{"id":727,"date":"2012-01-10T09:30:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T08:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philippelanglois.net\/lcd\/?p=727"},"modified":"2022-11-04T02:21:23","modified_gmt":"2022-11-04T01:21:23","slug":"symphonie-mecanique-de-jean-mitry-1955","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philippelanglois.net\/lcd\/en\/symphonie-mecanique-de-jean-mitry-1955\/","title":{"rendered":"SYMPHONIE MECANIQUE de Jean Mitry (1955)"},"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,<\/em> <\/a>\u00e9ditions mf, Paris, first quarter 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 1952 to 1956, the filmmaker and film theorist Jean Mitry frequented Pierre Schaeffer\u2019s studios. Beyond his own theoretical research, Jean Mitry seeks, as previously with his film Pacific 231 (1949) \u2013 built on Arthur Honegger\u2019s score \u2013 to recover the spirit of the avant-garde cinema of the 1920s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean Mitry\u2019s statement of intent for the film also highlights the rhythms of contemporary industrial life, transposing the rhythm of machines into a \u201clyrical poem\u201d. The conjunction of movement and sonorities must transcend reality. In this sense, he also joins the idea of the city symphony, of which he is one of the admirers. The music is based on the rhythm of a shot breakdown that accords precisely with the conditions of a jerky, violently cadenced and measured mechanical rhythm. The scenario of the film, that is to say this breakdown, provides for the relative duration of each shot, together with the machines\u2019 own movement and cadence; it supplies, in a way, a first rhythmic, if not musical, structure for the whole. Pierre Boulez thus created the substance and musical organisation of his work from this preestablished form, conforming to it as closely as possible. After which, the construction and editing of the film fall into place of themselves within the definitive musical datum, with the final editing adjusted to the musical articulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cin this cinematographic essay in CinemaScope\u00a0(\u2026) equivalences between Pierre Boulez\u2019s serial music and the images of machines in motion\u201d are established. In place of CinemaScope, Mitry opts for a triple-screen projection system, in the manner of Abel Gance, whose decisive influence is once again felt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n