Book Description
"Kuenzli has done film studies a service by gathering some of the best minds in the fields reflecting on specific topics." -- Andrew Horton, Film Quarterly "A comprehensive, clear and factual presentation of the subject . . . very useful." -- Simonne Fischer, French Review This groundbreaking collection of thirteen original essays analyzes connections between film and two highly influential twentieth-century movements. The essays, which comment on specific films and deal with theoretical and topical questions, are framed by a documentary section that includes a photographic reproduction of the manuscript scenario for Robert Desnos's and Man Ray's L'Etoile de mer, and an introduction by the editor that provides a cogent working model for the difference between Dada and Surrealist perspectives. CONTENTS: Introduction, Rudolf E. Kuenzli Essays Dada/Cinema? · Thomas Elsaesser. Léger's Ballet mécanique · Judi Freeman. Anemic Vision in Duchamp: Cinema as Readymade · Dalia Judovitz. Exploring the Discursive Field of the Surrealist Scenario Text · Richard Abel. Benjamin Fondane's "Scenarii intournables," · Peter Christensen. Slit Screen · David Wills. Constellated Visions: Robert Desnos's and Man Ray's L'Etoile de mer · Inez Hedges. The Image and the Spark: Dulac and Artaud Reviewed · Sandy Flitterman-Lewis. Dali and Un Chien andalou: The Nature of a Collaboration · Haim Finkelstein. Un Chien andalou: The Talking Cure · Stuart Liebman. Between the Sign of the Scorpion and the Sign of the Cross: L'Âge d'or · Allen Weiss. Documentary Surrealism: On Land without Bread · Tom Conley. The Critical Grasp: Bunuelian Cinema and Its Critics · Linda Williams. Documents Robert Desnos's and Man Ray's Scenario for L'Etoile de mer Bibliography.
About the author
Rudolf E. Kuenzli is Director of the International Dada Archive and Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of Iowa.
