The Seashell and the Clergyman
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox film/short descriptionScript error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". The Seashell and the Clergyman (Template:Langx) is a 1928 French experimental film directed by Germaine Dulac, from an original scenario by Antonin Artaud. It premiered in Paris on 9 February 1928. The film is associated with French Surrealism.
Synopsis
The film follows the erotic hallucinations of a priest lusting after the wife of a general.
Reception and legacy
Although accounts differ, it seems that Artaud disapproved of Dulac's treatment of his scenario. The film was overshadowed by Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1929), written by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and directed by Buñuel. Un chien andalou is considered the first surrealist film, but its foundations in The Seashell and the Clergyman have been all but overlooked.[1] However, the iconic techniques associated with surrealist cinema are all borrowed from this early film.[2] In Lee Jamieson's analysis of the film, the surrealist treatment of the image is clear. He writes:
The British Board of Film Censors famously reported that the film was "so cryptic as to be almost meaningless. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable".[3][4]
Alan Williams has suggested the film is better thought of as a work of or influenced by German expressionism.[5]
The BFI included The Seashell and the Clergyman on a list of 10 Great Feminist Films, stating:[6]
Musical scores
The film, originally silent, was one of the first films scored by Silent Orchestra and performed by them at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC in 2000.[7] This was the first film to be scored by live accompaniment band Minima.[8] Their debut performance was at the UK's Shunt Vaults at London Bridge in 2006. It has also been rescored by Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Black Cat Orchestra.[9]
For the 2005 Kino International DVD collection Avant-garde: experimental cinema of the 1920s and '30s, the guitarist Larry Marotta provided the film's soundtrack.[10]
Sons of Noel and Adrian performed a live score at The Roundhouse in June 2009.[11] In March 2011, Imogen Heap performed an acappella score of her own composition with the Holst Singers as part of the Birds Eye View festival.[12]
In January 2012, a new score to a director's cut of The Seashell and the Clergyman was released by the artist Roto Visage on Kikapu.[13]
In 2015 an electronic soundtrack was composed by Luigi Morleo[14] for the Film Silence Music Festival in Italy.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
A new score by Sheffield musicians In the Nursery was performed live to accompany a showing of the film on 9 June 2019[15] and released on CD on 25 October 2019.[16]
Cast
- Alex Allin as The clergyman
- Genica Athanasiou as the General's wife
- Lucien Bataille as the General
Home media
- Avant-garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and '30s – DVD collection which includes The Seashell and the Clergyman[17]
References
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- ↑ James Crighton Robertson, The Hidden Cinema: British Film Censorship in Action, 1913–1975, 1993, Template:ISBN, p.39
- ↑ Rachael Low, History of British Film, 1970, Template:ISBN, p.70
- ↑ Williams, Alan Larson, Republic of images: a history of French filmmaking, USA: Harvard College, 1992
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- ↑ Avant-garde : experimental cinema of the 1920s and '30s) in libraries (WorldCat catalog)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- ↑ http://beardedmagazine.co.uk/wp/?p=1017Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
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Bibliography
- Wendy Dozoretz, Germaine Dulac : Filmmaker, Polemicist, Theoretician, (New York University Dissertation, 1982), 362 pp.
- Charles Henri Ford, Germaine Dulac : 1882 - 1942, Paris : Avant-Scène du Cinéma, 1968, 48 p. (Serie: Anthologie du cinéma; 31)
External links
- Template:Trim/ Template:Trim at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidataScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:WikidataCheck
Template:Germaine Dulac Template:Antonin Artaud Template:Authority control
- Pages with script errors
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- 1928 films
- French black-and-white films
- 1920s French-language films
- French silent short films
- Surrealist films
- Works by Antonin Artaud
- 1928 short films
- 1920s avant-garde and experimental films
- 1928 independent films
- French avant-garde and experimental films
- French independent films
- 1920s French films
- French-language short films