It’s no doubt up to the viewer to decide what constitutes anaemia in Marcel Duchamp’s 7-minute film. Anémic Cinéma was made the same year as Emak-Bakia with the assistance of Man Ray and Marc Allégret. Duchamp’s Rotoreliefs spin hypnotically alternating with punning epithets in French. The spinning artworks later appeared as Duchamp’s contribution to Hans Richter’s Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947).
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Emak-Bakia
• Un Chien Andalou
• Ballet Mécanique
• Dreams That Money Can Buy
• La femme 100 têtes by Eric Duvivier
• Entr’acte by René Clair
This viewer’s call is that Duchamp, like Capt. Beefheart, never saw a pun he didn’t like, and he just could not pass on the anagram.
By the way your post just made me notice that a circular flyer I designed for one of our Queen Victrola gigs was, um, an intentional tribute to this Duchamp piece. I thought I was clever but it was only cryptomnesia!
I should have spotted that rather obvious play on words, I usually enjoy such things. My excuse is I was so busy last week I didn’t really give these posts much attention.