Surrealist cinema
The Surrealist movement used shocking, irrational, or absurd imagery and Freudian dream symbolism to challenge the traditional function of art to represent reality.Philippe Soupault and André Breton’s 1920 book collaboration Les Champs magnétiques[1] is often considered to be the first Surrealist work,[2] but it was only once Breton had completed his Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 that ‘Surrealism drafted itself an official birth certificate.’[3] Surrealist films of the twenties include René Clair's Entr'acte (1924), Fernand Léger's Ballet Mécanique (1924), Jean Renoir's La Fille de l'Eau (1924), Marcel Duchamp's Anemic Cinema (1926), Jean Epstein's Fall of the House of Usher (1928) (with Luis Buñuel assisting), Watson and Webber's Fall of the House of Usher (1928)[4] and Germaine Dulac's The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) (from a screenplay by Antonin Artaud).They seek something – a theme, a particular type of imagery, certain concepts – they can identify as 'surrealist' in order to provide a criterion of judgement by which a film or artwork can be appraised.[10] However, shortlived though its popularity was, it became known for its dream-like quality, juxtaposition of everyday people and objects in irrational forms, and the abstraction of real life, places, and things."Balanced between symbolism and realism, surrealist cinema commentated on themes of life, death, modernity, politics, religion, and art itself.[9] Breton himself, even before the launching of the movement, possessed an avid interest in film: while serving in the First World War, he was stationed in Nantes and, during his spare time, would frequent the movie houses with a superior named Jacques Vaché.[10][14] "Surrealist artists realized that the film camera could capture the real world in a dreamlike way that their pens and paintbrushes could not: superimpositions, overexposures, fast-motion, slow-motion, reverse-motion, stop-motion, lens flares, large depth of field, shallow depth of field, and more bizarre camera tricks could transform the original image in front of the lens into something new once exposed on the film plate."[8] His analogy helps to explain the advantage of cinema over books in facilitating the kind of release Surrealists sought from their daily pressures.[16] Maya Deren made numerous silent short films, among them the renowned Meshes of the Afternoon replete with surreal, dreamlike scenes and encounters.[17][circular reference] Jan Švankmajer, a member of the still-active Czech Surrealist Group, continues to direct films.