Automne

The text and video excerpt below document the book by Philippe Langlois, Les cloches d’Atlantis, musique électroacoustique et cinéma archéologie et histoire d’un art sonore, éditions mf, Paris, first quarter 2012.

This film evokes the season of autumn in a neo-Impressionist cinematic dimension, through the use of natural elements: the surfaces of ponds, soil, tree bark. The author is concerned not with the realistic aspect of these elements but with their relations of form or matter: circles in the water and a cross-section of a tree with the same concentric forms, the bringing together of the surfaces of water and grass. These relations are both brought out and exploited by a systematic use of superimposition. They are complemented by relations of natural movements: tree branches shaken by the wind, birds taking flight and camera movements.

The meeting of images and music in this film creates, by contrast, a higher level of reading, for beyond the beauty of the naturalistic images shown on screen, François-Bernard Mache’s subtle musique concrète establishes a climate and a feeling of unease through the musicalised use of the sounds of trees cracking, recorded at the moment of felling and then looped, against a background of sawmills, crows’ cries, chainsaw, wind, frogs and crushed leaves. More than a simple cinematic poem turned towards the contemplation of nature, the film seems to warn us of the dangers that hang over it because of human activity.

Production: Service de la Recherche de l’ORTF, 1961

Musique concrète: François-Bernard Mache

This information notice was co-produced with INA/GRM for the creation of the multimedia fresco – Artsonores – L’aventure électroacoustique, in the category Films produced by the Service de la Recherche de l’ORTF from 1950 to 1975.