MAN <\/em>RAY? I\u2019LL WAIT UNTIL THEY MAKE A WOMAN RAY\u2026:<\/strong> I\u2019m watching a Netflixable thing called \u201cAvant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and \u201930s: Disc 1.\u201d It\u2019s three hours long and you couldn\u2019t pay me to watch that much indie-film at once, so I\u2019m taking it in bits and pieces. Here are some thoughts on the first six movies\u2013all but two highly recommended. I make no attempt to provide accent marks, because \u201cthat\u2019s the way Dad did it, that\u2019s the way America does it, and it\u2019s worked out pretty well so far!\u201d<\/p>\n And also, I\u2019m lazy.<\/p>\n Man Ray, \u201cLe Retour a la raison\u201d<\/strong>: This is a great teaser for the rest of the disc. It\u2019s maybe two or three minutes long?\u2013yet you\u2019ll find yourself catching \u201cfuture echoes\u201d of everything from Sesame Street<\/em> to Hitchcock. (Seriously, I\u2019d need two hands to count the times this disc has reminded me of children\u2019s television\u2013from Pinwheel<\/em>\u2018s opening sequence to 3-2-1-Contact<\/em>\u2018s, from ZOOM<\/em>\u2018s cheapness-equals-existentialism to Looney Toons<\/em>\u2018 expressionism.)<\/p>\n The music, so far on every movie, has been amazing. It\u2019s new\u2013created for this release, I think?\u2013and so it creates a completely new viewing experience from the one contemporary audiences would have had. But then, my experience would never be what a contemporary audience might\u2019ve had; and this new experience is so fantabulous that I can\u2019t wish it were different. I\u2019d play this every day just for the music. Imagine\u2026 maybe the Raincoats, muddled with Herrmann, dragged a few feet leftward to Messaien, about a quarter-mile east toward Mozart, and a mile south toward Bizet??<\/p>\n Man Ray, \u201cEmak-Bakia\u201d<\/strong>: Suspense music plus adventure-movie visuals! Pilotesses in earflaps! Sheep and pigs! The ghosts of women\u2019s legs stride out of a jeep again and again, memory, until they resolve into the Charleston. A lady has eyes painted on her eyelids. Daggone <\/em>that\u2019s uncanny.<\/p>\n White buildings and film-white skies. <\/p>\n Man Ray, \u201cL\u2019etoile de mer\u201d<\/strong>: Surrealist sex! The clash of symbols (Cybele, Impressionism); perversity (she strips to her skivvies, then tells him to leave!); mad science; the permeable boundary between nature and culture. Oozy beauty.<\/p>\n I loved this like cake.<\/p>\n Man Ray, \u201cLes Mysteres du chateau du De\u201d<\/strong>: \u2026The music is bouncy and hilarious, and for a long time this feels like a Beckettish, Goreyish comedy of meaninglessness. But then it settles down to portentous talk of MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN and Venus Astarte, and I can\u2019t do it anymore. Fans of The Prisoner<\/em> might like it more than I did. Also, I wonder how much the opening of The Exorcist<\/em> owes to this piece\u2013if anything.<\/p>\n Robert Florey Y U NOT MAN RAY?, \u201cThe Life and Death of 9413\u201d<\/strong>: Bog-standard Hollywood disillusionment, barely redeemed by some lovely acting. MEH. If you\u2019re enough of a film buff to watch this disc, you\u2019re enough of a film buff to have seen this movie five times already, only better.<\/p>\n Someone I forget, \u201cMenilmontant\u201d<\/strong>: WOW, shivery horror piece. Fans of Heavenly Creatures<\/em>, Doctor Faustus<\/em>, and especially Picnic at Hanging Rock<\/em> shouldn\u2019t miss this. I felt like it lost steam relatively <\/em>quickly, but there are some frightening moments here even in silent film, and I\u2019d absolutely watch a remake of this. I\u2019m not sure if it was genuinely a bit conventional for an \u201cexperimental\u201d disc, or if it merely highlighted how many avant-garde techniques carried over into genre filmmaking. Highly recommended either way.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MAN RAY? I\u2019LL WAIT UNTIL THEY MAKE A WOMAN RAY\u2026: I\u2019m watching a Netflixable thing called \u201cAvant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and \u201930s: Disc 1.\u201d It\u2019s three hours long and you couldn\u2019t pay me to watch that much indie-film at once, so I\u2019m taking it in bits and pieces. Here are some thoughts on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n