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Artaud and Film

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2021

Alain Virmaux
Translated by
Simone Sanzenbach
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Extract

Since his death eighteen years ago, Artaud's fame has steadily increased. Everyone claims him as predecessor; literary magazines and theatre programs propagate his name; he is quoted as having said things which he never said and he is used as a front for the worst eccentricities. After the Rimbaud myth we have the Artaud myth; to expose the hoax we need a new Etiemble.

In the meantime, Gallimard's careful publication of Artaud's complete works puts into our hands an objective tool to evaluate texts which have been distorted by faddism. The six volumes published so far have already set straight a number of wrong judgments. Volume III revealed Artaud's creativity in cinema; until then, film historians knew Artaud only as an actor. They barely mentioned the one film he had directly inspired, The Shell and the Clergyman [see p. 173], and dismissed it as unimportant.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tulane Drama Review , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Fall 1966 , pp. 154 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © The Drama Review 1966

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References

1 Sadoul, Georges, “Memories of a Witness,” Surréalisme et Cinéma (Témoignages, 1965).Google Scholar

2 Artaud, , “Motion Pictures and Witchcraft,” Complete Works, Volume III (Gallimard, 1961), pp. 79-81.Google Scholar This issue of TDR, pp. 178-180, has a translation of the full text.

3 “Cinema & Reality,” Complete Works, Volume III, p. 21.

4 Cinema and Abstraction,” Complete Works, Volume III, p. 75. Also, this issue of TDR, p. 173.

5 Hort, Jean, Antonin Artaud, The Suicide of Society (Genève: Connaitre, 1960), p. 11.Google Scholar

6 Letter to Jouvet, May 20, 1932, Complete Works, Volume II, p. 302.

7 Kyrou, Ado, Surrealism in the Film (Paris: Terrain Vague, 1963), pp. 183, 184, 186, 191.Google Scholar

8 Paule Thévenin, “1896-1948” Cahiers Renaud-Barrault (May 1958, special issue on Artaud), p. 29.

9 Letter to Jean Paulhan, August 29, 1927.

10 In “Motion Pictures and the Abstract.”

11 In “Cinema & Reality.”

12 An unpublished first draft by Artaud or his friends the Allendys refers to a note by Dulac in Comoedia, dated November 5, 1927, and attacks her because she had printed on the credits of the film, “Dream of Antonin Artaud, Visual Composition by Germaine Dulac.” Artaud, having protested by letters to the press, published his script in the NRF to prove that the composition of the images was his. Madame Dulac conceded and had the usual formula printed: “Script by Antonin Artaud, Production by Germaine Dulac.”

13 First draft of an article by Yvonne Allendy, probably written in collaboration with Artaud: “Madame Dulac has worked alone in the studio, without any suggestion from the author. Moreover, she systematically and repeatedly refused to let the author be present during the cutting of the film. The cutting is a very important part of the work, and if the script writer had been present several bad mistakes would have been avoided, such as: the kiosks which become nightgowns; the line which becomes a string, the repetition of the story of the key in the halls, etc. The meaning of these images has been changed and their value is now purely technical and of no interest.”

14 Brunius, Jacques B., On the Fringe of the French Cinema (Arcanes, 1954), p. 138.Google Scholar

15 “Distinction between avant garde of meaning and avant garde of form,” Complete Works, Volume III, p. 83.

16 The Shell and the Clergyman, Complete Works, pp. 24-29. This issue of TDR, pp. 173-178.

17 Kyrou.

18 The Shell, TDR, p. 177.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 A technique found in Jean Vigo's Talking about Nice (1930).

22 Letter to Yvonne Allendy “around November 1929.” Complete Works, Volume III, p. 180.

23 Letter to Jean Paulhan, January 22, 1932. Complete Works, Volume III, pp. 270-271.

24 The Eighteen Seconds (Les Cahiers de la Pléiade, Spring, 1949, and Complete Works, Volume III, pp. 11-15). Also, this issue of TDR, pp. 167-170.

25 Letter to Yvonne Allendy, March 21, 1929. Complete Works, Volume III, pp. 150.

26 Thévenin.

27 Thévenin.

28 Kyrou.

29 Letter to Jean Paulhan, March 23, 1930. Complete Works, Volume III, p. 186.

30 The Revolt of the Butcher, Collected Works, Volume III, pp. 46-52. Also, this issue of TDR, pp. 180-184.

31 The Revolt, TDR, p. 182.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Two Nations at the Outer Edge of Mongolia, Collected Works, Volume III, pp. 16-20. Also, this issue of TDR, pp. 170-172.

37 “To produce a talking film now or ever, would seem to me a bad deed…. The talking cinema is a silly thing and an absurdity”—from a letter to Yvonne Allendy, March 26, 1929, Collected Works, Volume III, p. 151. Artaud delivered a lecture on the same subject at the Studio 28 (quoted by Boisyvon, “Is the Talking Cinema a Monster?” in L'Intransigeant, June 30, 1929).

38 “Project for the establishment of a company devoted to the production of movies which would cover their expenses surely and quickly” (no date), Collected Works, Volume III, pp. 85-91.

39 Collected Works, Volume III, pp. 85-91.

40 Letter to Yvonne Allendy, April 10, 1929.

41 Letter to Yvonne Allendy, April 19, 1929. Collected Works, Volume III, pp. 163-164.

42 Artaud had hoped to convince a few producers that it would be financially profitable to produce low-budget movies using newcomers as collaborators (see note 38). The Nouvelle Vague of 1960 seems to have realized this dream.

43 Letter to Jouvet, September 17, 1931. Complete Works, Volume III, p. 308.

44 Thévenin.

45 Nightletter to Jean Paulhan, October 16, 1934. Complete Works, Volume III, p. 308.

46 Questions and Answers (no date). Collected Works, Volume III, p. 74. Also, this issue of TDR, pp. 166-167.

47 André Breton, “As in a forest,” l'Age du Cinéma, August-November 1951, pp. 26-30.

48 “The Early Senility of Film,” Complete Works, pp. 95-99. Also, this issue of TDR, pp. 184-185.

49 On February 25, 1948—he died on March 4—Artaud was still writing: “From now on I shall devote all my time to the theatre.” Thévenin.

50 Thévenin.

51 “All the means of expression which belong specifically to the theatre have finally given way to the text, which has taken precedence over the action. The final result is that one person reciting a soliloquy in front of a backdrop is now considered a theatrical production.” (Draft of a letter to René Daumal, July 14, 1931, Complete Works, p. 215.)

52 The Spurt of Blood is a short play which ends The Umbilicus of Limbo. Complete Works.Volume I, pp. 74-81. English translation in T22, pp. 38-41.