Film, Architecture, Poetry lecture
The School of European Culture and Languages are hosting a series of lectures and research seminars. The series is kicked off by Dr Kim Knowles who is presenting 'Film, Architecture, Poetry: Reading Architectural Space in Man Ray's Les Mystères du Château du Dé'
The seminar begins at 5.15pm, 30th September in the CGU4 (Gulbenkian). All are invited to attend.
Abstract:
Dr Kim Knowles (University of Kent), ‘Film, Architecture, Poetry: Reading Architectural Space in Man Ray’s Les Mystères du Château du Dé’
In 1929 Dada and Surrealist artist, photographer and filmmaker Man Ray was commissioned by the Vicomte Charles de Noailles to make a film about his winter home in Hyères in the south of France. On his first viewing of the building, designed by the modernist architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, Man Ray was struck by its ‘cubist forms’, which ‘brought to mind the title of a poem by Mallarmé’. This poem, Un Coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard, in many ways provides a model for Man Ray’s film, not simply in the title of the latter - Les Mystères du Château du Dé – and its frequent use of textual inserts, but also in its relationship to space. Mallarmé, in his preface to the poem, stated that ‘Les “blancs” en effet, assument l’importance, frappent d’abord.’ The building of the reader’s awareness of the spaces between the words is reflected in Man Ray’s approach to Mallet-Stevens’ architectural spaces and his use of the film camera to ‘read’ them. This paper illustrates the different ways in which Les Mystères du Château du Dé brings together the spatial qualities of film, poetry and architecture. It argues that Man Ray’s creation of complex geometric compositions within the frame, which stem from the architectural intricacies of the Villa de Noailles, mirror Mallarmé’s typographical compositions on the page, in an attempt to overcome the invisible, intangible nature of space.