Emak Bakia
- Man Ray
- Rose Wheeler ( car driver )
- Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Prin )
- Jacques Rigaut
Emak Bakia is a surrealist avant-garde films of the American artist Man Ray. The film premiered in the fall of 1926 in Paris and had the spring of 1927 premiere in New York. Emak Bakia is a Basque term meaning something like: "Give us a break ."
Content
The film begins with a shot of Man Ray behind the camera; the jazz music of Django Reinhardt begins a sequence of rotating sharp and blurred crystalline forms and reflections that morph into a field of flowers, appear dancing pins and gyro as Rayographien, it seems a wandering neon sign, then one eye appears in close-up in transition centered at a pair of car headlights, thus forming a " three-eyed face." Now you can see a strange thin person (Rose Wheeler ) with cap and goggles sitting and drives off in a car. The quick drive leads through a narrow street and turns into a comprised of rows of trees country road; the car is racing suddenly in a flock of sheep varies the camera and stops; the camera perspective is slewing to the running board and different pairs of legs left in delayed transitions the car; so is a rhythmic sequence of close-ups initiated: a woman's pair of legs Charleston dancing and a hand playing this banjo. In the next episode, the camera follows a woman in her boudoir and watching them applying makeup, then the attention is directed to a balcony leaves the woman and finally bends over a cliff to the beach; again followed by a sequence of close-ups: A pair of legs in the sand lying, ocean whitecaps and sun Blitzer in the waves of the surf, then the camera seems to submerge and shadowy fish are visible, playing with their shadow, suddenly you see a rotating figure of cork, then jumps in a short animated sequence of silhouette of a man on a given grid, the camera fades out and the neon sign band reappears and displays the text " night after night in the magic city." Then follows the portrait of a girl with freckles awakening and again follow blurred, rotating around an imaginary axis mirror elements, the subject of the awakening face is taken up twice: once to speak once smiling and serious- looking with a hint. Before the last episode stops the action and it is followed by the insertion of a subtitle with the phrase " justification for this extravagance ." Now the viewer guesses what is happening would be explained in the following real film: A car stops in front of a door and a man (Jacques Rigaut ) increases with a briefcase out of the car and enters the hall; He opens the suitcase and tears the located therein shirt collar that fall on the floor and - turned backward - seem like an angel to float back up and doing to the tune of the waltz " The Merry Widow" dance around each other, then Rigaut tearing his own collar from the neck. The film ends with the face of Kiki de Montparnasse, which has a wrong pair of eyes painted on her eyelids; amused she smiles into the camera and opens her mouth to get the word Finis ( end ) to show that is painted on their teeth.
Background
Man Ray was in the spring of 1926 an offer and a contract of U.S. financial magnate couple Arthur and Rose Wheeler for several film productions. Wheeler Man Ray secured a total sum of U.S. $ 10,000 for the completion of a film within a year. Emak Bakia was first after the short film Retour à la raison (1923 ) Man Ray's big film project. Filming began in May 1926 in Biarritz.
The film was, as the subtitle cinepoeme announced to be a " visual poetry ". Man Ray outlined the film as " a pause for reflection on the current state of cinema [ ... ], Emak Bakia ' is a strip composed of improvisations. These are only focused on limited excerpts of space and different, changing perspective. "
Reception
The former critics ignored the film. The medium of film was at the time not as an art and so remained Emak Bakia outside the New York avant-garde unknown. Only in later years the film was just as Man Ray subsequent productions L' Étoile de mer (1928) and Le Mystères du château de Dés (1929 ) attention and is next to Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's sensational works Chien Andalou (1928) and L' Age d' Or ( the Golden Age ), as a pioneering work of poetic and surrealist experimental film.