Cinema
Entr'acte
René Clair · 1924
Synopsis
With no plot, the film strings together absurd images: Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray play chess on a Paris rooftop, a ballerina dances on a glass pane filmed from below, a hunter is shot down. His funeral turns into farce: the hearse, drawn by a camel, breaks loose and careers down a slope, pursued across the city by an ever more disorderly procession.
Context
The film was shot to be screened as a prologue and during the interval of Relâche, a ballet by Francis Picabia created by Rolf de Maré's Ballets suédois at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 4 December 1924. Erik Satie composed the music. Picabia and Satie appear in it themselves, alongside the dancer Jean Börlin. It has been described as the only purely Dada film in the history of cinema.
Who it is for
A silent short film of some twenty minutes, with no story, made to accompany a ballet; it is best watched with Satie's music.
Prizes and reception
Shown at Cannes in 1974; restored in 4K in 2018, it was released by Pathé with two other films by René Clair.
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