Since the beginning of the invention of cinema, Europe was a good place for the most innovative filmmakers to do their work, crazed youngsters who weren't satisfied with conventional film narratives, so they needed to try new and avant-garde film experiments full of images too bizarre and incomprehensible for a conservative German count. Many times these films were influenced or had connections with other Arts, as is the case with "Ballet Mécanique" (1924), a milestone in avant-garde silent film which is influenced by cubism and directed by a painter, Herr Fernand Léger.
The film is an unconventional and unique film experience, a kind of an essay about movement, in which whirling, dazzling galleries of machines images ( pistons, gears ) and deconstructing humans ( female cubist portraits, syncopated images of different persons ) are intertwined , composing together a bizarre, surreal symphony of motion, an extravagant and experimental kaleidoscope. Such avant-garde madness wasn't exclusive to Europe because Herr Léger had the help of two Amerikan madmen, the technical assistance of Herr Dudley Murphy, director and producer and the founder of the New York Dada movement and Herr Man Ray photographer, painter and avant-garde filmmaker, who did the cinematography.
Obviously this German count is accustomed to watch classical and conventional ballets as for example Herr Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" full of elegant movements as "pas de deux", "plié", "sautés" so the first time that this Herr Graf watched Herr Léger's "Ballet Mécanique" with its organized and meaningless symphonic chaos, the soirée at the Schloss theatre was left in a state of absolute shock. Fortunately many years have passed since then and this Herr Von had the chance to know and watch more bizarre avant-garde silent films, varied and unclassifiable oeuvres that belonged to strange and different cultural movements of the last century so the second time that "Ballet Mécanique" was shown in the Schloss theatre and with such background information digested, this German count still couldn't understand the damn thing the same thing happened the third, the forth, the fifth time
And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must dance a"pas de deux" with the Schloss' boiler.
The film is an unconventional and unique film experience, a kind of an essay about movement, in which whirling, dazzling galleries of machines images ( pistons, gears ) and deconstructing humans ( female cubist portraits, syncopated images of different persons ) are intertwined , composing together a bizarre, surreal symphony of motion, an extravagant and experimental kaleidoscope. Such avant-garde madness wasn't exclusive to Europe because Herr Léger had the help of two Amerikan madmen, the technical assistance of Herr Dudley Murphy, director and producer and the founder of the New York Dada movement and Herr Man Ray photographer, painter and avant-garde filmmaker, who did the cinematography.
Obviously this German count is accustomed to watch classical and conventional ballets as for example Herr Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" full of elegant movements as "pas de deux", "plié", "sautés" so the first time that this Herr Graf watched Herr Léger's "Ballet Mécanique" with its organized and meaningless symphonic chaos, the soirée at the Schloss theatre was left in a state of absolute shock. Fortunately many years have passed since then and this Herr Von had the chance to know and watch more bizarre avant-garde silent films, varied and unclassifiable oeuvres that belonged to strange and different cultural movements of the last century so the second time that "Ballet Mécanique" was shown in the Schloss theatre and with such background information digested, this German count still couldn't understand the damn thing the same thing happened the third, the forth, the fifth time
And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must dance a"pas de deux" with the Schloss' boiler.