Here’s a little self-isolation game for you. It’s like ‘Where’s Waldo’ but way more intellectual…
(* and yes, I know I’m conflating Surrealism here with Dada and general Avant-gardeism, but I liked it as a title! Enough with the quibbling!)
In 1924 French filmmaker René Clair made two short films to be shown as a prelude and intermezzo during the performance of Relâche, a Dada ballet conceived by Frances Picabia for the Ballets Suédois (Swedish Ballet). At the time the company was a direct rival of the avant garde Ballets Russes. The title is itself a joke, as the word relâche was usually used on posters to say when a show had been cancelled or a theatre closed down. Erik Satie wrote the music for both ballet and film.
Today the two films are bundled together under the title Entr’acte, which features Satie’s score and appearances by many artists of the day. It really feels like it was made on a lark, a kind of dada weekend home movie. There’s an awful lot of silliness on display, a fair amount of abstraction, and several moments that are completely sublime.
(The film should be in the public domain, so if the following links don’t work you should be able to do a simple search to find it online. Unfortunately the ones I found on Youtube are just excerpts. The whole film should be 20+ minutes in length. Be sure to watch with the Satie score! There is another version out there with a modern soundtrack.)
Click here to see the film via Internet Archive.
Click here to see at Open Culture.
It’s also available via the Criterion Channel.
Now for the fun! Watch the film and keep an eye open for cameos by the following 1920s Parisian art world stars. Apparently they are all present in there somewhere. Can you spot them all?
How’d you do? 5 should have been easy, the other 4 not so much. I think I spotted Achard in the funeral procession, but Milhaud, Auric and Clair I’m not so sure about.
If you find this interesting and want to pop down the rabbit hole, here is a wikipedia article to start you off. You can also click on the captions under each photo for more info.
Bonus Game: Find out which artist …
taught Dave Brubeck
was an ambulance driver in World War I
has a connection with Inspector Clouseau
had a female alter ego named Rrose Selavy
had a connection to the Audrey Hepburn/Gregory Peck film Roman Holiday
had “unconcerned, but not indifferent” engraved on his tombstone
This amusement has been brought to you by an excess of free time and the informational splendour of the internet.
