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Anemic Cinema
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Wikipedia article
'Anemic Cinema' or 'Anmic Cinma' is a 1926 Dada/surrealist experimental film by Marcel Duchamp (credited to his alter ego, Rrose Slavy), made in collaboration with Man Ray and Marc Allgret.
The seven-minute film is composed of alternating static camera shots of spinning animated drawings disks which Duchamp called 'Rotoreliefs' inscribed with puns and alliterations in French. The text, which spirals in a counterclockwise motion, suggests erotic scenarios and the words, if read aloud, produce repetitive patterns of sounds that lead to scatological or obscene associations in reference to pulsating human sexual activity.Affron, Mathew. 'The Essential Duchamp', Yale University Press (2018), p. 85 To make 'Anmic Cinma', Duchamp filmed painted designs he made on flat cardboard circles while they spun on a phonograph turntable. When spinning, the flat disks appeared three-dimensional.
The film premiered in a private screening in Paris in August 1926 and was acquired by MoMA in 1938, the first Duchamp work to enter a museum.
Duchamp had a commercial printer run off 500 sets of six of the designs and set up a booth at a 1935 Paris inventors' show to sell them. The venture was a financial disaster, but some optical scientists thought they might be of use in restoring three-dimensional sight to people with one eye.Calvin Tomkins, 'Duchamp: A Biography' (1996), pages 301303.
History
Duchamp first showed 'Anemic Cinema' at a private screening for friends in Paris on August 30, 1926. He brought the film on a trip to New York later that year, where he held another private screening at the Fifth Avenue Playhouse on December 22, 1926, and another at Miles Studio in early 1927.
Artist Hans Richter acquired a print of the film and gave it its public debut in 1929, screening it at the 'Film und Foto' exhibition in Stuttgart. New York art dealer Julien Levy obtained another print and screened it at his gallery in 1936 and 1937. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) acquired a print from Duchamp in 1938; this was the first of Duchamp's works to enter a museum collection.
The film gained recognition in the 1930s and 1940s as Richter's copy circulated to film clubs in Europe, and MoMA's copy was lent to museums and universities around North America.
Rotoreliefs texts
*"Bains de gros th pour grains de beaut sans trop de bengu." (Bengay was invented in France by Dr. Jules Bengu)
*"L'enfant qui tte est un souffleur de chair chaude et n'aime pas le chou-fleur de serre-chaude."
*"Si je te donne un sou, me donneras-tu une paire de ciseaux?"
*"On demande des moustiques domestiques (demi-stock) pour la cure d'azote sur la Cte d'Azur."
*"Inceste ou passion de famille, coups trop tirs."
*"Esquivons les ecchymoses des Esquimaux aux mots exquis."
*"Avez-vous dj mis la molle de l'pe dans le pole de l'aime?"
*"Parmi nos articles de quincaillerie paresseuse, nous recommandons le robinet qui s'arrte de couler quand on ne l'coute pas."
*"L'aspirant habite Javel et moi j'avais l'habite en spirale."
See also
* '8 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements'
Notes and references
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