{animation} – Page 54 – { feuilleton }

Dalí in Wonderland

I’d only seen one or two of Salvador Dalí’s illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland before but you can see the complete (?) set here. These date from 1969 when Dalí was well past his prime as an artist but they’re still worth a look to see how he tackled each chapter, using the skipping girl motif from earlier paintings as his Alice figure. The attraction of the Alice books for the Surrealists is no surprise; Max Ernst produced a rather enigmatic series of Alice-themed lithographs while André Breton had earlier made Alice the “Siren of Stars” in the set of Surrealist playing cards he designed in the 1940 (below). I’d imagine there are other connections I’ve missed; leave a comment if you know of any. (Thanks to Charity for the tip!)

For more Dalí, here’s something I neglected to link to a while ago, the legendary Dalí meets Disney short, Destino.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Virtual Alice
• Psychedelic Wonderland: the 2010 calendar
• Charles Robinson’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Humpty Dumpty variations
• Alice in Wonderland by Jonathan Miller
• Dalí and Film
• The Illustrators of Alice
• Surrealist cartomancy

Berlin Horse and Marvo Movie

Two experimental films by British filmmakers. Berlin Horse (1970) at Ubuweb is a hypnotic piece of minimalism by Malcolm Le Grice who subjects found footage of exercising horses to a series of loopings and filterings that push the degraded images to a point of textured abstraction. Of note with this film is the equally minimal and repetitive score, a piano loop created by Brian Eno. This was before he gained prominence as a member of Roxy Music but the slight piece of experimentation points the way to his post-Roxy career and his ambient investigations. Berlin Horse is available on DVD from Lux, with a selection of Le Grice’s other shorts.

Marvo Movie (1967) at Europa Film Treasures is a typically frenetic work by Jeff Keen, four minutes of heavily cut-up sound and vision with collage, animation and multiple exposures throughout. Despite the year of its creation, the effect is less psychedelic and more like an amphetamine rush.

• Malcolm Le Grice at YouTube
• Jeff Keen at YouTube

Patrick Bokanowski again

“A prolonged, dense and visually visceral experience of the kind that is rare in cinema today. Difficult to define and locate, its strangeness is quite unique. That its elements are not constructed in a traditional way should not be a barrier to those who wish to cross the bridge to what Jean-Luc Godard proposed as the real story of the cinema—real in the sense of being made of images and sounds rather than texts and illustrations.”—Keith Griffiths

It was only two months ago that I enthused about Patrick Bokanowski’s extraordinary 1982 film, L’Ange, after a TV screening was posted at Ubuweb, and ended by wondering whether a DVD copy was available anywhere. Last week Jayne Pilling left a comment on that post alerting me to the film’s availability via the BAA site; I immediately ordered a copy which arrived the next day. So yes, Bokanowski’s film is now available in both PAL and NTSC formats, and the disc includes a short about the making of L’Ange as well as preparatory sketches and an interview with composer Michèle Bokanowski whose score goes a long way to giving the film its unique atmosphere. I mentioned earlier how reminiscent Bokanowski’s film was of later works by the Brothers Quay so it’s no surprise seeing an approving quote from the pair on the DVD packaging:

“Magisterial images seething in the amber of transcendent soundscapes. Drink in these films through eyes and ears.”

If that wasn’t enough, there’s another DVD of the director’s short films available. Anyone who likes David Lynch’s The Grandmother or Eraserhead, or the Quays’ Street of Crocodiles, really needs to see L’Ange.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• L’Ange by Patrick Bokanowski
• The Hourglass Sanatorium by Wojciech Has
• Babobilicons by Daina Krumins
• Impressions de la Haute Mongolie revisited
• Short films by Walerian Borowczyk
• The Brothers Quay on DVD

Tetragram for Enlargement

A stunning architectural video installation produced by Apparati Effimeri for last month’s Itinerario Festival, in which the stolid Rocca Malatestiana in Cesena, Italy, is painted with stripes, then mutated, melted and finally blown apart in slow motion. I’d love to see this effect applied to large city-centre buildings but the results are so striking they’d probably create no end of traffic accidents.

Via Further.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker

The art of Ed Emshwiller, 1925–1990

Another item brought to light during the Great Shelf Re-ordering and Spring Clean is this 1962 Lancer paperback of The Dying Earth by Jack Vance, a slim collection of six short connected stories, and another favourite book. Despite the SF label this is far more a work of fantasy (science fantasy, if you must), being tales of the bizarre and occasionally grotesque inhabitants of the last days of the earth. Magic is the order of the day, not advanced technology, although Vance hints that the book’s elaborate spells may be a higher ordering of mathematics capable of manipulating reality. I like the simple cover layout of this edition; Ed Emshwiller’s illustration manages to be sparing yet fully representative of a key scene.

French sf portal Noosfere has recently revamped its artwork showcase and has a substantial collection of Emshwiller’s cover paintings. I’d prefer to see more of his earlier style but the collection includes some striking designs.

Sunstone (1979).

Emshwiller was a very prolific illustrator but from the 1960s on also developed his own style of experimental filmmaking, some examples of which can be found at YouTube. I’d actually seen Sunstone—a very early piece of computer animation—years ago without registering the credit. In addition there’s also Thanatopsis, a strange b&w short which is remarkably similar in tone to some of the films which William Burroughs and Antony Balch were making at around the same time.

• The genre artist | Jack Vance profiled in the NYT

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The King in Yellow
• Ballantine Adult Fantasy covers
• Clark Ashton Smith book covers
• Revenant volumes: Bob Haberfield, New Worlds and others
• The World in 2030
• The art of Virgil Finlay, 1914–1971
• Towers Open Fire