A Cinema of the Mind: A Dança dos Paroxismos (1929) and the First French Avant-Garde
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14591/aniki.v8n1.732Keywords:
First French Avant-Garde, Jorge Brum do Canto, Narrative, Portuguese Cinema, Visual EssayAbstract
This article proposes a meditation on Jorge Brum do Canto’s A Dança dos Paroxismos (1929), drawing on several clues that are disclosed in the opening credits: the film’s presentation as a “visual essay” and as a “Portuguese film”, as well as the fact that it is dedicated to director Marcel L’Herbier. Framing the film in light of some of the defining features of the First French Avant-Garde, to which L’Herbier is traditionally associated, the article identifies and discusses the aesthetic and conceptual project that Brum do Canto develops in his film. This reflection is motivated by a specific diegetic detail that raises important theoretical questions: the whole film depicts the hallucinations of a man who is about to die. Closely analyzing A Dança dos Paroxismos, I argue that this film — which is one of the first “oneiric films” in the history of cinema — may indeed be understood as a complex “visual essay” on the First French Avant-Garde.
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