Emak Bakia

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Movie
Original title Emak Bakia
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1926
length about 20 minutes
Rod
Director Man Ray
script Man Ray
production Arthur S. Wheeler
music Django Reinhardt
camera Man Ray
cut Man Ray
occupation

Emak Bakia is a surrealistic avant-garde film by the American artist Man Ray . The film premiered in Paris in the fall of 1926 and premiered in New York in the spring of 1927 . Emak Bakia is a Basque expression and means something like: "Give us a break".

content

The film begins with a shot of Man Ray behind the camera; Django Reinhardt's jazz music begins a sequence of rotating, sharp and blurred crystalline forms and reflections that fade into a meadow of flowers, then dancing pins and tops appear as rayographs , wandering neon signs appear, then an eye appears in a close-up fading in the center of one Pair of car headlights to form a "three-eyed face". Now you can see a strange thin person (Rose Wheeler) with a cap and protective goggles sitting in an automobile and driving off. The fast journey leads through a narrow road and turns into a country road surrounded by rows of trees; the car suddenly races into a flock of sheep, the camera sways and stops; the camera perspective pans to the running board of the car and different pairs of legs leave the car in delayed fades ; this initiates a rhythmic sequence of close-ups: a pair of female legs dancing the Charleston and a hand playing the banjo. In the next episode, the camera follows a woman in her boudoir and watches her applying makeup, then the gaze is directed to a balcony, the woman leaves and finally pans over a cliff to the beach; now follows another sequence of close-ups: a pair of legs lying in the sand, sea foam crowns and sun flashers in the waves of the surf, then the camera seems to submerge and fishes become visible, playing with their shadows, suddenly you see a rotating figure made of cork, then, in a short trick sequence, the silhouette of a man jumps over a given grid, the camera fades out and the neon banderole reappears and shows the text “Night after night in the magical city”. Then follows the portrait of an awakening girl with freckles and again there follow fuzzy mirror elements rotating around an imaginary axis, the subject of the awakening face is taken up twice: once smiling and once serious with the suggestion of speaking. Before the last episode, the action stops and a subtitle appears with the sentence “Justification for this extravagance”. The viewer now guesses what is happening would be explained in the following real-life film: A car stops in front of a front door and a man gets out of the car with a briefcase and enters the hallway; he opens the suitcase and tears the shirt collars inside, which fall to the floor and - turned backwards - seem to float upwards like an angel while dancing to the melody of the waltz " The Merry Widow ", then Rigaut tears his own collar from the neck. The film ends with the face of Kiki de Montparnasse , who painted a false pair of eyes on her eyelids; amused, she smiles at the camera and opens her mouth to reveal the word Finis (end) painted on her teeth.

background

In the spring of 1926, Man Ray received an offer and a contract from the US financial tycoons Arthur and Rose Wheeler for several film productions. Wheeler pledged Man Ray a total of $ 10,000 to complete a film within a year. Emak Bakia was Man Ray's first major film project after the short film Retour à la raison (1923). Filming began in Biarritz in May 1926 .

As the subtitle cinepoeme announced, the film was to become a “visual poetry ”. Man Ray sketched the film as “a pause for reflection on the current state of cinema [...] 'Emak Bakia' is a strip made up of improvisations . These are only concentrated on limited sections of space and on different, changing perspectives. "

reception

The critics at the time ignored the film. The medium of film was not considered art at the time and so Emak Bakia remained unknown outside the New York avant-garde . It was only in later years that the film, like Man Ray's subsequent productions L'Étoile de mer (1928) and Le Mystères du château de Dés (1929), received attention and, alongside Luis Buñuel's and Salvador Dalí's sensational works, An Andalusian Dog (1928) and L'Age d'Or (The Golden Age) , as pioneering work in poetic-surrealist experimental film.

literature

  • Elizabeth Hutton-Turner: Trans Atlantique. In: Man Ray. 1890-1976. His complete works. Edition Stemmle, Schaffhausen et al. 1989, ISBN 3-7231-0388-X , p. 137 ff., Here p. 161 ff.

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