Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas opens with a series of disguises, image overlays revealing to us Fantomas’ various personas.
Often used by silent filmmakers attempting to conjure the supernatural, they conjure the abstract instead:
“It’s a visual medium”–John Ford
“[Erich von] Stroheim asked me personally to take on the assignment (after the studio removed him from the film), and I did so without any protest on his part…”
– Josef von Sternberg
***
We move from dissolves to hard cuts:
Later in The Wedding March:
Counterpoints:
And beyond:
We call for help, mere seconds later our cries our answered:
“We’ve got a trial ahead of us.”
Time is meaningless: there is no difference between past and present.
Impressionism becomes Expressionism:
But we keep being reborn:
Love exists:
Love unites us all, re-engages us with the world:
We cease being individuals:
And become a collective--
We become a crowd:
None of us are alone:
***
Sources:
- Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913)
- India Matri Bhumi (Roberto Rossellini, 1959)
- Pilgrimage (John Ford, 1933)
- The Wind (Victor Sjostrom, 1928)
- Wagon Master (John Ford, 1950)
- The Blackout (Abel Ferrara, 1997)
- New Rose Hotel (Abel Ferrara, 1998)
- Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932)
- The Wedding March (Erich von Stroheim, 1928)
- In Praise of Love (Jean-Luc Godard, 2001)
- Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard, 2010)
- Not Reconciled (Jean-Marie Straub, 1965)
- 'R Xmas (Abel Ferrara, 2001)
- Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926)
- Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini, 1954)
- Pasolini (Abel Ferrara, 2014)
Our Daily Bread is a column on not necessarily beautiful images, nor similar images, but images that when brought together interact in meaningful ways.