Emak-Bakia, ( the title comes from an old Basque expression that means don't bother me), subtitled a cinépoéme, features many filming techniques used by Man Ray, including rayographs, double exposures, soft focus and ambiguous features. The film features sculptures by Pablo Picasso and some of Man Ray's mathematical objects both still and animated using a stop motion technique.
It was, originally, a silent film (note: the first screening was with a phonograph recording of a popular jazz tune, along with a live pianist and violinist who took over with tangos when the records were changed) but recent copies have been dubbed using music taken from Man Ray's personal record collection of the time. The musical reconstruction was by Jacques Guillot.
This short film involves a series of illusive, unrecognizable monochrome images juxtaposed with more naturalistic scenes. A light board appears from time to time carrying the news of the day. Then, an eye. A woman in a car drives along country roads. Farm animals. She descends from the car, again and again (the shot is repeated three times, the fourth time it fades and is replaced by a stepped superimposition of all four shots and as the film progresses the car theme becomes dominant). Images: dancing legs, seashore, swimming fish, geometric shapes, cut glass. A man removes his starched collar. It rotates. A girl has garishly painted eyes. No, she's only fooling. Those were her eyelids.
Individual images are striking for their humor and originality but Ray still apparently felt it necessary to impose a conventionally readable theme -the car ride -to hold the film together.
Some consider this a much less concise version of Le Retour de la raison. But here Ray is going for a surrealist approach, which doesn't work in a few important ways because this short film isn't abstract. Man Ray uses more concrete parts that fit with the more abstract things. There's also a huge disjunct between the fractured narrative and the exploration of spinning, warped lights and patterns.
I agree that this short film is in part a continuation of the technique introduced in Le Retour à la raison in that it, too, includes a series of rayographs. But this film, however, is more sophisticated in a technical sense than the first, employing rapid cutting, superimposition and slow motion to create a far more complex, though equally abstract film. In addition, Ray also incorporates a great deal more play with light in the film, even inserting non-objective reflections into the body of the film. In addition to these purely abstract images, Ray interposes realistic images of daily objects, people and landscapes.
The motion graphics elements of the film were achieved with Man Ray’s cadre of filming accessories: deforming mirrors, an electric turntable, an assortment of crystals and some special lamps (Self Portrait, 1963). These optical moments are interwoven with live action fragments that are both dreamy and graphic. The result is a highly visual study of motion, shape and light, that reveals a methodical experimentation with the possibilities of representing such phenomena.
The relationship between dreams and desire is also very interesting. Emak-Bakia has been interpreted, by the cinematography critic, as a woman dreaming about her own intimate desires, transposing her conscious sensual experiences into a chaotic, revolving morass of abstract thoughts. We see both of her worlds in this film: the physical world of corporeal pleasures and the inner world of her mind, which no man can ever hope to interpret.
You can buy Photographs by Man Ray: 105 Works, 1920-1934
and Man Ray (Artists of the 20th Century)
.
It was, originally, a silent film (note: the first screening was with a phonograph recording of a popular jazz tune, along with a live pianist and violinist who took over with tangos when the records were changed) but recent copies have been dubbed using music taken from Man Ray's personal record collection of the time. The musical reconstruction was by Jacques Guillot.
This short film involves a series of illusive, unrecognizable monochrome images juxtaposed with more naturalistic scenes. A light board appears from time to time carrying the news of the day. Then, an eye. A woman in a car drives along country roads. Farm animals. She descends from the car, again and again (the shot is repeated three times, the fourth time it fades and is replaced by a stepped superimposition of all four shots and as the film progresses the car theme becomes dominant). Images: dancing legs, seashore, swimming fish, geometric shapes, cut glass. A man removes his starched collar. It rotates. A girl has garishly painted eyes. No, she's only fooling. Those were her eyelids.
Individual images are striking for their humor and originality but Ray still apparently felt it necessary to impose a conventionally readable theme -the car ride -to hold the film together.
Some consider this a much less concise version of Le Retour de la raison. But here Ray is going for a surrealist approach, which doesn't work in a few important ways because this short film isn't abstract. Man Ray uses more concrete parts that fit with the more abstract things. There's also a huge disjunct between the fractured narrative and the exploration of spinning, warped lights and patterns.
I agree that this short film is in part a continuation of the technique introduced in Le Retour à la raison in that it, too, includes a series of rayographs. But this film, however, is more sophisticated in a technical sense than the first, employing rapid cutting, superimposition and slow motion to create a far more complex, though equally abstract film. In addition, Ray also incorporates a great deal more play with light in the film, even inserting non-objective reflections into the body of the film. In addition to these purely abstract images, Ray interposes realistic images of daily objects, people and landscapes.
The motion graphics elements of the film were achieved with Man Ray’s cadre of filming accessories: deforming mirrors, an electric turntable, an assortment of crystals and some special lamps (Self Portrait, 1963). These optical moments are interwoven with live action fragments that are both dreamy and graphic. The result is a highly visual study of motion, shape and light, that reveals a methodical experimentation with the possibilities of representing such phenomena.
The relationship between dreams and desire is also very interesting. Emak-Bakia has been interpreted, by the cinematography critic, as a woman dreaming about her own intimate desires, transposing her conscious sensual experiences into a chaotic, revolving morass of abstract thoughts. We see both of her worlds in this film: the physical world of corporeal pleasures and the inner world of her mind, which no man can ever hope to interpret.
You can buy Photographs by Man Ray: 105 Works, 1920-1934
and Man Ray (Artists of the 20th Century).
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