Cinema pur
Encyclopedia
Cinéma Pur was an avant-garde
film movement birthed in Paris in the 1920s and 30s. The term was first coined by Henri Chomette to define a cinema that focused on the pure elements of film like form, light, motion, visual composition, and rhythm, something he accomplished in his shorts Reflets de lumiere et de vitesse (1925) and Cinq minutes de cinema pur (1926). The movement included many Dada
artists, such as Man Ray
(Emak-Bakia
, Return to Reason), René Clair
(Entr'acte
), Fernand Léger
(Ballet Mécanique
), Marc Allegret
, Jean Gremillon
, Dudley Murphy
, and Marcel Duchamp
(Anemic Cinema
).
The movement also encompasses the work of the feminist critic/filmmaker Germaine Dulac
, particularly Thème et variations
, Disque 957, and Cinegraphic Study of an Arabesque. In these as well as in her theoretical writing, Dulac's goal was "pure" cinema, free from any influence from literature, the stage, or even the other visual arts.
These artists formed clubs and typically exhibited their films at cafes, art houses, and soirees in Paris during this time period.
The Dadaists saw in film an opportunity to transcend "story", to ridicule "character," "setting," and "plot" as bourgeois conventions, to slaughter causality by using the innate dynamism of the film medium to overturn conventional Aristotelian notions of time and space.
Critics and artists used terms such as Absolute Film, Pure Cinema, and Integral Cinema -- Dulac's term which might better be translated "Self -Sufficient" or "Complete" cinema -- to stress that these works, all of them, functioned only as cinema art: that they could not exist in any other medium because their essential effect arose from the unique potentials of the cinematic mechanism, such as flexible montage of time and space, measured pacing and control of gaze, exact repetition, single-frame diversity and continuity, superimposition and its related split-screen imagery.
Pure Cinema was influenced by such German "absolute" filmmakers as Hans Richter
, Walter Ruttmann
, and the Swede Viking Eggeling
.
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
film movement birthed in Paris in the 1920s and 30s. The term was first coined by Henri Chomette to define a cinema that focused on the pure elements of film like form, light, motion, visual composition, and rhythm, something he accomplished in his shorts Reflets de lumiere et de vitesse (1925) and Cinq minutes de cinema pur (1926). The movement included many Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
artists, such as Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
(Emak-Bakia
Emak-Bakia
Emak-Bakia is a 1926 film directed by Man Ray. Subtitled as a cinépoéme, it features many filming techniques used by Man Ray, including Rayographs, double exposures, soft focus and ambiguous features.-Synopsis:...
, Return to Reason), René Clair
René Clair
René Clair born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker.-Biography:He was born in Paris and grew up in the Les Halles quarter. He attended the Lycée Montaigne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver. After the war, he started a career as a journalist...
(Entr'acte
Entr'acte (film)
Entr'acte is a 1924 French short film directed by René Clair, which premiered as an entr'acte for the Ballets Suédois production Relâche at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Relâche is based on a book and with settings by Francis Picabia, produced by Rolf de Maré, and with choreography by...
), Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
(Ballet Mécanique
Ballet mécanique
Ballet Mécanique was a project by the American composer George Antheil and the filmmaker/artists Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy. Although the film was intended to use Antheil's score as a soundtrack, the two parts were not brought together until the 1990s. As a composition, Ballet Mécanique is...
), Marc Allegret
Marc Allégret
Marc Allégret was a French screenwriter and film director.Born in Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland, he was the elder brother of Yves Allégret. Marc was educated to be a lawyer. Allégret became André Gide's lover when he was fifteen and Gide was forty-seven...
, Jean Gremillon
Jean Grémillon
Jean Grémillon was a French film director. After directing a number of documentaries during the 1920s, many now lost, he had his first substantial success with the dramatic feature Maldone in 1928...
, Dudley Murphy
Dudley Murphy
Dudley Murphy was an American film director. Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in Winchester, Massachusetts...
, and Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
(Anemic Cinema
Anemic Cinema
Anemic Cinema or Anémic Cinéma is a Dadaist, surrealist, or experimental film made by Marcel Duchamp. The film depicts whirling animated drawings -- which Duchamp called Rotoreliefs -- alternated with puns in French. Duchamp signed the film with his alter ego name of Rrose Sélavy.Rotoreliefs were...
).
The movement also encompasses the work of the feminist critic/filmmaker Germaine Dulac
Germaine Dulac
Germaine Dulac was a French filmmaker, film theorist, journalist and critic. She was born in Amiens and moved to Paris in early childhood. A few years after her marriage she embarked on a journalistic career in a feminist magazine, and later became interested in film...
, particularly Thème et variations
Thème et variations
Thème et variations is a composition by Olivier Messiaen for solo violin and piano, and lasts around ten minutes. It is considered as equally characteristic as his Quatuor pour la fin du temps and is as immediately accessible as that work...
, Disque 957, and Cinegraphic Study of an Arabesque. In these as well as in her theoretical writing, Dulac's goal was "pure" cinema, free from any influence from literature, the stage, or even the other visual arts.
These artists formed clubs and typically exhibited their films at cafes, art houses, and soirees in Paris during this time period.
The Dadaists saw in film an opportunity to transcend "story", to ridicule "character," "setting," and "plot" as bourgeois conventions, to slaughter causality by using the innate dynamism of the film medium to overturn conventional Aristotelian notions of time and space.
Critics and artists used terms such as Absolute Film, Pure Cinema, and Integral Cinema -- Dulac's term which might better be translated "Self -Sufficient" or "Complete" cinema -- to stress that these works, all of them, functioned only as cinema art: that they could not exist in any other medium because their essential effect arose from the unique potentials of the cinematic mechanism, such as flexible montage of time and space, measured pacing and control of gaze, exact repetition, single-frame diversity and continuity, superimposition and its related split-screen imagery.
Pure Cinema was influenced by such German "absolute" filmmakers as Hans Richter
Hans Richter (artist)
Hans Richter was a painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer. He was born in Berlin into a well-to-do family and died in Minusio, near Locarno, Switzerland.-Germany:...
, Walter Ruttmann
Walter Ruttmann
Walter Ruttmann was a German film director and along with Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling was an early German practitioner of experimental film....
, and the Swede Viking Eggeling
Viking Eggeling
Viking Eggeling was a Swedish artist and filmmaker. His work is of significance in the area of experimental film, and has been described as absolute film and Visual Music....
.