When I first time watched “Ballet Mecanique,” the film was strange because there was no clear clue for us to understand the purpose of the filmmaker.  It flashes different images so fast and the film seems that it didn’t have any pattern, but only about some random images. All images could not connect together and form a plot. However, when I watched second time, I found that the film seems to connect the people to machine. Everything in the film was happening again and again, such as the geometrical figures, the smile, and the woman walks on the stairs which is like machine. In my opinion, the design of film is unconventional because it just presents some random images and repeats images over and over so that it looks like so different from the regular film. In the regular film, it is impossible for a film to present something irrational and make images appear repeatedly without a plot. Also, I think may be the main purpose of the film to convey the idea of challenging the traditional film. Dadaism is against traditions, rules, and everything that people think is meaningful. Therefore, the film is related to Dadaism.

As for the second film “Un Chien Andalou,” the film makes more sense for me because it is more logical and has a plot. However, on the one hand, I feel the film seems more reasonable than the “Ballet Mecanique”; on the other hand, things happened in the film actually not reasonable and logic at all. Every character’s behavior looks strange and the plot is so complex that we can’t make connection. The film seems to focus on the man’s hand full with ants, and the body of women in order to convey some ideas. The plot that the man seems to fall into unconscious and imagination state when the man touched the woman’s body is so strange and interestion. Surrealism is based on Dadaism which is also against reason and logic, and emphasis unconscious mind. Therefore, the film presents a series of unconventional and irrational things which is connected to the idea of surrealist.

 

 

 

There’s no specific definition of Dadaism. Dada could be multiple things. The idea of Dadaists is that there’s not supposed to be standard, and they try to seek the true reality by going against the traditional culture and the traditional aesthetic form. This is similar to the main goal of Andre Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism, which tries to free people’s mind from the past and from everyday reality to arrive at truths that has never known.

The film “Ballet Mecanique” is a typical Dadaism work. Even though there are just 16 minutes, there are 300 plus shots, which consist of non-logic pictures or videos, such as a cap, white circle or triangle, and woman’s smile, etc. We could hardly to tell what the film is talking about, because it didn’t describe a logical story. However, we can conclude there are two main types of stuff shown in the film: objects and machines. Although there’s no logic in this film, it can clearly express its topic and goal. Through the motion of objects and machines, the director obscurely shows the relationship between human and the machine world through the artistic technique of Dadaism.

Another film is “Le Chien Andalou”, which is a surrealism film. It seems to have plots, but there’s no connection between each other. Also, the images in the film are weird. For example, a man wants to hug the woman, but the man is tied down by a string linked a pumpkin. Even though I can’t really get the meaning of the film, through the frantic images in the film, I can feel the sense of depress. And precisely because this is a silence film, the feeling of despair is much stronger.

Comparing the two films, we can see that non-logic and unreasonable are the features for both films. However, audience can actually feel what the director wants to say through the film.

Ballet Mecanique is a short black and white silent film without any main characters dialogue or clear clue of plots. The movements of the objects are dynamic and randomly cut. The screens are suddenly zoom in or out. Also, the shoots of figures are only part of the human body, for example, lip, eyes, or face. I could hardly tell or summarize this film by reasons that is beyond our ordinary film mode. The idea of this work could still be interpreted as a “breaking rules” casual creation, which could be understood by the Dadaist’s ideas. That is, to abolish the traditions, logic, rules, and structures. The director shares the impact of  Dadaist’s idea in his film making and shows his unique aesthetic way of understanding the art and world.

Un Chien Andalou is also a silent film sharing the ideas of surrealist, but this one no like Ballet Mecanique, has characters and plots going through. Still, I could not fully comprehend the meanings of each story that the director tries to express in this film. At the beginning, the man holds the shaver and steps into deep thought. I feel like he is going to hurt or kill himself or somebody and I wonder why it is a shaver not a knife. Later, he uses the shaver to hack the eye of a young woman with the interspersing scene of cloud blocking the noon. I guess this scene of night is just a metaphor of the female’s losing light. To be honest, I feel this part is sick and too real. The later appearance of the man wearing the housemaid like clothes, the man with ants crawling, and the dead monkeys shows the shock towards religion, sexuality, class, and traditions. Overall, the film expresses the conflicts between the old and new, and the cross between dream and reality.

 

Dadaist conveys a message of breaking the old or formal rules and structures. The film “Ballet Mecanique” demonstrates a similar idea. There is no specific structure or format in this film compared to what I normally watch nowadays. Objects appear randomly with no obvious or observable patterns, and therefore it is difficult to form any reasonable interpretation about the film based on my perceptions. I feel frustrated when I am not able to make proper judgment since there is an intangible force requiring them to give everything a meaning or definition. Surrealist idea of free writing also comes into play. Free writing tries to bring up a person’s deepest internal thinking which may have no meaning according to his or her daily normal understanding. In this case, the broken pieces in this film can be understood as the director’s real way of understanding the world.

Another film “Le Chien Andalous” is also related to Dadaist and Surrealist ideas. At the beginning of the film, it seems to have a storyline which is constructed by how the writer wants the story flows. Nevertheless, I realize that I can no longer use my logic to interpret the film because people and events appear with no specific meanings. Sometimes I think I get the message, and then in the next second it breaks my perspective as something new exists that does not connect to the previous objects or events. I have similar feeling when I watch “Ballet Mecanique.” Finally, I just let them go without trying to make judgment or interpretation because it is meaningless. If the object itself originally has no meaning, then why do people need to try hard to create a meaning to it?

After watching two films, I wonder how they were composed. They obviously seem to have no specific meanings. If the writers or directors tends to compose them in this way, there must be something drive them to take things in this random order, so are they really show their unconscious thinking to the audience?

 

 

Ballet Mecanique is a Dadaist film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger. My first impression when I finished watching this film was that I don’t know what is going on. When I applied rational thinking to relate this film with my understanding of the world, I could not interpret it. The logic falls apart!  The idea of “Dada” apply perfectly in this film which it might has one particular meaning or multiple meanings or no meaning at all. Films in general might represent particular message, emphasize something or use metaphors to depict our world. On the other hand, Dadaist films are completely absurd, contradictory and illogical. Dadaist tried to destroy the old tradition and future completely. They wanted to achieve the zero point which no real meaning applied (everything has no particular meaning). Just like child’s point of view on the world. Their actions are meaningless.

Un Chien Andalou is a surrealist film written and directed by Luis Buñuel. Surrealism is influenced by Dadaism, it rejected logic and reason. It combined dream (unreal) with reality. The film’s title Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) had no connections with film itself. I think automatic writing can be applied in this film. The author made this film with his unconscious mind. He created it without thinking about particular rules or concepts (Free writing). The film was abstract and absurd. Each Plot in the film had no meaning to me, but it did mean something (unconsciousness part of author’s creation). Ants were all over the man’s palm and it could go in and out of the body through the hold in the palm. Razor blade slicing through an eye. Dead donkeys were on the piano.  The man touched the woman’s breast. Same thing happen here, logic falls apart. No rational explanation.

Ballet Mecanique and Un Chien Andalou just like the bicycle picture showed in the class, it oppose to normal, tradition, and logic. But the bicycle itself does not have any meaning at all.

After watching “Ballet Mecanique” and “Le Chien Andalou” please write a 300 word response on the way in which one or both films visually represent the idea(s) discussed in class. You’ll want to focus on the Dadaist and Surrealist Manifestos.

In order to more understand about Expressionism, let look over what impressionism is first.Impressionism can be considered the first distinctly modern movement in painting. Developing in Paris in the 1860s. Impressionism is generally considered to be a spontaneous method of painting in which an artist attempts to capture the impression of light in a scene. The Impressionists broke from the traditional painting methods of their day and applied paint in small touches of pure color rather than mix the paint and apply it in broad strokes using a painting knife or a brush.

After then, the society changed a lot. The new movements,  especially the French Revolution changed people’s mind to think what freedom and society should be.  Inspired by these ideas and capture the Impressionism expression style, numerous writing and painting arts were created to express their inside emotions.

In that point (19^th century), as more and more significant activities occurred and enlighten in Europe, some artists began to use a typical skill to express their art pieces, which we called them expressionists later days. he Expressionist emphasis on individual perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism and other artistic styles such as Naturalism and Impressionism. The skill was used in the modern sense as early as 1850 and it traced to paintings exhibited in 1901 in Paris by artist Julien Auguste Herve.

After then, so many Germany philosophers stated to think and question the religious, one of the famous was Friedrich Nietzsche. In his so famous book” Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, the Zarathustra claimed that “God is dead” and its ours, killed god.

As influenced by such these irregular thoughts and criticizes, many and many artistes joined this movement of expressionism.   In 1905, a group of four German artists, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, formed Die Brücke(the Bridge) in the city of Dresden

In 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich.

Until 1913, the movement initially and most predominant in painting, poetry and the theatre,Thus, German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s.  In this movement most precursors of the movement were not German.There have been expressionist writers of prose fiction, as well as non-German speaking expressionist writers.

The movement effect on many artist areas, there were subsequent expressionist works.

1: Dance 2: Sculpture 3: Cinema 4: Literature 5: Music 6: Architecture 7: Visual Arts

The most recognized one were visual and literature. In literature, expressionism is often considered a revolt against realism and naturalism and seeking to achieve a psychological or spiritual reality rather than record external events in logical sequence. For instance, the in prose, the early stories and novels of Alfred Döblinwere influenced by Expressionism andFranz Kafka is sometimes labelled an Expressionist. There are some writers and works of Expressionist :

• Franz Kafka(1883–1924): “The Metamorphosis” (1915), The Trial(1925), The Castle (1926)
• Alfred Döblin(1857–1957): Berlin Alexanderplatz(1929)
• Wyndham Lewis(1882–1957)[
• Djuna Barnes(1892–1982): Nightwood(1936)
• Malcolm Lowry(1909–57): Under the Volcano(1947)
• Ernest Hemingway
• Patrick White(1912–90)

In visual art filed, Paris as a reaction to the more passive style of Impressionism.  The heart of the expressionism lies the idea that one conveys emotional experience over physical reality.

 

Expressionist visual artists list:

• Armenia: Martiros Saryan
• Australia: Sidney Nolan, Charles Blackman, John Perceval, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester
• France: Georges Rouault, Georges Gimel, Gen Paul, Bernard Buffet and Chaim Soutine
• Germany: Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Fritz Bleyl, Heinrich Campendonk, Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Carl Hofer, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz,
• Italy: Emilio Giuseppe Dossena
• Mexico: Mathias Goeritz (German émigré to Mexico), Rufino Tamayo
• Netherlands: Charles Eyck, Willem Hofhuizen, Herman Kruyder, Jaap Min, Jan Sluyters, Vincent van Gogh, Jan Wiegers and Hendrik Werkman
• Norway: Edvard Munch, Kai Fjell
• Poland: Henryk Gotlib
• Portugal: Mário Eloy, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso
• Russia: Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Alexej von Jawlensky, Natalia Goncharova, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and Marianne von Werefkin
• South Africa: Maggie Laubser, Irma Stern
• Sweden: Axel Törneman
• Switzerland: Carl Eugen Keel, Cuno Amiet, Paul Klee
• Ukraine: Alexis Gritchenko (Ukraine-born, most active in France), Vadim Meller
• United Kingdom: Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Lucian Freud, Patrick Heron
• USA: Ivan Albright, Milton Avery, George Biddle, Hyman Bloom, Peter Blume, Charles Burchfield, David Burliuk, Stuart Davis, Lyonel Feininger, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Beauford Delaney, Arthur G. Dove, Norris Embry, Philip Evergood, Kahlil 
• …

 

the story starts with the main character Gerog writing a letter to his good old friend from childhood.

while they both are businessman running a small business, Gerog was much more successful than the friend, since, the friend is a completely wild card.  A man who still act like a child and doesn’t seem to carry responsibility for himself, instead, he is treating his own life very casually and decides to be a  bachelor for good. he is the definition of “reckless” who simply doesn’t care about other’s opinions and does whatever he wants whenever he feels like it.  On the other hand, Gerog seems to have a much more humble personality of his own. the mature, grown-up man who follows the rule of his family and respects others.

continue on the story,  Gerog ‘s fiance Frieda find out this special friend of Gerog and wonder if he comes to their wedding.  Gerog responses that the friend may not want to come as his current life wasn’t so great, and fully understand his friend situation but Frieda disagrees with Gerog’s decision and recognizes that the friend is causing arguments between them. As Gerog has a very close relationship with the friend, the idea of bachelorhood,  a man being single start threatening Frida. it is a critical moment when Gerog reply “That is how I am, and that is how he must take me” he is referring the friend as himself. He doesn’t want to obey from others and desires to live with his own decisions, he especially after his mother passing away leaving him for the family business.