(sorry, it's in two parts)
The only thing that I really wasn't a fan of was (sadly) the music. It was so random and chaotic, which I guess is kind of the point, but it was also seemed frantic with a sense of gloom and doom. George Antheil's score includes not only the crazy piano but also airplane propellers and electric buzzers. In my opinion, the buzzers really fit the whole mechanical feel of the movie. Even before I knew that they were buzzers the sound distinctly reminded me of a power saw or some other piece of construction equipment. I thought that buzzers really added to the menacing feel of the music. It was well thought out, but I'm just not a fan.
One thing that I really thought was cool was that before he made Ballet mecanique, Fernand Leger was a cubist painter. And thankfully for me, it was Cubism (not surrealism) that influenced his filming. Something that I really found interesting was this painting by Leger created in 1918 titled Le mecanicien.
Doesn't this 'guy' in the painting kind of remind you of the figure featured at the beginning and the end of his film?! I thought that that was pretty interesting! Leger definitely had a mechanical theme in his work. The only question I am left with is whether or not Leger intended for there to be meaning found in his work. The book goes into depth about what his meaning must have been (the new methodical, impersonal world) but did he intend meaning to be found in his film and paintings? Or are we not supposed to think about it's possible implications as the surrealist filmmakers requested?
Okay so this is where they have totally lost me when it comes to describing art. To me it is just like Mr. Decker said "some guy having fun with a camera." It just doesn't make sense to me on how anyone could find this fascinating or worth looking at. Yes, I agree that for the first few minutes it could be considered bizarre or interesting if you dare, but after we see the lady unsmile for the third time, the novelty quickly wears. The one place I do agree with you is the music. It creates a very strange feeling between tense and annoyed and possibly takes away from the video as a whole. Heck, who knows maybe I'm the one going insane and this is a work of art.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with the above comment on this. I didn’t like “Ballet mecanique” at all. It seems somewhat interesting at the beginning, and then you realize that it’s just a bunch of not-so-interesting images shown over and over again. For me, the only thing that kept my attention during this film was the music. It gave it an overall creepy feel, like there was actually a meaning to the whole thing. It was unique and not like anything I had ever heard before. If it wasn’t for the music, I would have shut the film off after a few minutes. I didn’t like the movie as a whole, but the music definitely seemed to fit with the images shown, because both the images and the music were very mechanical. I prefer “Un Chien Andalou,” because it actually seemed to have more of a meaning than “Ballet mecanique,” even though its creators stressed the fact that it wasn’t supposed to have a meaning at all. And although “Un Chien Andalou” was completely random and very disquieting, at least it showed images that could keep the audience’s attention. I don’t know if Leger meant for this film to have any meaning, but if he did, it was not at all clear.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous comments above. In the film "Un Chien Andalou," I could at least get some grasp of what was going on. That film was interesting and wacky and altogether disgusting, but this film is so random and nonsensical that I just don't understand the point of what Leger was trying to do. Was he just fiddling around on his camera? I do not know. I do find it interesting that he would focus the camera so close to an object that you wouldn't be able to decipher what it is. But overall, the movie bored me. After the first few minutes of seeing a woman smile her creepy smile over and over and over again and watching a woman climb the stairs repetitively as well, it got old.
ReplyDeleteI loved this! The complete disregard for normal chords and notes, the utter chaos of the images accompanied by random sounds…. Sigh This appeals to me like nothing else! The mechanical so-called ballet is really fascinating, isn’t it? I wonder just what exactly made Leger want to design something that would be chaos to viewers… I like to watch this and try to think, “Hmm I bet that concept came from (insert awesome idea)!” To bad we don’t have a transcript from Leger, explaining it bit by crazy bit, telling us just what his inspiration was! Oh well, having no transcript forces us to use our imaginations, doesn’t it?!
ReplyDeleteI used to think I was on the more creative and artistic side of thinking when it came to things, but apparently that is not true. Some of the things we have discussed that are considered art just look like a ridiculous mess to me. This film would definitely fit into that category, I do not get the point and find it to be quite strange. The fact that it is extremely repetitive in some places loses me too, but maybe I'm just missing out on the real artistic part.
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