SELECTED TEXTS
Voice of Evil" (a masterpiece) and "the Voice of Good," and with the theme
of Despair (Suzanne Despres) in Leon Poirier's L'Ombre dechirie (1921}.3
Finally, if measure is the soul of musical rhythm, the effect of force and
intensity is similarly the soul of cinegraphic rhythm. This effect is achieved
through the expressive value of the image with respect to the images that
precede and follow it. In this case, the power of suggestion in rhythm can
be singularly expanded. In a dramatic moment-we know many examples
of this-the rhythm can become jarring and correspond perfectly to a gasp-
ing and irregular breathing, establishing once more the firm relation which
exists between the intensity of organic rhythm and that of artistic rhythm.
• Rene Dumensil (1879-1967) was a historian of music and liceracure, and particularly
expert on Flaubert. The essay Moussinac refers co supposedly appeared in Mercure de France,
bur I have nor been able co locate ic.
'See Emile Vuillermoz, "Devane l'ecran," Le Tempi (4June 1919), 3.
' I.eon Poirier ( 1884-1968) was a Paris cheater director whom Gaumont hired as the ar-
tistic director of his Series Pax (1919-1923) and whose films included Ame.r d'orient (1919),
Narayana (1920), Le Pemeur (1920), L'Ombre dechirie (1921), Jocelyn (1922), Genevieve
(1923), La Briere (1925), La Croiiiere noire (1926), and Verdun, vi1ion1 hiitoire (1928). Suz-
anne Despres also appeared in L'Herbier's Carnaval de.r veritiI (1920).
ROBERT DESNOS, "Dream and Cinema"
From "Le Reve er le cinema," Parii-journal (27 April 1923), reprinted in Desnos, Cinema
(Paris, Gallimard, 1966), 104-5. ©Editions Gallimard 1966.
I for dreaming knowmorefullmarvelous
T's A CINEMA than any other. Those who have a gift
well that no film can equal, in either unforeseen
contingencies or tragedy, that indelible life to which their sleep is conse-
crated. From the desire to dream comes the thirst for and love of the cin-
ema. For lack of the spontaneous adventure which our eyelids let escape on
wakening, we go into the dark cinemas to find artificial dreams and perhaps
the stimulus capable of peopling our empty nights. I would like a film-
maker to fall in love with this idea. On the morning after a nightmare, he
notes down exactly everything that he remembers and reconstructs it in de-
tail. It's not a question here of logic and classical construction, nor of re-
marks to flatter public incomprehension, but of things seen, of a superior
realism, since this opens onto a new domain of poetry and dream. Who has
not recognized the exclusively personal interest of the dream? The sleeper
alone has experienced his wanderings, and his description will always be
sufficient to make his listeners appreciate the terrible or comic interest of
the dream. Poetry has expected everything from film; let's acknowledge
that is hasn't always been disappointed. Often the scenario has been mag-
nificent and the actors wonderful. We've been indebted to them for pro-
PART THREE 1920-1924
found emotions. Yet, while poetry has freed itself from all rules and fetters,
the cinema still remains bound by a rigid and strictly common logic. De-
spite a number of endeavors, the screen still has not given us a chance to
see a scenario unfold emancipated from human laws. Dreams there espe-
cially are perverted; none operate with the incomparable magic that is their
charm. None, that is, when the filmmaker is served only by his memories.
Is the public which is thirsting for such manifestations so restricted?
That should not be so. Here an educational effort might prove interesting.
In any case, it is discouraging to see foolish sums of money swallowed up
for imbecilic popularizations like La Roue and not to have any money at all
available to tempt the desire of those whose freedom of mind is great
enough to allow full license to the filmmaker. The cinema has nothing yet
equivalent in audacity to the Ballets cusses, nothing naturally as free as
Couleurs du temps and Les Mamelles de Tiresias in the theater. 1
I have already said how I deplore the fact that eroticism is prohibited. 2
Imagine then the remarkable effects that we could derive from nudity and
what wonderful works the Marquis de Sade could achieve in the cinema.
Couldn't we therefore establish a private cinema where films that were
too bold for the ordinary public would be screened? 3 In every age, innova-
tors have been hounded by their contemporaries. The painter and the
writer are able to consecrate themselves in obscurity to superior tasks. Can
the cinegraphist ever escape the prison of antiquated ideas? Will the cin-
ema perish for lack of these eccentricities in which I continue to see only
genius?
One of my friends once imagined the existence of someone who would
dedicate his fortune to the maintenance of an experimental laboratory of this
kind. 4 Will we one day encounter this millionaire, in the showy title of a
bacon or steel king, who would favor such a laboratory, all the more envi-
able in my opinion, over "free men"?
ROBERT DESNOS (1900-1945) was a young poet who had just joined the Surrealist group
organized around Andre Breton. His ability to produce poems while actually in or just after
coming out of a dream state was legendary, and his interest in the cinema surpassed even
that of Philippe Soupault and Louis Aragon. Desnos died of typhus at Buchenwald.
' The references are to Henri de Regnier's short story collection, Couleurs du temps (1909),
and Guillaume Apollinaire's play, Les Mamelles de Tiresias, first performed in 1917.
' Robert Desnos, "L'Eroticisme," Paris-journal (20 April 1923), reprinted in Desnos,
Cinema (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), 101-3.
3 Desnos apparently is not referring to the pornographic film programs and cinemas
which seem to have cropped up in Paris within a few years of the Lumiere's first public film
screenings. The idea of a specialized cinema was finally realized by Jean Tedesco when he
opened the Vieux-Colombier, in November 1924.
4 Desnos probably has another Thomas Edison in mind. Marcel L'Herbier's Cinegraphic
company, set up in l 92 2, perhaps came close to fulfilling this idea of an experimental lab-
oratory, for it both operated as a "school" in scenario writing and film production and ac-
SELECTED TEXTS
tually financed several independent films-for example, Carelain's Le Marchand des plaisir
(1923), Delluc's L'/nondation (1924), and Aurant-Lara's shore Fait-Divers (1924).
LOUIS DELLUC, "Prologue"
From "Prologue," Drame.r du cinema (Paris: Editions du monde nouveau, 1923), i-xiv.
T any, becausetherefilmareproducers
HEY SAY no cinegraphic works. Say rather that you don't see
don't want them to be seen at any price.
I have seen some that are remarkable. The scenario competitions spon-
sored by Cinea and Bonsoir, among others, have allowed me to discover sev-
eral excellent ones. Yet no one has wanted to assure their realization. A
dozen times have strangers done me the honor of sending me their manu-
scripts; they had material there for fine French films. I submitted these
ready-to-shoot subjects to nearly all the film companies: they were original,
vivid, lively, interesting, and reading them was a delight; they were even
commercial, as the saying goes; but time is passing and these interesting
works, inexplicably, always cause alarm. I would submit them again just
to see that reaction.
Ac Tu ALLY, the only possible way for you to see your ideas realized is to
have a sizable fortune or bankers intelligent enough to cover your costs.
Neither is impossible, and writers for the movies would be wrong to become
discouraged. Let them dream of being composers whose youthful works are
still being performed when they are fifty. In the cinema, old-timers don't
have the authority that they do in the theater and opera. The cinema is for
young minds. Anything that's not youthful is out of place there.
A work written for the cinema has no resemblance, gentlemen, to the
libretto that a composer enlivens or messes up. Nor to the scenario that the
ballet master or pantomimist embroiders. The cinema drama exists in and
of itself. Let its image-maker cut a line or illustrate it imprecisely, he will
prove himself as foolish as the tragic actors who mutilate the text of their
roles.
In truth, someone who writes a drama for the cinema must direct it him-
self. His intended conception, intelligent and exact, means little in the
hands of imbeciles: I mean the majority of filmmakers. If it comes into the
hands of one of his peers, the latter will adapt himself badly to the rigorous
execution of a work that's not his own: the newcomer will find himself off
target, out in the cold, not measuring up. The result will be unfortunate.
Most authors of cinegraphic dramas hesitate to film their own work. A
brief but bitter experience allows me to declare they are wrong. First, be-
cause there is little chance that their translators understand them. Next, be-
