{"id":435,"date":"2011-09-20T00:57:26","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T22:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philippelanglois.net\/lcd\/?p=435"},"modified":"2014-09-03T10:12:34","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T08:12:34","slug":"ballet-mecanique-1924-de-fernand-leger-et-dudley-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philippelanglois.net\/lcd\/en\/ballet-mecanique-1924-de-fernand-leger-et-dudley-murphy\/","title":{"rendered":"BALLET MECANIQUE de Fernand L\u00e9ger et Dudley Murphy (1924)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The text and video excerpt below document the book by Philippe Langlois, Les cloches d\u2019Atlantis, musique \u00e9lectroacoustique et cin\u00e9ma arch\u00e9ologie et histoire d\u2019un art sonore<\/a>,<\/em> \u00e9ditions mf, Paris, first quarter 2012.<\/p>\n

Ballet m\u00e9canique (1924), by Fernand L\u00e9ger and Dudley Murphy, belongs to the Futurist movement. But its artistic filiation does not follow a single path and draws on Cubist, Surrealist, Dadaist and Futurist influences. Ballet m\u00e9canique in fact claims kinship above all with the Cubist tendency through its attempt at cinematic collage. Moreover, this film is regarded by its author himself as the \u201cbest product of Dadaist cinema\u201d. Finally, the music of the film, a veritable \u201cgiant machinery in motion\u201d, combines a truly unheard-of orchestration with a use of noises. George Antheil\u2019s music is conceived to underline the modernity of the film, through the use of a bewildering instrumental ensemble. The sound sources have mechanical and electrical origins: thus one finds an engine and an aeroplane propeller as well as an electric siren. As for the orchestra, it is made up of four player pianos and a chamber orchestra of fifteen percussionists comprising: timpani, Glockenspiel, two xylophones, bells, anvils, etc.<\/p>\n