Leonardo

The Avant-Garde Cinema of the 1920s: Connections to Futurism, Precisionism, and

Suprematism
Author(s): Martin F. Norden
Source: Leonardo, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1984), pp. 108-112
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574999 .
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Leonardo,Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 108-112, 1984. 0024-094X/84$3.00+ 0.00
Printedin GreatBritain. PergamonPressLtd.

THE AVANT-GARDECINEMAOF THE 1920s:

CONNECTIONS TO FUTURISM, PRECISIONISM,AND
SUPREMATISM
Martin F. Norden*
Abstract-Three of Cubism's derivatives-Futurism, Precisionism, Suprematism-played important roles in
shaping the avant-gardecinema of the 1920s. Overshadowedby Dada and Surrealism, however, these Cubist-
rootedmovementshave rarelybeendiscussedfromthisperspective.In thisarticle, the varied,modernisticqualities
and concerns of Futurism, Precisionism and Suprematism are discussed and their likely influences on the
developmentof the avant-gardecinema are examined.

Though many fruitful studies have examined avant-garde and dynamism. While the Cubists wished to show static objects
cinema's historical relationships to Dada and Surrealism [1], from multiple viewpoints simultaneously [3], the Futurists
few have considered the links between this special film form and wanted to show stages of action concurrently, an effect that may
lesser-known expressive movements of the early twentieth also be achieved through multiple-exposure photography.
century. We may trace this neglect to the fact that many of these Coupled with the desire to depict movement, particularly
movements are derivatives of (and are often overshadowed by) violent movement, was the Futurists' keen interest in the
Cubism, which at first appears only tenuously connected with excitement and turbulence of modern urban life and the
film. Indeed, one may argue with authority that few films,
avant-garde or otherwise, bear any significant resemblance
either to the typically static Cubist subjects-portraits, still lifes,
landscapes-or to their semi-abstract treatment, such as in the
classic works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Yet we have
ignored for too long the influences of Cubism's related
'isms'-Futurism, Precisionism, Suprematism-on avant-garde
cinema. These influences are as pervasive as those exerted by
Dada and Surrealism. The film medium has been well-suited to
representingnot only the whimsical anarchy of the Dadaists and
the altered-consciousness states of the Surrealists but also the
modernistic concerns of a variety of Cubist progeny.

'THE BEAUTY OF SPEED': FUTURISM

The birth of Futurism was loudly announced in the 22
February 1909 edition of the French newspaper Le Figaro,
which published a Futurist manifesto penned by the Italian poet
Filippo T. Marinetti and endorsed by several Italian painters,
including Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini and Giacomo
Balla. Part of the proclamation read: "We will sing the love of
danger, the habit of energy and boldness ... We will extol
aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double-quick step,
the somersault, the box on the ear, fisticuffs. We will declare that
the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new
beauty-the beauty of speed. A racing motor-car, its frame
adorned with great pipes like snakes with explosive breath-a
roaring motor-car that seems to run on shrapnel is more
beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace." A follow-up
manifesto issued by the painters themselves dealt more directly
with their proposed techniques, as this excerpt indicates:
"Objects in movement multiply themselves endlessly and
become distorted as they overflow each other like vibrations
launched into space and weaving through it. Thus a trotting
horse has not four legs but twenty and their movements are
triangular" [2]. In short, the Futurists shared with the Cubists a
similar concern for the fragmentation and recombination of
objects, but Futurists were more interested in movement, speed Fig. 1. 'Ballet m.canique' (1 923-France). Funnels, crockery and gelatin
molds are among the everydayobjects thatFernandLiger broughtto life in
his early Futurist film, 'Ballet m&anique'. He occasionally used a
*Teacher,Departmentof CommunicationStudies, Universityof prismatic lens to renderfragmented views of these objects, as seen in these
Massachusetts,Amherst,MA 01003, U.S.A. (Received11 November segmentsfrom thefilm. (Photo courtesy the Museumof ModernArt/Film
1982) Stills Archive.)

108
 The Avant-Garde Cinema of the 1920s 109

dynamics of machinery. There is little question that Futurism
reflected the 'Machine Age' brought about by the tremendous
strides in science and technology from the mid-nineteenth
century through the first decades of the twentieth century. The
energized paintings of the Futurists were in direct contrast to the
more sedate Cubist works and may have prefigured the rise of
Fascism.
Numerous films since the 1920s exhibit the influence of
Futurism in their concern with movement, machines and urban
life. One of the earliest and most famous examples is the French
film 'Ballet mecanique' (1923), which was largely the re-
sponsibility of Fernand Leger. Art historians frequently
associate Leger with the Cubists, but his post-World War I
paintings often show a decidedly un-Cubist preoccupation with
machinelike shapes. Perhaps this reflects his World War I
experiences as a member of the French Transport Corps. These
shapes continued in his paintings until his death in 1955. They
played a significant role in his 'Ballet mecanique', a film which,
as art historian Edward Aiken has argued, deserves a Futurist
label instead of the Cubist one commonly ascribed to it [4]. The
consistent themes of the film-"the humanization of objects
and the mechanization of humans", as noted by avant-garde
film critic P. Adams Sitney [5]-are prime Futurist concerns.
The film shows machine parts and kitchen utensils appearing,
through rapid editing, to come to life (see Fig. 1), while the film's
most famous segment-the 'looping' or reiterationof a shot of a
lower-class woman ascending a flight of stairs-underscores the
machinelike, repetitive qualities of working-class lives. Leger
added a conspicuous Cubist touch to his otherwise machine-
oriented film by starting and ending with an animated Cubist
rendition of Charlie Chaplin. Perhaps Chaplin returned the
favor when he included the now-famous segment in his feature-
length film 'Modern Times' (1936), in which his 'Little Tramp'
character is pulled by a conveyor belt into a huge machine
assembly and is twisted around various cogs and gears.
Other filmmakers recognized the suitability of their medium
to the presentation of moving machine parts and incorporated
aspects of Futurism into many of their works. For example,
Marcel L'Herbier's 'L'Inhumaine' (1923) not only has rapidly
edited shots of a car's engine and wheels but also extravagant
Futurist sets designed by Leger and Alberto Cavalcanti. Fritz
Lang's 'Metropolis' (1927) is replete with machine motifs, from
its opening montage of hyperkinetic machine parts to the
creation of a female robot who leads the working class in a
revolt. With these motifs and its portrayal of workers as
machinelike automatons (they even move about mechanically),
'Metropolis' unmistakably bears the mark of Futurism.
Two bodies of film in particular reflect Futurism's twin
themes of machinery and fast-paced city life, the 'City
Symphonies' and the works of the Russian filmmaker Dziga
Vertov. The City Symphonies depicted the daily rhythms of
large industrial cities in pre-Depression Europe. Walter
Ruttmann's 'Berlin: Symphony of a Big City' (1927), the most
famous of the symphony genre, particularly embodies Futurist

Fig. 2. 'The Man with the Movie Camera/Chelovek s Kinoapparatom'(1929-U.S.S.R.). Influencedby the Futuristmovement,Dziga Vertovsang the
praises of the machinein hisfilms. He was particularlyinterestedin demonstratingthe supremacyof the mechanicalcamera eye, such as its ability to 'see'
two subjects simultaneously via superimposition.As suggested in this viewfrom 'The Man With the Movie Camera', Vertovwas also concerned with
comparing the dynamic qualities of machines with the spirit of the humansthat operated them. (Photo courtesy the Museumof ModernArt/Film Stills
Archive.)
110 Martin F. Norden

concerns. In addition to showing the hectic pace of a typical 'day
in the life' of Berlin (accomplished in part through fast editing,
shots of busy streets often filmed from moving vehicles, and
shots of hyperactive businessmen), 'Berlin' contains close-ups of
machine parts (particularlythose of telephones and typewriters),
which are occasionally presented in a multi-image,kaleidoscopic
fashion. Another city symphony, 'Rien que les heures' (1926),
focuses on the dawn-to-dusk activity of Paris. Directed by
Alberto Cavalcanti, the Brazilianemigre who also helped design
the Futurist settings for 'L'Inhumaine', the film reflects
concerns similar to those of 'Berlin'.
The films of Dziga Vertoz also exhibit Futurist-inspired
concepts. Futurism had reached Russia by the mid- 191Os,where
a teen-aged Vertov, already developing a heady interest in
technology, found himself coming under its spell. He wrote
Futurist poetry and experimented with technological marvels of
the time-first, audio recording;then, motion-picture cameras.
The latter innovation fascinated him, and during the early 1920s
he mixed Futurist and Bolshevik principles and applied them to
film. The result was his 'Kino-Glaz' (Cinema-Eye) theory,
which he put into practice with the production of a film entitled,
appropriately enough, 'Kino-Glaz' (1924). As cinema historian
Albert Leong noted, the film "incorporated two principles
which were to remain at the center of Vertov's cinema: the
power of technology, hence the superiority of the mechanical
camera-eye to the human eye; and movement, as the very
nature not only of the mechanics of the machine, but of the
whole social and physical universe" [6]. Vertov strongly
developed these and other Futurist principles (such as the classic
analysis-and-synthesis pattern developed by the Cubists and the
Futurists, and masterfully realized by Vertov through rapid
editing) in his own city symphony, 'The Man with the Movie
Camera' (1929). Ostensibly about Moscow, 'Man' is more
significantly a film about the nature of film. Vertov employed
split screens, slow motion, fast motion, freeze frames, super-
impositions and unusual camera angles in 'Man' to show that
the camera eye could see things differently (and, by implication,
better) than the human eye (see Fig. 2). A mechanical
subject-the camera itself-becomes the star of the film as it
explores buildings, trains, steel girders and printing presses with
dazzling virtuosity. The camera literally takes a bow via
animation on its tripod before an appreciative audience at the
film's end.
THE CITY AS SILENT MONUMENT: PRECISIONISM
A second scion of Cubism, one which shared Futurism's
interest in the urban environment but offered completely
different interpretations, is Precisionism. Precisionism was
primarily an American movement, and its practitioners were a
small group of modernists in the 1920s and '30s who depicted
architectural landscapes through strong, sharp geometrical
figures. The major concern of the Precisionists was the
presentation of city buildings in a pristine, personless, timeless

Fig. 3. 'Manhatta'(1921-U.S.A.). Manhattanskyscrapers loom behindthe BrooklynBridge in CharlesSheeler and Paul Strand's 'Manhatta'. Withthe
silent, impersonalurban landscapeas its mainfocus, thefilm bears striking similarities to the paintings of Sheeler and other Precisionist artists. (Photo
courtesy the Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive.)
The Avant-Garde Cinema of the 1920s 11
and passionless way. In place of the dynamism of city life
depicted in Futurist paintings and films, the Precisionists
offered the opposite: mammoth urban structures devoid of
human activity, standing in mute testament to the hardness and
coldness of modern life. The most prominent Precisionists were
Charles Sheeler, who painted 'Church Street El' (1930) and
'Classic Landscape' (1931), and Charles Demuth, who painted
'Modern Conveniences' (1921) and 'Business' (1921).
A number of avant-garde films manifest Precisionism's
objective and impersonal approach to big-city buildings. One
obvious example is a film entitled 'Manhatta' (1921), on which
Sheeler himself worked along with Paul Strand. Film historian
David Curtis has called this the first American avant-garde film
ever made [7]. Lines of a Walt Whitman poem about New York
are juxtaposed with beautifully composed but static shots of
Manhattan buildings. As with the classic Precisionist paintings,
'Manhatta' shows no human beings; it is instead a photographic
essay of geometric patterns formed by buildings (see Fig. 3).
Another film bearing a Precisionist influence is Robert
Flaherty's '24 Dollar Island' (1925). This film also eschews
human subjects and focuses on various architectural details of
Manhattan structures. In this film Flaherty used the telephoto
lens to flatten detail-another characteristic found also in
Precisionist painting.
The City Symphonies, which have so far been discussed
primarily in Futurist terms, owe a debt to Precisionism as well.
The early-morning sequence of 'Berlin' serves well as a case in
point, since much of it consists of static shots of buildings and no
human activity. These scenes represent the city while it sleeps
and are a prelude to the furious activity of a typical day in Berlin.
Viewed as a unit, they also represent a 'photographic essay' of
city buildings that is quite beautiful and clearly modeled after
the Precisionist approach to the urban landscapes.
A more recent film that might well be regarded as cinematic
Precisionism taken to its limit is Andy Warhol's 'Empire'
(1964). This unique film, which owes as much to Minimalism as
to Precisionism, is a single, static, eight-hour run of the camera,
featuring the Empire State Building in long shot. Unlike
Precisionist paintings and the films discussed above, the subject
of 'Empire' is shown in the context of time; the sky darkens
eventually, lights come on in the building, etc. Otherwise, the
film is a veritable homage to the Precisionist movement and
demonstrates, if nothing else, the intolerableness of real time in
film.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS THAT WERE: SUPREMATISM

Suprematism, the third and final derivative of Cubism studied
here, stands chronologically between Futurism and Precisionism
but is more abstract than either. The movement was founded in
1913 by Kasimir Malevich, a Russian who from 1910 to 1913
created paintings that were generally Cubist in nature. They
were similar to Leger's with respect to form and color, but they
did not demonstrate an interest in machine shapes. In 1913
Malevich abandoned the Cubist semi-abstract technique in
favor of an approach that eliminated all reference to emotion
and objective reality. He became interested in pure geometry,
and his earliest Suprematist works consisted entirely of black
squares or circles on white backgrounds. He took this to its limit
in 1918 with a composition entitled 'White on White', made up

Fig. 4. 'Rhythmus21' (1921-Germany). Thesefive frame enlargements

from Hans Richter's 'Rhythmus 21' illustrate the artist's preoccupation
with animatingpure geometric shapes. Theo van Doesburg, a majorforce
in GeometricAbstractionism,admiredthefilm so much that he arranged
for its showingat the TheaitreMichelin Paris. See D. Curtis, Experimental
Cinema (New York: Dell, 1971) p. 34; and S. D. Lawder, The Cubist
Cinema (New York:New York UniversityPress, 1975)pp. 47-49. (Photo
courtesy the Museum of ModernArt/Film Stills Archive.)
112 Martin F. Norden
of a white square on a white background. His later works
showed various configurations of basic'geometricforms such as
circles, squares and rectangles, some in color.
It may be tempting to write off Malevich and his one-man
movement as an aberration. But Malevich and other practi-
tioners of Geometric Abstractionism (of which Suprematism is
sometimes considered a form), such as Dutch artists Piet
Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg, have influenced other
artists and other media. For example, their works have
influenced newspaper and magazine layout and design.
Cinema also shows the mark of Suprematism, although here
Suprematism's influence pales in comparison to that exerted by
the movements already discussed. Malevich himself further
obscured Suprematism's influence on film by railing against the
photographic and naturalistic limitations of film [8]. Although
Malevich viewed film as a limited means for artistic expression,
others who followed his lead in exploring geometric shapes were
not nearly so shortsighted. Indeed, a number of the earliest
avant-garde films reflect a similar interest in the geometric
purity of Suprematism, most notably the so-termed 'absolute'
films of German artist Hans Richter. In particular, films from
his Rhythmus series-'Rhythmus 21' (1921), 'Rhythmus 23'
(1923), and the no longer extant 'Rhythmus 25' (1925)-bear
striking similarities to Malevich's earliest efforts. 'Rhythmus
21', for example, consists of squares and rectangles moving via
animation against a neutral background. In tonal values, there
is one obvious difference. The earliest Suprematistpaintings are
of black geometric shapes on a white background, while
'Rhythmus 21' is just the opposite. While much attention has
been given to the relationship of rhythm and music to Richter's
films [9], one can hardly overlook the resemblances between
these films and Suprematist paintings (see Fig. 4).
The colorful geometric films of Oskar Fischinger are also
related to Suprematism. Fischinger's experimentation with
animated geometric figures in Germany in the early 1920s
eventually led to films such as 'Kreise' (1933), 'Allegretto'
(1936), 'An Optical Poem' (1937), and 'Radio Dynamics' (1941).
These works exhibit pure geometric shapes as their prime
concern, which Fischinger usually presented in vivid color,
synchronized to big-band jazz or classical music.
This overview was intended to shed light on prominent
derivatives of Cubism and their influences on a wide range of
avant-garde filmmakers. The question arises of how far to
consider the influence of one movement or person on another. If
taken far enough, such speculation could lead to all sorts of
theoretical permutations. For example, one could argue that
Precisionism, the last of the three derivative movements to
appear, is actually a hybrid of Futurism and Suprematism(and
thus another generation removed from Cubism) if one takes the
position that Precisionism fuses the 'city' element of Futurism
with the sterile geometry of Suprematism. Regardless of what
further speculation suggests, the offshoots of Cubism, along
with Dada and Surrealism, have clearly played major roles in
shaping the avant-garde cinema of the 1920s and beyond. The
contributions of Futurism, Suprematism and Precisionism to
the growth of avant-gardecinema should not be underestimated.
REFERENCES AND NOTES
1. For example, see D. Curtis, ExperimentalCinema(New York: Dell,
1971) pp. 21-34; M. LeGrice, AbstractFilm andBeyond(Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1977) pp. 32-36; P. A. Sitney, VisionaryFilm: The
American Avant-Garde, 1943-1978, 2nd Ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1979) pp. 3-92.
2. Portions of these manifestos are reproduced in S. Newmeyer,
EnjoyingModernArt (New York: New American Library, 1955) pp.
149-150.
3. An often-overlooked conceptual link between Cubism and film in
general is that both present objects from multiple viewpoints:
concurrently in Cubist art and consecutively (via editing) in film.
4. E. A. Aiken, 'Leger's Ballet mecanique and Futurism', paper
presented to the Society for Cinema Studies, Philadelphia, PA,
March 1978.
5. Audio Brandon Films, 16mmInternationalCinema Catalog (Mount
Vernon, NY: Audio Brandon Films, 1978) p. 526.
6. Audio Brandon Films catalog, p. 486.
7. Curtis [1] p. 51.
8. S. Eisenstein, Film Form: Essays in Film Theory, ed. and trans. Jay
Leyda (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949) p. 79 (editor's
note).
9. For example, see S. D. Lawder, The CubistCinema(New York:New
York University Press, 1975). pp. 49-52, 172;Curtis, p. 34; LeGrice,
p. 26.