Orphée (1950) par JEAN COCTEAU


Orphée
Jean Cocteau, France, 1950, 95 min


Set in contemporary Paris, the movie is a variation of the classic Greek myth of Orpheus. At the Café des Poètes, a brawl is staged by acolytes of the Princess (Casares) and the young poet Cègeste (Edouard Dermithe), a rival of Orpheus, is killed. Cègeste’s body is taken to the Princess’s car by her associates, and Orpheus (Marais) is asked to accompany them as a witness. They drive to a chateau (the landscape through the car windows are presented in negative) accompanied by abstract poetry on the radio. This takes the form of seemingly meaningless messages, like those broadcast to the French Resistance from London during the Occupation.

Orpheus becomes obsessed with Death (the Princess). Heurtebise (Périer), her chauffeur, entertains analogous unrequited love for Orpheus’s wife Eurydice (Marie Déa). They fall in love. Eurydice is killed by the Princess’s henchmen and Orpheus goes after her into the Underworld. Although they have become dangerously entangled, the Princess sends Orpheus back out of the Underworld, to carry on his life with Eurydice, but he cannot look at her or she will die. (This diverges from the common classical account found in the Roman versions of the myth by Ovid and Virgil, where Eurydice is lost forever.) They believe it to have been a dream, Eurydice is revealed to be alive, and expecting a child. – WIKI

Projection extérieure de Réminiscence apocryphe

Pour faire suite au billet du 21 décembre 2010 :


Du 27 février au 5 mars 2011, Réminiscence apocryphe sera projetée – tous les soirs, du coucher du soleil à minuit – sur le clocher de l’église Saint-Jacques de l’Uqam (Événement Facebook).


Une errance photographique sur les lieux sacrés et la foi catholique au Québec de Annie-Ève Dumontier, Gil Nault et Étienne Dionne, produite par l’ONF.


Pour vous rendre sur les lieux de projection: http://goo.gl/kptv0
Pour visionner l’oeuvre interactive: reminiscence.onf.ca
Programmation des projections sur la façade de l’église St-Jacques: montreal.tv
Pour en savoir plus sur le Quartier des spectacles : quartierdesspectacles.com



Faut-il se couper l’oreille? (1970) par JACQUES GIRALDEAU

Faut-il se couper l’oreille?
Jacques Giraldeau, Canada, 1970, 27 min 48 s

 

Téléfilm se questionnant sur les arts plastiques au Québec ainsi que sur le rôle de l’artiste dans la société actuelle. Peintres, sculpteurs, critiques d’art, directeurs de musées et de galeries, esthéticiens industriels reconnaissent qu’un fossé les sépare du peuple, mais croient qu’un jour, l’art pourra sortir de son isolement et envahir la place publique.


Kenneth Grant, 1924-2011

Kenneth Grant, writer and occultist, died last month but the event was only announced this week.


He’ll be remembered for the nine fascinating occult treatises he wrote from 1972 to 2002 (that includes The Magical Revival, Nightside of Eden and Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God), and for continuing the work of Aleister Crowley as head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a position which became fraught in later years as various occult factions disputed his authority. (…) His name calls out from the shelves more than many other writers; as well as authoring his own works he edited all the major Crowley texts with Crowley’s executor John Symonds, presenting them in authoritative editions for a new readership.


Grant proved a very loyal champion of people he admired, significantly so in the case of Austin Osman Spare whose work he collected, exhibited and republished from the 1950s on. It was Grant’s position as one of the many advisors for Man, Myth & Magic in 1970 which resulted in the part-work encyclopedia using one of Spare’s stunning drawings as the cover picture for its first issue. That effort alone gave Spare an audience far beyond anything he received during his lifetime, and Grant ensured the magazine featured Spare’s work in subsequent issues. Grant’s occult works made liberal use of unique illustrations by his wife, Steffi Grant, Austin Spare and others. The books were singular enough even without their pages of curious artwork, a beguiling and sometimes incoherent blend of western occult tradition, tantric sex magick and hints of cosmic horror which were nevertheless always well-written, annotated and crammed with technical detail.


Alan Moore in 2002 examined the experience of an immersion in Grant’s mythos with a wonderful review he calledBeyond our Ken. He notes there the influence of HP Lovecraft, another of the visionary figures who Grant championed throughout his life…


***


Kenneth Grant: A Bibliography, compiled by Henrik Bogdan.

21-87 (1964) by ARTHUR LIPSETT

21-87
Arthur Lipsett, Canada, 1964, 9 min 40 s


This short film from Arthur Lipsett is an abstract succession of unrelated views of the passing crowd. A commentary on a machine-dominated society, it is often cited as an influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars and his conceptualization of « The Force. »


Commentaire acerbe sur l’ère de l’homme dominé par la machine: l’homme blasé, désintéressé de tout; l’homme qui n’attend plus que sa chance de tirer son numéro du lot. Le film est une succession de perspectives décousues sur une foule en mouvement.