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20050324

Mannequins


Mannequins
Originally uploaded by teotwawki.
One of the most intriguing films I've ever seen is Dreams That Money Can Buy (Hans Richter, 1946). It's really a collection of loosely connected films, and includes works by Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Man Ray.

The relevance to the photo is that one segment in particular is so
wonderfully disconcerting that I haven't been able to look at a mannequin in
the same way since. It's called The Girl with the Prefabricated Heart,
directed by Fernand Léger *.

The British Film Institute is one of the few places that sells Dreams That Money Can Buy, but they only have VHS, which is a shame - and being an obscure film, it's expensive, especially for a tape.

Incidentally, I'm experimenting with sending in this entry automatically by email, using Flickr wizardry.

I wrote this around 7pm on Tuesday and timed it to be sent early on Thursday morning. If it appears before then, doesn't arrive, or turns into a mess, I'll fix it on Sunday.


* Monsieur L's name has been corrected in accordance with the respect due him as an artist (and the fact that LX Robotnik pointed out my error...)

2 comments:

(S)wine said...

hate to have to correct you but his name is Fernand Leger, not Ferdinand.

Have you seen his other films?

teotwawki said...

Ah, I know you're right - I've just seen two of his paintings in the The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and realised with some embarrassment that I'd managed to get his name wrong AND miss the accent from his surname. And feel free to correct me anytime, I make no pretence to being right, consistently or otherwise. No, I haven't seen any of his other films, but I would certainly like to - any recommendations?