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Credits
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Summary
Two men approach a canon and fire it. Rifle-range dummies sway in the wind.
A dancing ballerina turns into a strange bearded man. Two men
on a roof-top terrace
play a game of chess. A funeral procession, moving in slow motion, follows a coffin
pulled by a camel. What can it all mean...?
Review
This extraordinary early film from director René Clair was originally made to fill
an interval between two acts of Francis Picabia’s new ballet, Relâche,
at the Théâtre des Champs- Elysées in Paris in 1924. Picabia
famously wrote a synopsis for the film on one sheet of note paper, headed Maxim’s
(the famous Parisian restaurant), which he sent to René Clair. This formed
the basis for what ultimately appeared on screen, with some additional improvisations.
Music for the film was composed by the famous avant-garde composer Erik Satie, who appears
in the film, along side its originator, Francis Picabia. The surrealist photographer
Man Ray also puts in an appearance, in a film which curiously resembles his own experimental
films of this era.
Entr'acte is a surrealistic concoction of unrelated images, reflecting Clair’s interest in Dada, a fashionable radical approach to visual art which relied on experimentation and surreal expressionism. Clair’s imagery is both captivating and disturbing, giving life to inanimate objects (most notably the rifle range dummies), whilst attacking conventions, even the sobriety of a funeral march.
When the first performance
of Relâche was cancelled because of the ill-health of one of is stars, the
public were outraged. There was a belief that Picabia had staged the ultimate
Dada stunt - the title of the show means "respite" in French. The controversy
was laid to rest when the show opened, a few days later than planned. For its part,
Clair's Entr'acte won widespread praise, although the response from the paying
public was divided.
© James Travers 2000 Write a review for this film... |
 
 
 
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