Harmony and Dissent : Film and Avant-garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century

by Elder, R. Bruce

• ISBN13: 9781554582266
• ISBN10: 1554582261
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-01
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ Pr

Summary

"With a distinguished career as a filmmaker and critic, Elder (Ryerson Univ.) comes qualified to discuss this subject. In this rich, complex book, he sets out to explore both the 'absolute film tradition' as it developed principally in Germany and France (particularly in the work of Walther Ruttman, Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling) and the development of constructivism in the Russian tradition (especially in the work of Sergei Eisenstein).... Elder's masterful book is a must for everyone interested in cinematic modernism, particularly the early-20th- century European avant-gardes. Summing Up: Essential." - K.S. Nolley, Williamette University, Choice.

Author Biography

R. Bruce Elder is the program director at Ryerson for the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture. He is the author of several books on film, and his films have been exhibited internationally. In 2007 he received the Governor General's Award in Media Arts.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xxxi
Modernism and the Absolute Film
The Overcoming of Representation	p. 1
The Philosophical and Occult Background to the Absolute Film	p. 3
Photography, Modernity, and the Crisis of Vision	p. 3
The Analogy to Music	p. 5
Absolute Film and Visibility: The Theories of Conrad Fiedler	p. 8
Bergson and Intuition	p. 14
Abstraction and the Occult	p. 15
The Extraordinary Influence of Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater's Thought Forms	p. 23
Vibratory Modernism: Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and Synaesthesia	p. 31
Modernism and the Absolute Film	p. 39
The Absolute Film: Precursors and Parallels	p. 39
Precursors of the Absolute Cinema: Light Sculpture	p. 39
Precursors of the Absolute Film: The Scroll	p. 40
Precursors of the Absolute Cinema: The Colour Organ and the Lichtspiel	p. 44
More on Vibratory Modernism: The Esoteric Background to the Absolute Film	p. 81
Abstract Film and Its Earlier Occult Predecessors	p. 86
A Possible Egyptian Connection for Kircher's Steganographic Mirror	p. 94
Huygens, Robertson, and Their Colleagues: Popular Magic	p. 101
Spiritualism and the New Technology	p. 106
Léopold Survage and the Origins of the Absolute Film	p. 111
Walther Ruttmann and the Origins of the Absolute Film	p. 116
Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling: The Absolute Film as the Fulfillment of Modern Art Movements	p. 125
The Language of Art: Constructivism, Reason, and Magic	p. 129
Eggeling's Integrity	p. 135
Toward a Generalbaß der Malerei	p. 137
Goethe as Precursor	p. 149
Kandinsky, Eggeling, and Richter: Colour as Feeling, Rhythm as Form	p. 160
Rhythmus 21 and the Generalbaß der Malerei	p. 162
The End of the Absolute Film	p. 163
Modernism and Revolution
Constructivism between Marxism and Theology	p. 203
Spiritual Interests in Late Nineteenth-Century and Early Twentieth-Century Russia	p. 205
Symbolism, Theology, and Occultism	p. 205
Solovyov's Influence	p. 216
Symbolism and Its Legacies	p. 225
Symbolism, the Spiritual Ideal, and the Avant-garde	p. 225
Symbolism: The Crucible of the Russian Avant-grade	p. 227
Malevich, or the Persistence of the Symbolist Ideal	p. 235
Symbolism and Its Descendants: Suprematism	p. 239
Zaum and Perlocutionary Poetics	p. 240
Malevich and Higher Reality	p. 248
Malevich, Suprematism, and Schopenhauer	p. 249
Symbolism and Its Descendants: Cubo-Futurism	p. 251
Vitebsk and Symbolism	p. 252
Symbolism and Its Descendants: FEKS	p. 254
Constructivism: Between Productivism and Suprematism	p. 265
Symbolism and Its Descendants: Constructivism	p. 265
Eisenstein, Constructivism, and the Dialectic	p. 279
The Fact: Nature and Its Transformation	p. 280
The Theory of the Dialectic and the Concept of Transformation	p. 289
The Concept of Transformation in Earlier and Later Eisenstein	p. 291
Eisenstein, Bely, Russia, and the Magic of Language	p. 301
Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy and the Avant-garde	p. 304
Rosicrucianism and the Theory of Transformation	p. 305
What Would Eisenstein Have Heard in a Rosicrucian Lodge?	p. 308
Rosicrucianism and Eisenstein's Aesthetic Theory	p. 312
Constructivism and Counterscience	p. 317
The Engineer of Human Souls	p. 331
Fechner and the Science of Effects	p. 333
The Cinema and Spiritual Technology	p. 338
The Cinema and X-rays	p. 340
Nikolai Fedorov's Cosmism	p. 346
The New Body	p. 350
Mexico and Mallarmé	p. 357
Eisenstein, the Monistic Ensemble, and Symbolism	p. 364
Eisenstein, Symbolism, and the Fourth Dimension	p. 369
Eisenstein's Pangraphism and the Theory of Imitation	p. 383
Mimesis, Pangraphism, and the Language of Adam	p. 389
Eisenstein and Symbolist Colour Theory	p. 397
Concluding Unscientific Postscript	p. 439
Appendix Viking Eggeling's Diagonal-Symphonie: An Analysis	p. 445
Shot Description/Analysis	p. 450
Index	p. 465
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