Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: The Poly-Expressive Symphony of Futurist Cinema
- Section 1 Joyful Deformation Of The Universe
- 1 Introduction: The Poetics of Futurist Cinema
- 2 Speed and Dynamism: Futurism and the Soviet Cinematographic Avant-garde
- 3 Futurism and Film Theories: Manifesto of Futurist Cinema and Theories in Italy in the 1910-1920s
- 4 Film Aesthetics Without Films
- 5 Marinetti’s Tattilismo Revisited: Hand Travels, Tactile Screens, and Touch Cinema in the 21st Century
- 6 Dance and Futurism in Italian Silent Cinema
- 7 Futurism and cinema in the 1910s: A Reinterpretation Starting from McLuhan
- 8 The Human in the Fetish of the Human: Cuteness in Futurist Cinema, Literature, and Visual Arts
- Section 2 Daily Filmed Exercises Designed To Free Us From Logic
- 9 Yambo on the moon of Verne and Méliès: From La Colonia Lunare to UN MATRIMONIO INTERPLANETARIO
- 10 An Avant-Garde Heritage: VITA FUTURISTA
- 11 Thaïs: A Different Challenge to the Stars
- 12 VELOCITÀ, a Screenplay by F.T. Marinetti: From Futurist Simultaneity to Live Streaming Media
- 13 Velocità/Vitesse: Filmed Dramas of Objects and ‘avant-garde integrale’
- 14 From Science to the Marvellous: The Illusion of Movement, Between Chronophotography and Contemporary Cinema
- Section 3 Shop Windows Of Filmed Ideas, Events, Types, Objects
- Chronology: Fernando Maramai
- Filmography
- Index
- Film Culture in Transition
11 - Thaïs: A Different Challenge to the Stars
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: The Poly-Expressive Symphony of Futurist Cinema
- Section 1 Joyful Deformation Of The Universe
- 1 Introduction: The Poetics of Futurist Cinema
- 2 Speed and Dynamism: Futurism and the Soviet Cinematographic Avant-garde
- 3 Futurism and Film Theories: Manifesto of Futurist Cinema and Theories in Italy in the 1910-1920s
- 4 Film Aesthetics Without Films
- 5 Marinetti’s Tattilismo Revisited: Hand Travels, Tactile Screens, and Touch Cinema in the 21st Century
- 6 Dance and Futurism in Italian Silent Cinema
- 7 Futurism and cinema in the 1910s: A Reinterpretation Starting from McLuhan
- 8 The Human in the Fetish of the Human: Cuteness in Futurist Cinema, Literature, and Visual Arts
- Section 2 Daily Filmed Exercises Designed To Free Us From Logic
- 9 Yambo on the moon of Verne and Méliès: From La Colonia Lunare to UN MATRIMONIO INTERPLANETARIO
- 10 An Avant-Garde Heritage: VITA FUTURISTA
- 11 Thaïs: A Different Challenge to the Stars
- 12 VELOCITÀ, a Screenplay by F.T. Marinetti: From Futurist Simultaneity to Live Streaming Media
- 13 Velocità/Vitesse: Filmed Dramas of Objects and ‘avant-garde integrale’
- 14 From Science to the Marvellous: The Illusion of Movement, Between Chronophotography and Contemporary Cinema
- Section 3 Shop Windows Of Filmed Ideas, Events, Types, Objects
- Chronology: Fernando Maramai
- Filmography
- Index
- Film Culture in Transition
Summary
Abstract
This chapter discusses Thaïs (1916) by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, a film that is remarkable as the only fairly well-preserved full-length Futurist film. This analysis focuses on: 1) the use of the literary myth of Thaïs in the film and the D’Annunzian figure of the femme fatale, which I see as a manifestation of a kind of ‘return of the repressed’; 2) the metacinematic character of the film related to the Futurist vision of technology; 3) the link between the apparently dated themes of the film (such as its decadent and symbolist imagery) and the historic present of the ‘technological’ war in 1916.
The methodology used for my analysis combines different approaches in film history, literary criticism, gender studies, and studies on spectatorship.
Keywords: Thaïs, D’Annunzio, Bragaglia Metacinema
Futurist ideas yielded innovative insights into the meaning of technology in relation to art, foreshadowing new possible forms and visual strategies for the art of film-making. The Futurists were among the first avant-garde artists to recognize a regime of the spectacle and of the image in modernity, though theirs was definitely an anti-naturalistic approach. Futurist imagery involved the discovery of new ways of watching and looking. Indeed, Futurism’s obsession with speed and movement made the moving image of film seem like the ideal Futurist medium. The Futurist myth of the machine, which allows speed, fast movement, and visual reproduction, is, to be sure, highly relevant to cinema, as is the Futurist idea of the machine as a device that helps to enlarge human experience, both in terms of expression and in terms of perception. However, despite the strong affinity between Futurism and cinema, very few Futurist films were made; Thaïs (1916), by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, is remarkable in that it is the only fairly well-preserved full-length Futurist film. Reference for this essay is the conserved version of the film available at the La Cinémathèque française, which is a tinted copy that includes French intertitles.
Bragaglia, who is best known for his theory and practice of photodynamism, wrote the screenplay and filmed Thaïs in collaboration with Riccardo Cassano for the Novissima Film production company; the company was founded by Bragaglia and Emidio De Medio in September 1916.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Futurist CinemaStudies on Italian Avant-garde Film, pp. 163 - 180Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2017