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The Dream Factory: A Surrealist Art Film Series continues today with Le Coquille el le Clergyman (The Seashell and the Clergyman) (Dulac/Artaud, 1928).
Sponsored by the art department, the screenings are introduced by Alastair Noble, assistant professor of art. Films are shown noon-1 p.m. every other Wednesday through Nov. 19 in Williams Center room 108 for the Arts. The screenings finish in time for students to make their 1 p.m. classes.
Germaine Dulac (1882–1942) is credited as the first Surrealist filmmaker and first female French filmmaker. She worked on at least 20 films. The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) featured Antonin Artaud’s (1896–1948) writing and Dulac’s direction – as well as open disagreement between the two over everything from production to marketing, notes Art and Culture Network. “The film marked Dulac’s most complete foray into Surrealism, setting the visually immersive effects of Impressionism within a disjointed structure. In one scene, for example, a police officer dressed in infant’s clothing appears to split in two.”
“Dulac flourished in the silent film era, and was silenced by the ‘talkies.’ With the advent of sound, she was unable to continue financing her films independently,” states Art and Culture. “But instead of selling out to commercial filmmaking, she chose to disseminate information and encourage interest in films via numerous cinema clubs. Later she moved into newsreel production.”
Artaud was a French actor, director, poet, and theorist. In his collected essays, Theater and its Double (1938), he posited a “theater of cruelty,” with theater as a catalyst to free the unconscious and force humanity to view itself in all its primitive nature. He went on to spend nine years in mental asylums, and died just two years after his release.
The rest of the series:
The Dream Factory debuted Sept. 10 with screenings of Un Chien Andalou (The Andalousian Dog) (Buñuel/Dali, 1928) and Land Without Bread (Buñuel, 1932). The Sept. 24 film screening featured Three Films of Man Ray (Ray, 1923-1929).