Cinéma Absolu Avant-Garde 1920-1930
Listed in the book by Patrick de Haas (Ed. Mettray, 2018)
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- DirectorAnton Giulio BragagliaStarsAugusto BandiniAlberto CasanovaThaïs GalitzkyA silent film about a women who seduces a married man which in turn leads to deadly consequences.
- DirectorMarcel DuchampA spiral design spins dizzily. It's replaced by a spinning disk. These two continue in perfect alternation until the end: a spiral design, a disk. Each disk is labelled and can be read as it rotates. The messages, in French, feature puns and whimsical rhymes and alliteration. The final message comments on the spiral motif itself.
- DirectorFernand LégerDudley MurphyStarsKiki of MontparnasseFernand LégerDudley MurphyA pulsing, kaleidoscope of images set to an energetic soundtrack. A young women swings in a garden; a woman's face smiles. The rest is spinning cylinders, pistons, gears and turbines, kitchen objects in concentric circles or rows - pots, pan lids, and funnels, cars passing overhead, a spinning carnival ride. Over and over, a heavy-set woman climbs stairs carrying a large bag on her shoulder. An Art Deco cartoon figure appears, dancing. This is a world in motion, dominated by mechanical and repetitive images, with a few moments of solitude in a garden.
- DirectorViking EggelingA tilted figure, consisting largely of right angles at the beginning, grows by accretion, with the addition of short straight lines and curves which sprout from the existing design. The figure vanishes and the process begins again with a new pattern, each cycle lasting one or two seconds. The complete figures are drawn in a vaguely Art Deco style and could be said to resemble any number of things, an ear, a harp, panpipes, a grand piano with trombones, and so on, only highly stylized. The tone is playful and hypnotic.
- DirectorHans RichterBlack and white rectangular images fade in and out of the screen. Their movement make them sometimes look like they're panning from side to side. Their movement also make the black and white individually change from foreground to background and visa versa.
- DirectorHans RichterRhythm 23 (Rhythmus 23, 1923) is an extension of the same film but with more angles and overlays added, and adding lines rather than adhering to the squares of the original. It looks so similar that the academic argument that both "21" and "23" were made in 1923 looks rather likely. Richter himself at some exhibitions showed these two together as a single film called Un film de Hans Richter. The hand-colored Rhythm 25 (Rhythmus 25, 1925) was the final "chapter," but it does not survive."
- DirectorHans RichterStarsStella F. SimonEntertaining Dadaist experimental short, similar to Man Ray's work, full of shifting geometric shapes, stock footage of seagulls, flying eyeballs, and glaring floating heads.
- DirectorHans RichterInflation explores the subject of money through photographs and with with stop motion animation techniques, adding faces of people impoverished and enriched by the unpredictability of finance.
- DirectorHans RichterStarsWerner GraeffWalter GronostayPaul HindemithHans Richter, noted for his abstract shorts, has everyday objects rebelling against their daily routine.
- DirectorHans Richter
- DirectorHans RichterAn abstract short film from Hans Richter in which a series of unrelated images are edited together.
- DirectorHans RichterA short film which consists of a collage of images at a Berlin street carnival.
- DirectorHans RichterStarsIvan ChuvelyovMaksim Shtraukh
- DirectorLászló Moholy-Nagy
- DirectorLászló Moholy-Nagy
- DirectorLászló Moholy-NagyA portrait of France's largest and most populous port cities, Marseille.
- DirectorWalter RuttmannStarsPaul von HindenburgThis movie shows us one day in Berlin, the rhythm of that time, starting at the earliest morning and ends in the deepest night.
- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorAlberto CavalcantiStarsBlanche BernisNina ChousvalowaPhilippe HériatThe life of a great city (Paris) from dawn until dusk, including the beautiful and the ragged, the rich and the poor, with little or no comment (intertitles) from the director, Cavalcanti (whose first film this was).
- DirectorMan RayStarsKiki of MontparnasseJacques RigautA long series of unrelated images, revolving, often distorted: lights, flowers, nails. A lightboard appears from time to time carrying the news of the day. Then, an eye. A woman in a car drives along country roads. Farm animals. She descends from the car, again and again. Images: dancing legs, seashore, swimming fish, geometric shapes, cut glass. A man removes his starched collar. It rotates. A girl has garishly painted eyes. No, she's only fooling. Those were her eyelids.
- DirectorHenri ChometteAn experimental avant-garde film from director Henri Chomette in which the pure elements of form are emphasized.
- DirectorGussy Lauwson
- DirectorOswell BlakestonFrancis BruguièreLight plays over the surfaces of paper cut-outs, abstract shapes with curved lines. The movement of the light (which are small spots) speeds up, following the rhythms of the piano accompaniment. A small spot opens and closes; Shadows sometimes dominate. The lights, movement, and music take on a mechanical mood. Then, the opening images return.
- DirectorRalph SteinerA study on water, the reflections and motions of the liquid that accentuates its ethereality and metallic beauty.
- DirectorRalph SteinerShoreline images: first small breakers and the swirls they leave, then water running up the shore on a sandy beech, then water hitting pebbles and rocks. The second half is a close look at a sluggish eddy of seaweed, moving to and fro on the surface, like sodden twigs. The ocean's tide creates patterns of small surges and circles. The music of the soundtrack is more dramatic than the more gentle movements of the seaweed. Final closeups show the bulbs and leaves of the plants, then the tide takes over.
- DirectorAlbrecht Viktor Blum
- DirectorMannus FrankenJoris IvensRegen is an experimental documentary film directed by Joris Ivens in 1929. It can be defined as a cinematic-poem. In 2021 Breve Storia Del Cinema restored the film with a new score composed by Nikolas Labrinakos.
- DirectorHenri StorckBelgian director Henri Storck presents a tribute to one of the most well-known spots in Belgium: the Ostende beach. Filming from everyone and everything, gathering a small collection of eight short films made in the 1920's, Storck invites the audience to feel the beach, the port, the surf, the wind and the dunes, giving us more than what the real images can really evoke, reaching a surreal level.
- DirectorGermaine DulacStarsMarie-Anne MallevilleVisual structure composed of variations on the arabesque: arcs of light, water spouts, spider webs, burgeoning trees, flowers and foliage, a woman's smile, arms stretching, an arm giving rhythm to a rocking chair.
- DirectorHenwar RodakiewiczWithout sound, in three movements. Title cards declare that what a person likes and his manner of liking them reveals character. There are long looks at forms and rhythms. The film begins and ends with the sea: the tide coming in, small breakers running up on a beach. In the first movement, rocks appear, light and dark play on water. From time to time, machines turn. The light makes dappled patterns. In the second movement, a leafy tree branch gives way to water then shots of the sky and clouds. The third movement returns to the shore, with long takes looking out far, past the beach to outcroppings under the horizon. Small breakers interrupt the patterns of light on water.
- DirectorManoel de OliveiraA documentary that looks at the people working in the river Douro, around the city of Porto.
- DirectorDimitri KirsanoffStarsNadia SibirskaïaA woman--a pained expression on her face--burns letters in a stove.
- DirectorCharles DekeukeleireStarsYvonne Selma
- DirectorEugene DeslawA short film by Eugene Deslav in which various industrial machines are filmed in action creating a marching feel.
- DirectorGermaine DulacStarsLilian ConstantiniAn avant-garde dance short, integrating slow motion, and cutting between the movements of a ballerina, close-ups of machinery and images of nature.
- DirectorAbel GanceStarsGabriel de GravonePierre MagnierGeorges TérofA railway engineer adopts a young girl orphaned by a train crash. Years later when she starts getting suitors, he grapples with whether or not to tell her the truth about her parentage.
- DirectorLupu PickStarsWerner KraussEdith PoscaHermine Straßmann-WittSet during the winter, the story tells the tale of a track checker and his family who live a poverty-stricken life next to a railway line. They receive a telegram announcing the arrival of the section inspector, who is to live with the family.
- DirectorLupu PickStarsEugen KlöpferEdith PoscaFrida RichardThe film is set in a bar on New Year's Eve. We see plenty of Germans swilling beer non-stop and the owner of the bar and his wife await the arrival of his mother for a little celebration together.
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsEmil JanningsMaly DelschaftMax HillerAn aging doorman is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbors and society after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel.
- DirectorDimitri KirsanoffStarsDimitri KirsanoffNadia Sibirskaïa
- DirectorDimitri KirsanoffStarsNadia SibirskaïaYolande BeaulieuGuy BelmontA couple is brutally murdered in the working-class district of Paris. Later on, the narrative follows the lives of their two daughters, both in love with a Parisian thug and leading them to separate ways.
- DirectorAdrian BrunelStarsAdrian BrunelT.L. RichVivian Van DammA spoof travelogue of an expedition by three explorers, confusing London and New York with Papua, sending up film effects, censorship and a profusion of other cinema-related targets.
- DirectorNoël RenardStarsJosette PerdriatRobert MérinHuguette Dore
- DirectorDziga VertovHow the miners of the Don coal basin (one of the industrial regions of Ukraine) were striving to fulfill in four years their part of the Five Year Plan.
- DirectorHenri ChometteA black and white short film which documents a trip through Paris by train.
- DirectorMarcel L'HerbierStarsJaque CatelainLéonid Walter de MaltePhilippe HériatClaire Lescot is a famous first lady. All men want to be loved by her and among them is the young scientist Einar Norsen. When she mocks at him, he leaves her house with the declared intention to kill himself.
- DirectorLászló Moholy-NagyThe daily lives of Roma in their winter quarters on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany.
- DirectorYakov ProtazanovStarsYuliya SolntsevaIgor IlyinskyNikolai TsereteliEngineer Mstislav Sergeyevich Los travels to Mars where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group of Elders with the support of Queen Aelita who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.