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Concept
Ballet Mécanique
Summary
Ballet Mécanique (1923–24) is a Dadaist post-Cubist art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from Man Ray). It has a musical score by the American composer George Antheil. However, the film premiered in a silent version on 24 September 1924 at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International Exposition for New Theater Technique) in Vienna presented by Frederick Kiesler. It is considered one of the masterpieces of early experimental filmmaking.
In her book Dudley Murphy: Hollywood Wild Card, film historian Susan Delson argues that Murphy was the film's driving force but that Léger was more successful at promoting the film as his own creation. However, after fighting at the front in World War I and spending the year of 1917 in a hospital after being gassed there, Fernand Léger exclusively made the dazzling effects of mechanical technology the subject of his art, and it is clear that he conceived of the film himself.
Léger's experiences in World War I had a significant effect on all of his work. Mobilized in August 1914 for service in the French army, he spent two years at the front in Argonne. He produced many sketches of artillery pieces, airplanes, and fellow soldiers while in the trenches, and painted Soldier with a Pipe (1916) while on furlough. In September 1916, he almost died after a mustard gas attack by the German troops at Verdun. During a period of convalescence in Villepinte, he painted The Card Players (1917), a canvas whose robot-like, monstrous figures reflect the ambivalence of his experience of war. As he explained:... I was stunned by the sight of the breech of a 75 millimeter in the sunlight. It was the magic of light on the white metal. That's all it took for me to forget the abstract art of 1912–1913. The crudeness, variety, humor, and downright perfection of certain men around me, their precise sense of utilitarian reality and its application in the midst of the life-and-death drama we were in .
Official source
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