Futurist-Related Performance on Film
| Nov ’09 |
| 3 |
| 9:00 pm |
The feet of three people act out an adulterous affair in Pedestrian Love (1914), the only filmed record of Futurist “reductionist performance,” to be shown alongside Excelsior (1914), a film based on a grand ballet celebrating technology and progress, Feet and Hands (1915), French film similar in concept to Pedestrian Love, and News Item (1923), a surreal French short starring theater icon Antonin Artaud.
With live accompaniment by acclaimed composer/pianist PETE DRUNGLE!
FILM DETAILS
Excelsior
Dir. Luca Comerio, Italy, 1914
B&W, silent, 23 min
A grand 1881 ballet that celebrates technology and progress through tableaux saluting turn-of-the-century technological innovations—electricity, the telegraph, and the Brooklyn Bridge, among them—Excelsior was made into a film over 30 years later, as the worldwide interest in Futurism was taking off.
Pedestrian Love (Amor pedestre)
Dir. Marcel Fabre, Italy, 1914
B&W, silent, 10 min
The feet of three people act out an adulterous affair in Pedestrian Love, the only filmed record of Futurist “reductionist performance.”
Feet and Hands (Des pieds et des mains)
Dir. Jacques Feyder and Gaston Ravel, France, 1915
B&W, silent, 18 min
A French take on reductionist performance.
News Item (Fait divers)
Dir. Claude Autant-Lara, France, 1923
B&W, silent, 20 min
Surrealistic short made early in the career of Autant-Lara, who would later become one of the French “directors of quality” attacked by the New Wave filmmakers, in which a trio of actors (including Antonin Artaud!) jealously confront one another, set to an avant-garde score by Arthur Honegger and others.
Total running time: 71 min
Presented by Performa. Curated by Lana Wilson. Part of “The Polyexpressive Symphony: Futurism on Film.”
Nov. 3 and Nov. 11 at 9pm
Tickets: $9 / $7 Students, Seniors, and Children / $6 Performa and AFA Members, available at the door.
About “The Polyexpressive Symphony: Futurism on Film”
Although very little remains of early Italian avant-garde cinema, this film program will showcase several groundbreaking films from the 1910s, 20s, and 30s indebted to the Futurist movement, which declared that film was “the expressive medium most adapted to the complex sensibility of a Futurist artist.” Artists to be featured include Marcel Fabre (Italy), Henri Chomette (France), Willy Otto Zielke (Germany), Eugene Deslaw (Ukraine), and Corrado D’Errico (Italy). The program will also present poetic Italian shorts documenting the rise of the mechanical age, rare early science-fiction films, and the US premiere of the only surviving full-length Futurist film, “Thais” (1916), a melodramatic love story made by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. Most of the screenings will feature live piano accompaniment by acclaimed composer/pianist Pete Drungle, and a special screening of “March of the Machines” (1929) as part of the Man and Machine program on Nov. 11 will feature a live performance inspired by its original score, by Futurist composer Luigi Russolo, on a reconstructed intonarumori, or Futurist noise machine.
Other Programs in “The Polyexpressive Symphony: Futurism on Film”
Nov 3 & 9 at 7 PM: The Futurist Canon (with live accompaniment by composer/pianist Pete Drungle, an introduction by Columbia University art historian and film scholar Noam Elcott Nov 3, and introduction by scholar of Italian avant-garde movements John Picchione Nov 9)
Nov 4 & 11 at 7 PM: Man and Machine (with live accompaniment by composer/pianist Pete Drungle and live performance by Luciano Chessa Nov 11)
Nov 4 & 11 at 8:30 PM: Trains, Trains, Trains (with introduction by SVA Theater Director Gene Stavis Nov 4)
