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The Dream Factory: A Surrealist Art Film Series will continue Wednesday with Blood of a Poet (Cocteau, 1930-1932).
Sponsored by the art department, screenings in the series 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 for the Arts room 108. The screenings finish in time for students to make their 1 p.m. classes.
Blood of a Poet background by Lenin Imports: “The idea of a film had its germination during a house party given by Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles at Hyeres in 1929. Georges Auric, Cocteau’s lifelong musical collaborator, surprised his hosts by announcing that he wanted to compose the score for an animated cartoon. Cocteau was asked on the spot to provide a scenario. After some discussion, the Noailles agreed to give Cocteau a million francs to make a real film with a score by Auric. This became The Blood of a Poet, still one of the most widely viewed of all Cocteau’s screenworks. Cocteau described its disturbing series of voyeuristic tableaux as ‘a descent into oneself, a way of using the mechanism of the dream without sleeping, a crooked candle, often mysteriously blown out, carried about in the night of the human body.’”
The series concludes Nov. 19 with Rose Hobart (Cornell, 1936).
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 next screenings were Three Films of Man Ray (Ray, 1923-1929) on Sept. 24 and Le Coquille el le Clergyman (The Seashell and the Clergyman) (Dulac/Artaud, 1928) on Oct. 8, and L’Age d’Or (The Golden Age) (Buñuel, 1930).