![\"\"](\"http:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/dulac-princesse-mandane.jpg\")
Princesse Mandane. Courtesy of DR, Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que fran\u00e7aise<\/p><\/div>\n
A feminist and socialist artist and thinker of the 1920s and \u201930s, Germaine Dulac directed close to 30 fiction films in her lifetime, playing with narration, montage, and visual effects, and making the case, in both films and writing, for a \u201cpure cinema\u201d approach that took full advantage of the medium’s unique properties.<\/p>\n
Despite being frequently overlooked in film history, Dulac\u2019s bold experimentation helped legitimize cinema as an art form that would be on the same footing as painting, dance, theater, and music. For Dulac, only cinema was up to the task of capturing the spirit of a generation of people scarred by World War I who were emancipated by the new freedoms of the 1920s and whose daily lives had been shaped irreversibly by industrialization and social and cultural modernity.<\/p>\n
A lesbian woman, Dulac made films that both explicitly employ and and implicitly embody queer aesthetics. Her films such as L’Invitation au voyage and Princesse Mandane use dance and symbolism to subvert gender expectations and explore queerness, a socially taboo topic in the 1920s.<\/p>\n
The survey will feature Dulac\u2019s early work, including the proto-impressionist La Cigarette; the riot-inducing The Seashell and the Clergyman, considered the first surrealist film; the feminist classic The Smiling Madame Beudet; as well as Dulac\u2019s final commercial feature and one of her most explicitly queer films, Princesse Mandane. The series will also include a free talk with Dulac expert Tami Williams to discuss Dulac\u2019s place in the history of cinema.<\/p>\n
After its run at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the series will continue on to UCLA Film & Television Archive (Los Angeles, CA).<\/p>\n
Organized by Am\u00e9lie Garin-Davet and Dan Sullivan, in collaboration with curatorial advisor Tami Williams. Co-presented with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York.<\/p>\n
Tickets for Germaine Dulac went on sale August 10, and are $15; $12 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $10 for Film Society members. See more and save with the 3+ film discount package. Learn more at filmlinc.org.<\/p>\n
Acknowledgments:
\nLight Cone; Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e; Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Royale de Belgique; Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Fran\u00e7aise; EYE Film Institute Netherlands.<\/p>\n
Films and Descriptions<\/strong><\/h3>\nAll screenings held at the Francesca Beale Theater in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 W. 65th St.) unless otherwise noted.<\/strong><\/h3>\nProgram 1 (TRT: 110m)<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00c9tude cin\u00e9matographique sur une arabesque (1929, 7m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nA \u201ccinegraphic ballet,\u201d this abstract film\u2014inspired by the first and second arabesques of Claude Debussy\u2014uses rays of light, spouting water, spider webs, and other natural motifs to enact a visual dance.<\/p>\nTh\u00e8mes et variations (1929, 12m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nDulac returned to the arabesque form in this abstract study of a dancer, a dialectical sequence of comparisons and contrasts that places the human body in opposition to natural and mechanical phenomena alike.<\/p>\nDisque 957 (1929, 6m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nEarlier in her career, Dulac had developed a narrative script about the life of the Romantic composer Frederic Chopin. This abstract study of the interplay of light and movement on a spinning record was conceived as a \u201cvisual impression\u2026 [of] listening to Chopin\u2019s Preludes 5 and 6.\u201d<\/p>\nLa Folie des vaillants (1925, 46m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nA symbolist portrait of two gypsies in love, this captivating film finds Dulac deconstructing onscreen gender roles and striving to achieve her idea of cinema as a \u201cvisual symphony,\u201d emphasizing rhythmic editing over acting to achieve a \u201ccinema of suggestion.\u201d Print courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).<\/p>\nThe Seashell and the Clergyman \/ La Coquille et le clergyman (1928, 39m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nBased on a script by Antonin Artaud, Dulac\u2019s best-known work is a masterful exploration of rhythm within an image and between images, and is considered the first surrealist film.
\nFriday, August 24, 7 pm
\nSunday, August 26, 6 pm<\/p>\nProgram 2<\/strong><\/p>\nLa Mort du soleil (1922, 83m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nWritten by Andr\u00e9 Legrand, this drama stars Denise Lorys (who had previously played a liberated countess in Dulac\u2019s La Belle Dame sans merci) as a scientist trying to find a balance between her domestic responsibilities and her work at an orphanage for tubercular children, allegorizing the plight of the modern woman after World War I. Dulac deftly uses an array of visual and editing techniques to conjure her protagonist\u2019s inner life, once again striving to create a cinematic language that could do justice to the collective psychology and social issues of her time. Print courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).
\nFriday, August 24, 9:15pm
\nSunday, August 26, 8:15pm<\/p>\nProgram 3 (TRT: 71m)<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Smiling Madame Beudet \/ La Souriante Madame Beudet (1923, 38 min, 16mm)<\/em>
\nA masterpiece of cinematic impressionism, this film portrays the subjectivity of a young, modern woman seeking to escape an oppressive marriage, her perspective and desires conveyed through gesture, movement, editing rhythm, visual effects, and references to Baudelaire, Debussy, and Pre-Raphaelite painting.<\/p>\nL’Invitation au voyage (1927, 33 min, 16mm)<\/em>
\nDulac referred to this film\u2014titled after a poem by Baudelaire, and concerning the emancipation of a married woman who meets a young military officer at a cabaret\u2014as a \u201cmelody of images\u201d and a direct response to the literary\/theatrical bent of the cinema of her time.
\nSaturday, August 25, 2:30pm
\nTuesday, August 28, 7:00pm<\/p>\nProgram 4<\/strong><\/p>\nAntoinette Sabrier (1928, 66m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nAdapted from a play by Romain Coolus, whose work Dulac had covered as a theater critic at the turn of the century, this atmospheric and socially inquisitive film tells the tale of an independent, sexually liberated woman (Eve Francis) who is torn between her husband (Gabriel Gabrio) and her lover (Paul Guid\u00e9). Controversial at the time of its release, Antoinette Sabrier finds Dulac using her bold sense of visual rhythm to achieve a complex portrait of a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage and a nuanced investigation into human intimacy, with her characters\u2019 emotions expressed through then-innovative cinematic techniques such as slow motion and associative montage. Print courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).
\nSaturday, August 25, 4 pm
\nTuesday, August 28, 8 pm<\/p>\nProgram 5<\/strong><\/p>\nPrincess Mandane \/ La Princesse Mandane (1928, 77m, 35mm)
\nDulac said of this lyrical, gestural film, a loose adaptation of a novel by Pierre Beno\u00eet and her final commercial production: \u201cBeno\u00eet\u2019s hero becomes a victim of the cinema. His obsession with all the glorious adventures on the screen forces him to abandon his peaceful life and roam the world. He becomes transported into a country full of wonders, a marvelous kingdom ruled by a fairy princess. A moral ends the story: After many adventures, my hero prefers to find happiness in simplicity.\u201d Though with this fable comes a final twist, a turn of events that, it has been argued, constitute one of the most explicitly sapphic moments in Dulac\u2019s cinema. Print courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).
\nSaturday, August 25, 7:00pm
\nWednesday, August 29, 7:00pm<\/p>\n
Program 6 (TRT: 85m)<\/strong><\/p>\nAutrefois… Aujourd’hui (1930, 7m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nUn peu de r\u00eave sur le faubourg (1930, 11m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nCeux qui ne s’en font pas (1930, 5m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nCelles qui s’en font (1930, 6m, 35mm<\/em>
\nIn 1930 (the year the French film industry shifted to sound cinema), Dulac directed a series of \u201cillustrated records,\u201d intended to accompany classical and popular music recordings, all shot on location and taking the French working class as their shared subject, an early form of music video that focused on daily life and social concerns of the period. Prints courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).<\/p>\nLa Cigarette (1919, 56m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nDulac\u2019s earliest surviving film and a key precursor of cinematic impressionism, La Cigarette chronicles a liberated young Parisienne who awakens the jealousy of her husband, an aging archaeologist, and uses naturalistic acting, location shooting, and associative montage (among other cutting-edge techniques) to deconstruct conventional gender roles. Print courtesy of the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Royale de Belgique.
\nSaturday, August 25, 8:45pm
\nWednesday, August 29, 8:45pm<\/p>\nProgram 7<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00c2me d’artiste (1925, 100m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nThis backstage comedy was an important work in Dulac\u2019s tireless pursuit of a \u201cpure cinema,\u201d an approach to the medium that sought to demonstrate that it had more modern and expressive tools at its disposal than any other art. Adapted from a play by Danish poet Christian Molbech, its narrative concerns the drama that ensues amid an encounter between a fragile, sensitive poet and an independent actress, effectively reversing conventional gender dynamics. Dulac includes newsreel footage and deploys a typically audacious array of visual effects to once again put the modern age onscreen. Print courtesy of the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Royale de Belgique.
\nSunday, August 26, 2 pm
\nThursday, August 30, 7 pm<\/p>\nProgram 8<\/strong><\/p>\nLa Belle Dame sans merci (1921, 80m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nTaking its title from John Keats\u2019s early 19th-century poem, this highly personal melodrama finds Dulac interrogating the archetype of the femme fatale. La belle dame sans merci follows a famous actress who was once seduced and abandoned by a rich man and subsequently resolved to become a \u201cmerciless woman,\u201d forever scheming to hurt others (men in particular) in a ruthless yet captivating manner. Dulac challenges the Romantic archetype embodied in Keats\u2019s poem by way of symbolist mise en sc\u00e8ne, self-reflexive narration, and her typically associative approach to editing, locating a modern ambiguity within the stereotypical figures of 19th-century art.
\nSunday, August 26, 4 pm
\nThursday, August 30, 9 pm<\/p>\nFree Talk: Germaine Dulac and Women in Film History<\/em>
\nJoin us for an extended conversation with Dulac scholar and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Tami Williams, Columbia University professor Jane Gaines, and Rutgers University professor Sandy Flitterman-Lewis as they discuss Dulac\u2019s pioneering artistry, her films\u2019 political context, and her pivotal place in the history of cinema.
\nSaturday, August 25, 5:30pm<\/p>\nFilm Society of Lincoln Center <\/strong>is devoted to supporting the art and elevating the craft of cinema. The only branch of the world-renowned arts complex Lincoln Center to shine a light on the everlasting yet evolving importance of the moving image, this nonprofit organization was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international film. Via year-round programming and discussions; its annual New York Film Festival; and its publications, including Film Comment, the U.S.\u2019s premier magazine about films and film culture, the Film Society endeavors to make the discussion and appreciation of cinema accessible to a broader audience, as well as to ensure that it will remain an essential art form for years to come.<\/p>\nThe Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Shutterstock, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. American Airlines is the Official Airline of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. For more information, visit filmlinc.org and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gregg W. Morris can be reached at gmorris@hunter.cuny.edu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite being frequently overlooked in film history, Germaine Dulac\u2019s bold experimentation helped legitimize cinema as an art form that would be on the same footing as painting, dance, theater, and music. <\/p>\n
Program 1 (TRT: 110m)<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00c9tude cin\u00e9matographique sur une arabesque (1929, 7m, 35mm)<\/em> Th\u00e8mes et variations (1929, 12m, 35mm)<\/em> Disque 957 (1929, 6m, 35mm)<\/em> La Folie des vaillants (1925, 46m, 35mm)<\/em> The Seashell and the Clergyman \/ La Coquille et le clergyman (1928, 39m, 35mm)<\/em> Program 2<\/strong><\/p>\n La Mort du soleil (1922, 83m, 35mm)<\/em> Program 3 (TRT: 71m)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Smiling Madame Beudet \/ La Souriante Madame Beudet (1923, 38 min, 16mm)<\/em> L’Invitation au voyage (1927, 33 min, 16mm)<\/em> Program 4<\/strong><\/p>\n Antoinette Sabrier (1928, 66m, 35mm)<\/em> Program 5<\/strong><\/p>\n Princess Mandane \/ La Princesse Mandane (1928, 77m, 35mm) Program 6 (TRT: 85m)<\/strong><\/p>\n Autrefois… Aujourd’hui (1930, 7m, 35mm)<\/em> La Cigarette (1919, 56m, 35mm)<\/em> Program 7<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00c2me d’artiste (1925, 100m, 35mm)<\/em> Program 8<\/strong><\/p>\n La Belle Dame sans merci (1921, 80m, 35mm)<\/em> Free Talk: Germaine Dulac and Women in Film History<\/em> Film Society of Lincoln Center <\/strong>is devoted to supporting the art and elevating the craft of cinema. The only branch of the world-renowned arts complex Lincoln Center to shine a light on the everlasting yet evolving importance of the moving image, this nonprofit organization was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international film. Via year-round programming and discussions; its annual New York Film Festival; and its publications, including Film Comment, the U.S.\u2019s premier magazine about films and film culture, the Film Society endeavors to make the discussion and appreciation of cinema accessible to a broader audience, as well as to ensure that it will remain an essential art form for years to come.<\/p>\n The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Shutterstock, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. American Airlines is the Official Airline of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. For more information, visit filmlinc.org and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gregg W. Morris can be reached at gmorris@hunter.cuny.edu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite being frequently overlooked in film history, Germaine Dulac\u2019s bold experimentation helped legitimize cinema as an art form that would be on the same footing as painting, dance, theater, and music. <\/p>\n
\nA \u201ccinegraphic ballet,\u201d this abstract film\u2014inspired by the first and second arabesques of Claude Debussy\u2014uses rays of light, spouting water, spider webs, and other natural motifs to enact a visual dance.<\/p>\n
\nDulac returned to the arabesque form in this abstract study of a dancer, a dialectical sequence of comparisons and contrasts that places the human body in opposition to natural and mechanical phenomena alike.<\/p>\n
\nEarlier in her career, Dulac had developed a narrative script about the life of the Romantic composer Frederic Chopin. This abstract study of the interplay of light and movement on a spinning record was conceived as a \u201cvisual impression\u2026 [of] listening to Chopin\u2019s Preludes 5 and 6.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nA symbolist portrait of two gypsies in love, this captivating film finds Dulac deconstructing onscreen gender roles and striving to achieve her idea of cinema as a \u201cvisual symphony,\u201d emphasizing rhythmic editing over acting to achieve a \u201ccinema of suggestion.\u201d Print courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).<\/p>\n
\nBased on a script by Antonin Artaud, Dulac\u2019s best-known work is a masterful exploration of rhythm within an image and between images, and is considered the first surrealist film.
\nFriday, August 24, 7 pm
\nSunday, August 26, 6 pm<\/p>\n
\nWritten by Andr\u00e9 Legrand, this drama stars Denise Lorys (who had previously played a liberated countess in Dulac\u2019s La Belle Dame sans merci) as a scientist trying to find a balance between her domestic responsibilities and her work at an orphanage for tubercular children, allegorizing the plight of the modern woman after World War I. Dulac deftly uses an array of visual and editing techniques to conjure her protagonist\u2019s inner life, once again striving to create a cinematic language that could do justice to the collective psychology and social issues of her time. Print courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).
\nFriday, August 24, 9:15pm
\nSunday, August 26, 8:15pm<\/p>\n
\nA masterpiece of cinematic impressionism, this film portrays the subjectivity of a young, modern woman seeking to escape an oppressive marriage, her perspective and desires conveyed through gesture, movement, editing rhythm, visual effects, and references to Baudelaire, Debussy, and Pre-Raphaelite painting.<\/p>\n
\nDulac referred to this film\u2014titled after a poem by Baudelaire, and concerning the emancipation of a married woman who meets a young military officer at a cabaret\u2014as a \u201cmelody of images\u201d and a direct response to the literary\/theatrical bent of the cinema of her time.
\nSaturday, August 25, 2:30pm
\nTuesday, August 28, 7:00pm<\/p>\n
\nAdapted from a play by Romain Coolus, whose work Dulac had covered as a theater critic at the turn of the century, this atmospheric and socially inquisitive film tells the tale of an independent, sexually liberated woman (Eve Francis) who is torn between her husband (Gabriel Gabrio) and her lover (Paul Guid\u00e9). Controversial at the time of its release, Antoinette Sabrier finds Dulac using her bold sense of visual rhythm to achieve a complex portrait of a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage and a nuanced investigation into human intimacy, with her characters\u2019 emotions expressed through then-innovative cinematic techniques such as slow motion and associative montage. Print courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).
\nSaturday, August 25, 4 pm
\nTuesday, August 28, 8 pm<\/p>\n
\nDulac said of this lyrical, gestural film, a loose adaptation of a novel by Pierre Beno\u00eet and her final commercial production: \u201cBeno\u00eet\u2019s hero becomes a victim of the cinema. His obsession with all the glorious adventures on the screen forces him to abandon his peaceful life and roam the world. He becomes transported into a country full of wonders, a marvelous kingdom ruled by a fairy princess. A moral ends the story: After many adventures, my hero prefers to find happiness in simplicity.\u201d Though with this fable comes a final twist, a turn of events that, it has been argued, constitute one of the most explicitly sapphic moments in Dulac\u2019s cinema. Print courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).
\nSaturday, August 25, 7:00pm
\nWednesday, August 29, 7:00pm<\/p>\n
\nUn peu de r\u00eave sur le faubourg (1930, 11m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nCeux qui ne s’en font pas (1930, 5m, 35mm)<\/em>
\nCelles qui s’en font (1930, 6m, 35mm<\/em>
\nIn 1930 (the year the French film industry shifted to sound cinema), Dulac directed a series of \u201cillustrated records,\u201d intended to accompany classical and popular music recordings, all shot on location and taking the French working class as their shared subject, an early form of music video that focused on daily life and social concerns of the period. Prints courtesy of the Centre national du cin\u00e9ma et de l\u2019image anim\u00e9e (CNC).<\/p>\n
\nDulac\u2019s earliest surviving film and a key precursor of cinematic impressionism, La Cigarette chronicles a liberated young Parisienne who awakens the jealousy of her husband, an aging archaeologist, and uses naturalistic acting, location shooting, and associative montage (among other cutting-edge techniques) to deconstruct conventional gender roles. Print courtesy of the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Royale de Belgique.
\nSaturday, August 25, 8:45pm
\nWednesday, August 29, 8:45pm<\/p>\n
\nThis backstage comedy was an important work in Dulac\u2019s tireless pursuit of a \u201cpure cinema,\u201d an approach to the medium that sought to demonstrate that it had more modern and expressive tools at its disposal than any other art. Adapted from a play by Danish poet Christian Molbech, its narrative concerns the drama that ensues amid an encounter between a fragile, sensitive poet and an independent actress, effectively reversing conventional gender dynamics. Dulac includes newsreel footage and deploys a typically audacious array of visual effects to once again put the modern age onscreen. Print courtesy of the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Royale de Belgique.
\nSunday, August 26, 2 pm
\nThursday, August 30, 7 pm<\/p>\n
\nTaking its title from John Keats\u2019s early 19th-century poem, this highly personal melodrama finds Dulac interrogating the archetype of the femme fatale. La belle dame sans merci follows a famous actress who was once seduced and abandoned by a rich man and subsequently resolved to become a \u201cmerciless woman,\u201d forever scheming to hurt others (men in particular) in a ruthless yet captivating manner. Dulac challenges the Romantic archetype embodied in Keats\u2019s poem by way of symbolist mise en sc\u00e8ne, self-reflexive narration, and her typically associative approach to editing, locating a modern ambiguity within the stereotypical figures of 19th-century art.
\nSunday, August 26, 4 pm
\nThursday, August 30, 9 pm<\/p>\n
\nJoin us for an extended conversation with Dulac scholar and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Tami Williams, Columbia University professor Jane Gaines, and Rutgers University professor Sandy Flitterman-Lewis as they discuss Dulac\u2019s pioneering artistry, her films\u2019 political context, and her pivotal place in the history of cinema.
\nSaturday, August 25, 5:30pm<\/p>\n