhibit post-modernistic tendencies.

Eiffel Tower from Trocadero Palace (1 min), Palace of Electricity (1 min), Champs de Mars (2 mins), Panorama of Eiffel Tower (2 mins), Scene from the Elevator Ascending Eiffel Tower (2 mins) (All: Edison Manufacturing: James White, William Heise, 1900, Silent, B&W, 16fps). Suspense (Lois Weber, Philips Smalley, 1913, 8 mins, Silent, B&W). Triptych Film Poem (c. Unidentified filmmaker, 1925, 4 mins, Silent, B&W). Manhatta (Charles Sheeler, Paul Strand, 1920, 11 mins, Silent, B&W, 16fps). Le Retour à la raison (Return to Reason) (Man Ray, 1923, 3 mins, Silent, B&W, 16fps). Anémic cinéma (Marcel Duchamp, 1924-26, 7 mins, Silent, B&W, 20fps). Ballet mécanique (Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy, 1923-24, 16 mins, B&W, Sound on CD, 20fps). Soul of the Cypress with interpolated scenes (Dudley Murphy, 1920, 13 mins, B&W/Color tinted, Sound on cassette, 22 fps). Ella Lola, a la Trilby (Edison Manufacturing: James White, William Heise, 1898, 1 mins, Silent, B&W, 22fps). M. Lavelle, Physical Culture, No.1 (American Mutoscope & Biograph: Frederick S. Armitage, 1905, 1 min, Silent, B&W, 18fps).

• (Total running time: c. 70 mins, 35mm, From Anthology Film Archives, British Film Institute, Det Dankse Filminstitut, Library of Congress)

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