Surrealist Experimental hallucinatory: short films of the 1920’s w/ live score
The Surrealist artistic movement was born in the aftermath of World War I, as shell-shocked nations strove to rebuild and artists began to explore the unconscious mind, seeking to synthesize an expression of the illogical world of dreams with the cold reality they found themselves in. Most Surrealists considered themselves philosophers first, expressing their worldview in their artistic pieces, which were secondary to their exploration of Surrealist ideas. A revolutionary movement, Surrealism sought to challenge the traditional function of art to represent reality by using irrational, absurd, and psychological imagery.
Surrealism was the first artistic movement to become seriously associated with cinema, as the Surrealists were, in large part, the first generation of artists to have grown up with motion pictures as a part of daily life. The Surrealists saw in film a medium that eliminated reality's boundaries and allowed a pure expression of Surrealist aesthetic ideas. Beginning in France and dominated by Parisian Surrealists, the movement grew throughout the Western world and merged with the aesthetic popularity of the Expressionist movement in Germany, which sought to portray the internal psychology of its subjects as an external expression of their surrounding world.
The independent art film community of the 1920s embraced Surrealism, producing a number of incredible titles ranging from abstract animation to portraits of city life and films that defied narrative even as they engaged with it. These short films proved highly influential on generations of filmmakers, even in commercial Hollywood, where filmmakers like Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock collaborated with Salvador Dalí. Surrealist ideas continue to inform cinematic language through the films of David Lynch and other modern masters.
The Calgary Cinematheque is excited to present a curated selection of these classic shorts, accompanied by live music.
Art by Dylan Nickolet.
Shorts Line Up
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)
Directed by James Sibley Watson
13 mins
James Sibley Watson, heir to the Western Union telegraph fortune, was also a radiologist, inventor, and patron of the Modernist literary movement. His wife, singer and art collector Hildegaard Lasell, joined him and their friend Melville Webber in producing an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1839 short story based on a unique premise: While all three of them had read the story and were familiar with it, none had re-read it in years. They agreed to impart a dreamlike, Expressionist flavor to the film by basing it entirely on their hazy recollection of the story rather than consulting the source material. The resulting avant-garde short uses prisms, superimpositions, and Expressionist art design to create a delirious interpretation of Poe that stands in stark contrast to Jean Epstein's French Impressionist feature film adaptation that same year.
Rhythmus 21 (1921)
Directed by Hans Richter
3 Min
Hans Richter was one of the most prominent figures in early 20th-century German avant-garde art movements, particularly associated with Dadaism — an anti-establishment art movement that critiqued "rational" capitalist society through intentionally nonsensical art. Rhythmus 21 is an abstract animated film and a key work of the "absolute cinema" movement, which focused on creating images through spaces of light and dark without referencing stories or representations of reality. It is the first in Richter's Film is Rhythm series and remains an influential piece of abstract animation to this day.
The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1928)
Directed by Robert Florey
11 Min
A landmark of American avant-garde film, Life and Death of 9413 tells the story of a man who comes to Hollywood with dreams of becoming a star, only to be reduced to the dehumanized role of Extra #9413. The film is a collaboration between Robert Florey, the primary artistic voice of the project, and Slavko Vorkapich, a Serbian film artist whose theories on editing and cinematography were highly influential in developing the concept of the "montage sequence."
The story was inspired by Florey's own experience in Hollywood, as well as the rhythms of George Gershwin's music. The film was shot by Gregg Toland, who later gained fame as the cinematographer of Citizen Kane, and was financed entirely by Florey for just $97. He used gear and facilities loaned to him by Douglas Fairbanks, for whom he worked as a PR agent.
While avant-garde films in America were not typically widely screened, Life and Death of 9413 caught the attention and admiration of Charlie Chaplin, leading to its distribution by the company that would later become RKO. Despite Florey's concerns about being blacklisted in Hollywood due to the film's critical perspective, it received widespread acclaim and paved the way for successful Hollywood careers for its creative team.
Symphonie diagonale (1923)
Directed by Viking Eggeling
7 Min
Swedish Dadaist Viking Eggeling created this Art Deco "absolute" film using paper cut-outs and tinfoil, drawing significant influence from the work of Hans Richter. Eggeling shot Symphonie diagonale three times before achieving a result he was satisfied with. Although it is now considered one of the seminal works in the history of abstract cinema, Eggeling tragically died of blood poisoning just sixteen days after its public premiere.
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
Directed by Maya Deren
14 Min
The only film on our program dating from after the 1920s — and the only one by a female filmmaker — Meshes of the Afternoon is the product of the married team of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. Both were Eastern European artists who immigrated to the United States to escape persecution. Deren was a highly intelligent and well-read social activist with multiple degrees who explored her art through writing, photography, and dance. Hammid, a photographer and documentarian, taught Deren photographic principles.
Together, they conceived Meshes as an avant-garde psychological film, designed to explore the internal mind of its lead character and express it through externalized dramatization on film. Echoing Deren's own life and experiences, it showcases how the subconscious mind interprets external events.
While the exact contributions of Deren and Hammid to the finished film remain a subject of debate, it is generally accurate to say that Deren conceived the film's poetic and artistic intent, while Hammid helped her realize her vision on screen. As a product of the 1940s, Meshes reaches back to the Surrealist films of the 1920s, carrying their ideas into the post-war era and influencing the Surrealist filmmakers of the later 20th century, particularly David Lynch.
Un Chien Andalou (1929)
Directed by Luis Bunuel
21 Min
A collaboration between Luis Buñuel — considered by some to be one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century — and Salvador Dalí, almost certainly the most famous artist to emerge from the entire Surrealist movement, Un Chien Andalou is undoubtedly the most acclaimed and well-known entry in our program. A collection of images edited together in a Freudian "free association" style, the film has no plot beyond what a viewer might construct in their own mind through interpretation of the various interposed images.
Based on dreams that Buñuel and Dalí had, the primary rule in creating the film was to reject any image or idea that could lend itself to rational explanation. The title comes from a Spanish idiom in which the barking of an Andalusian dog is seen as a premonition of death. Ultimately, however, the film is less about death and more about thumbing its nose at the bourgeois intelligentsia of Europe — who, much to Buñuel's shock and Dalí’s disappointment, embraced the picture. Instead of rioting in the streets as the filmmakers had hoped, audiences praised Un Chien Andalou, leading to the production of the duo’s more ambitious follow-up, L'Age d'Or.
To this day, Un Chien Andalou remains one of the most widely known Surrealist films, influencing generations of filmmakers.
Return to Reason (1923)
Directed by Man Ray
3 Min
Our program concludes with the ironically titled Return to Reason, an abstract film by one of the most renowned Surrealists of the time, American photographer Man Ray. Ray cultivated a purposeful mystique about himself, which heightened the celebrity of his works. He also pioneered a technique called "rayographs," creating photographs without a camera by placing objects directly on photosensitive paper.
While living in Paris, Ray produced numerous avant-garde films, and Return to Reason serves as a concise summation of his style. The film begins with abstract patterns of light and dark, transitions to animated rayographs and Dadaist images of objects, and concludes with a nude shot of Ray's lover, the famous model Kiki de Montparnasse. This final image represents the "reason" to which the film symbolically returns.
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