• Films d’avant-garde
Voici quelques films d’avant-garde, du cinéma expérimental des années 20-30 dont s’inspire, entre-autres, ma série de photos Variations sur un matin d’été. (Les commentaires accompagnant les vidéos proviennent des sources extérieures. Utilisez la fonction « plein écran » pour mieux apprécier les films.)
• Symphonie diagonale de Viking Eggeling (1924) [7’28 »]
source : Viking Eggeling – Symphonie Diagonale (1924) from Avant-Garde Cinema on Vimeo.
« Born in Sweden to a family of German origin, Viking Eggeling emigrated to Germany at the age of 17, where he became a bookkeeper, and studied art history as well as painting. From 1911 to 1915 he lived in Paris, then moved to Switzerland at the outbreak of World War I. In Zurich he became a associated with the Dada movement, became a friend of Hans Richter, Jean Arp, Tristan Tzara, and Marcel Janco. With the end of the Great War he moved to Germany with Richter where both explored the depiction of movement, first in scroll drawings and then on film. In 1922 Eggeling bought a motion picture camera, and working without Richter, sought to create a new kind of cinema. Axel Olson, a young Swedish painter, wrote to his parents in 1922 that Eggeling was working to “evolve a musical-cubistic style of film—completely divorced from the naturalistic style.” In 1923 he showed a now lost, 10 minute film based on an earlier scroll titled Horizontal-vertical Orchestra. In the summer of 1923 he began work on Symphonie Diagonale. Paper cut-outs and then tin foil figures were photographed a frame at a time. Completed in 1924, the film was shown for the first time (privately) on November 5. On May 3, 1925 it was presented to the public in Germany; sixteen days later Eggeling died in Berlin. » (Louise O’Konor, Viking Eggeling 1880–1925)
« While he was working on Symphonie Diagonale, Eggeling was evolving a theory based on his film experiments and his studies of form and colour. He called his theory Eidodynamik [visual dynamics]. Little is kown about it, but the fundamental principle was the projection of coloured lights against the sky to bear the elements of form. » (Jennifer Valcke, Static Films and Moving Pictures: Montage in Avant-Garde Photography and Film, p172)
• Rhytmus 21 de Hans Richter et Viking Eggeling (1921)[3″]
source : Hans Richter – Rhytmus-21 from Jean-Philippe on Vimeo.
Né en 1888, Hans Richter embrasse tout d’abord une carrière de peintre, travaillant exclusivement dans sa ville natale de Berlin. Marqué par les thèmes tourmentés de l’expressionnisme comme l’atteste sa série de « portraits visionnaires », un détour par le cubisme prouve que le jeune homme cherche encore sa voie artistique. Son arrivée à Zurich en 1916 la lui révèlera. Point de convergence de nombreux artistes fuyant une guerre devenue mondiale, la cité alémanique baigne alors dans une effervescence intellectuelle dans laquelle Hans Richter se retrouvera. Il y fait la rencontre de Viking Eggeling, peintre suédois qui l’initiera aux formes de l’abstraction, et adhère au mouvement Dada. L’esprit de révolte persifleur véhiculé par la pensée dadaïste, tout comme la contestation radicale de l’ordre social établi marqueront définitivement Richter. Il se lance alors dans une peinture principalement abstraite, fondée sur la décomposition du mouvement.
C’est en 1919 qu’il se rapproche de ses réelles aspirations en peignant son premier « rouleau » : suite de onze dessins développant un même thème sur un même support et véritable esquisse de son oeuvre cinématographique à venir.
« Après 1924, il n’y eut plus de Dada, mais les dadaïstes survécurent. Eggeling et moi, nous basant sur les impulsions de mouvements contenus dans ces rouleaux, nous commençâmes, en 1920, nos premiers essais de films abstraits. Eggeling devait finalement filmer son deuxième rouleau La symphonie diagonale et moi, mon Rythme 21. Bien qu’étant abstraits, ces deux films étaient très différents par l’esprit et la manière de poser le problème, puisque Eggeling partait de la ligne, alors que moi, je partais de la surface. Eggeling orchestrait et développait des formes, alors que je renonçais complètement à la forme pour essayer d’articuler le temps à des vitesses et des rythmes variés. »
• Rhytmus 23 de Hans Richter (1923)[3″22]
Hans Richter – Rhythmus 23 from Avant-Garde Cinema on Vimeo.
« Erna Niemeyer-Soupault also claims that she photographed Rhythmus 21 and Rhythmus 23 in 1925 and 1926, and that these films were based on visual designs that Eggeling had laid out. Contradicting hers are two other asserions. First, Werner Graeff (who certainly doesn’t hold Richter blameless in his treatment of collaborators) claims that he worked on Rhythmus 23 (which, when he met Richter, was called Fuge in Rot und Grun) and that it was completed in 1922. Second, Marion von Hofacker states (without giving the evidence) in her « Chronology » of Richter’s career (in Foster, Hans Richter) that Film ist Rhythmus was shown at the final Dada soiree, Soiree du coeur de barbe. Against Graeff’s claim is the fact that the publicity flyer for Novembergruppe’s Filmmatinee, for May 3, 1925, lists only one film by Richter, Film ist Rhythmus. Given Richter’s support for causes like those espoused by the Novembergruppe, it is hard to imagine that Rhythmus 23 would not have been shown it had been finished. And Hofacker’s misidentification of Film ist Rhythmus as Rhythmus 23 – actually, the test strip that Richter showed under the title Film ist Rhythmus is only part of the middle of Rhythmus 23 – weighs against the authority of her assertions. » (R. Bruce Elder, Harmony and Dissent: Film and Avant-Garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century, p.195)
• Jeu de lumière Noir-Blanc-Gris de László Moholy-Nagy (1930) [6’34 »]
source : Moholy-Nagy Laszlo 1930 Lightplay Black-White-Grey from Volodymyr Bilyk on Vimeo.