Initial release 1926 Cinematography Man Ray | Director Marcel Duchamp | |
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Similar Le Retour à la Raison, Ballet Mécanique, Emak‑Bakia, Entr'acte, The Starfish | ||
Marcel duchamp anemic cinema
Anemic Cinema or Anémic Cinéma (1926) is a Dadaist, surrealist, or experimental film made by Marcel Duchamp. The film depicts whirling animated drawings—which Duchamp called Rotoreliefs—alternated with puns in French. The text, which spirals in a counterclockwise motion suggests a set up of erotic scenarios. Duchamp creates a dualism between silence and loudness through images. Duchamp signed the film with his alter ego name of Rrose Sélavy.
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Rotoreliefs were a phase of Duchamp's spinning works. To make the optical "play toys" he painted designs on flat cardboard circles and spun them on a phonograph turntable that when spinning the flat disks appeared 3-dimensional. He had a printer run off 500 sets of six of the designs and set up a booth at a 1935 Paris inventors' show to sell them. The venture was a financial disaster, but some optical scientists thought they might be of use in restoring 3-dimensional sight to people with one eye.
In collaboration with Man Ray and Marc Allégret, Duchamp filmed early versions of the Rotoreliefs and they named the first film version Anémic Cinéma.
The Rotoreliefs are alternated with nine revolving disks with the following text in French, consisting of puns and alliteration by Duchamp:
Anemic cinema de marcel duchamp man ray et marc allegret
