CINÉMA DADA

This DVD is published to coincide with the Pompidou Centre's major Dada exhibition which travelled to the National Gallery, Washington D.C. and The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2006. The disc presents the eight films cited by Hans Richter in his famous text Dada und Film (1961). In his portrait of Dadaist cinema Richter saw these films as unified by their deconstruction of the subject, or as he put it “the hunting of the subject.”

“I give chance a chance as I do in painting, as I do in film. That was the main credo of Dada: the discovery of chance as a possibility of expression. […] I suddenly found that everything was permitted. You could go anywhere with any material. You should not hold back. Your whole unconscious, your whole belief should sputter out, should come out. It was really trying to find a new form of expression.”

– Hans Richter, Camera Three: Give Chance A Chance, 1973

“The cinematographic universe of Dada is a crossroads of iconographic subversion and abstraction, formal geometry and corporeal eroticism, bathed in a general indifference to 'making sense' – unless it is making sense of its own deconstruction.”

– Philippe-Alain Michaud, Film Curator, Centre Pompidou

  Contents

Format: DVD-PAL / Region 0
(No Regional Code)

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RHYTHMUS 21
(Germany, 1921-24)

Director: Hans Richter

• 3 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Silent

◊

SYMPHONIE DIAGONALE
(Germany, 1924) 

Director: Viking Eggeling

• 5 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Silent

◊

LE RETOUR À LA RAISON
(France, 1923) 

Director: Man Ray

• 3 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Silent

◊

ENTR’ACTE
(France, 1924) 

Director: René Clair & Francis Picabia
Music: Erik Satie

• 20 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Sound

◊

LE BALLET MÉCANIQUE
(France, 1924) 

Director: Fernand Léger & Dudley Murphy
Music: George Antheil

• 13 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Sound

◊

FILMSTUDIE
(Germany, 1926) 

Director: Hans Richter
Music: uncredited

• 4 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Sound

◊

EMAK-BAKIA
(France, 1926) 

Director: Man Ray
Music: uncredited

• 20 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Sound

◊

GHOSTS BEFORE BREAKFAST (VORMITTAGSSPUK) 
(Germany, 1927) 

Director: Hans Richter
Music: uncredited

• 6 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Sound

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Total Running Time: 01:14:00

Language: English & French intertitles

Booklet Text: Philippe-Alain Michaud & Hans Richter (Bilingual French & English)

Published By: Re: Voir Video

Institutional Price: $250 (plus shipping)

To order call: 212.280.8654 or click here for information on ordering by fax, e-mail or post.