The 1916 Manifesto of Futuristic Cinematography was signed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Armando Ginna, Bruno Corra, Giacomo Balla and others. To the Futurists, cinema was an ideal art form, being a fresh medium, and able to be manipulated by speed, special effects and editing. The Futurists were among the first to understand how cinematographic tricks, now widely experimented in the previous decade, were usable not only as a freak phenomenon, but also as a creative, poetic and symbolic means. For example, a superimposition was no longer just a means to make a ghost or a giant appear next to a dwarf, but could become a tool for a new artistic and subversive language. The same montage allowed the decomposition of reality according to the "whims" of the artists, allowing visions never experienced before. In this sense, cinema was also a "means of transport".[7] The Manifesto of Futurist Cinematography stated that:[8]
We break down and recompose the universe according to our wonderful whims.
—Manifesto of Futurist Cinematography, 1916
In the Manifesto of Futurist Cinematography it was argued that cinema was "by nature" futurist art, due to the lack of a past and traditions, but did not appreciate the "very old" narrative cinema, looking instead for a cinema made up of "travel, hunts and wars", under the banner of an "anti-graceful, deforming, impressionist, synthetic, dynamic, free word" show. In their words there is enthusiasm towards the search for a new language unrelated to traditional beauty, which was perceived as an old and suffocating legacy. Futurism was the first artistic movement to take an interest in cinema as a language in itself and as a "movement of language".[9] A typically futurist vision could be the panorama that changes abruptly from the window of a car, a train or an airplane, where the theme of modernity and speed were one that did not need further additions.
One of the surviving frames of Vita futurista ("Futurist life") by Arnaldo Ginna (1916)
The production of avant-garde films was rather limited, as for subsequent experiments, and in particular for futurism many works have been lost. The first experimental films were those of the Corradini brothers, nicknamed Ginna and Corra, who in 1911 made four hand-colored films (cinepitture), with scattered and confused patches of color, now lost. Such experiments influenced the so-called aeropittura or second futurism of 1929, and also were later taken up again in abstract cinema in Germany, by painters such as Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter.[10] Much loved by the Futurists was popular comic cinema, where pure movement (races, chases, tumbles) often dominated the scene, fervent by editing. Marinetti himself had in fact written a carnival opera, the Re Baldoria.[11]
Most of the futuristic-themed films of this period have been lost, but critics cite Thaïs (1917) by Anton Giulio Bragaglia as one of the most influential, serving as the main inspiration for German Expressionist cinema in the following decade.[12]Thaïs was born on the basis of the aesthetic treatise Fotodinamismo futurista (1911), written by the same author. The film, built around a melodramatic and decadent story, actually reveals multiple artistic influences different from Marinett's futurism; the secessionist scenographies, the liberty furniture,[12] and the abstract and surreal moments contribute to create a strong formal syncretism.
The scenographer Enrico Prampolini, in Thaïs, used geometric shapes based on a strong black/white contrast: spiral, diamond, chess, symbolic figures (cats, masks spewing smoke). Painted scenes often interact with the characters, creating a world of illusions where it is difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.[12] As the film progresses, it becomes more and more abstract to reflect the growing confusion of the film's protagonist. This movie is the sole surviving Italian futurist film, and currently kept at the Cinémathèque Française. It is not based on the novel of the same name by Anatole France.
Also noteworthy is Vita futurista (1916), by Arnaldo Ginna, is a sort of practical verification of the theses set out in the Manifesto: ironic and intentionally provocative, the film makes use of numerous special effects (hand-colored parts, color changes, eccentric shots, anti-naturalistic montage) to stimulate the emotional reactions of the viewer. In the same period Bragaglia realizes other works such as Il mio cadavere (1917), Perfido incanto (1918) and the short film Dramma nell'Olimpo (1917), all of which have been lost.[13] Another lost film is Il re, le torri, gli alfieri by Ivo Illuminati, where the characters were dressed like chess figures and moved on a checkerboard floor.
The Italian film industry struggled against rising foreign competition in the years following World War I.[14] Several major studios, among them Cines and Ambrosio, formed the Unione Cinematografica Italiana to coordinate a national strategy for film production. This effort was largely unsuccessful, however, due to a wide disconnect between production and exhibition (some films were not released until several years after they were produced).[15]
Italian futurism did not produce works in the cinema that immediately lived up to their revolutionary aims, but the importance of the movement as a source of inspiration for all subsequent avant-gardes was enormous. It influenced Russian Futurist cinema[3] and German Expressionism.[4]
In Germany, films such as Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) or Metropolis (1926) have the Italian Futurist movement as a source of profound inspiration, and the same can be said of the French avant-gardes, especially René Clair.[5] Still in the 1930s, Mario Camerini's film What Scoundrels Men Are! (1932) contained a whirlwind of optical illusions at a frenetic pace, with uses such as acceleration, split-screen and overlays.[19]
Though Futurist cinema itself was short-lived, traces of the movement are frequently found in commercial cinema of the 20th and 21st centuries. These stylistic influences can be found in high energy, fast paced, brightly colored, and abstract editing styles and imagery.[20]
Famed movie critic Pauline Kael stated that the director Dimitri Kirsanoff, in his silent experimental filmMénilmontant "developed a technique that suggests the movement known in painting as Futurism".[21] Also in the dreamlike visions of some of Alfred Hitchcock's films, (for example Vertigo) the same subversive techniques used by the futurists are demonstrated.[5]
Bibliography
Catanese, Rossella (2017). Futurist Cinema. Studies on Italian Avant-garde Film. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ISBN978-9089647528.
Lista, Giovanni (2001). Cinema e fotografia futurista (in Italian). Milan: Edizioni Skira. ISBN978-8881189274.
Lista, Giovanni (2001). Le Futurisme: création et avant-garde (in French). Paris: Éditions L'Amateur. ISBN978-2859173227.
Lista, Giovanni (2008). Cinéma et photographie futuristes (in French). Paris: Skira-Flammarion Éditeur. ISBN978-2081218284.
Lista, Giovanni (2008). Le Cinéma futuriste (in French). Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou-Les Cahiers de Paris Expérimental. ISBN978-2912539373.
Lista, Giovanni (2010). Il Cinema futurista (in Italian). Gênes: Le Mani-Microart's Edizioni. ISBN978-8880125389.
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye de Créteil between 1907 and 1908. Marinetti is best known as the author of the first Futurist Manifesto, which was written and published in 1909, and as a co-author of the Fascist Manifesto, in 1919.
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. Its key figures included the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo. Italian Futurism glorified modernity and according to its doctrine, aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past. Important Futurist works included Marinetti's 1909 Manifesto of Futurism, Boccioni's 1913 sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Balla's 1913–1914 painting Abstract Speed + Sound, and Russolo's The Art of Noises (1913).
Umberto Boccioni was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach to the dynamism of form and the deconstruction of solid mass guided artists long after his death. His works are held by many public art museums, and in 1988 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City organized a major retrospective of 100 pieces.
Giacomo Balla was an Italian painter, art teacher and poet best known as a key proponent of Futurism. In his paintings, he depicted light, movement and speed. He was concerned with expressing movement in his works, but unlike other leading futurists he was not interested in machines or violence with his works tending towards the witty and whimsical.
Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.
Futurist meals comprised a cuisine and style of dining advocated by some members of the Futurist movement, particularly in Italy. These meals were first proposed in Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Luigi Colombo Fillia's Manifesto of Futurist Cooking, published in Turin's Gazzetta del Popolo on December 28, 1930. In 1932, Marinetti and Fillìa expanded upon these concepts with The Futurist Cookbook.
Franco Casavola was a Futurist composer and theorist. He is noted as one of the authors of the Le Sintesi Visive della Musica, a manifesto that proposed the intrinsic visual counterparts of music.
Russian Futurism is the broad term for a movement of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism," which espoused the rejection of the past, and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth, industry, destruction of academies, museums, and urbanism; it also advocated for modernization and cultural rejuvenation.
Francesco Balilla Pratella was an Italian composer, musicologist and essayist. One of the leading advocates of Futurism in Italian music, much of Pratella's own music betrays little obvious connection to the views espoused in the manifestos he authored.
Anton Giulio Bragaglia was a pioneer in Italian Futurist photography and Futurist cinema. A versatile and intellectual artist with wide interests, he wrote about film, theatre, and dance.
Futurism was an early 20th-century art movement which encompassed painting, sculpture, poetry, theatre, music, architecture, cinema and gastronomy. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti initiated the movement with his Manifesto of Futurism, published in February 1909. Futurist music rejected tradition and introduced experimental sounds inspired by machinery, and influenced several 20th-century composers. According to Rodney Payton, "early in the movement, the term ‘Futurism’ was misused to loosely define any sort of avant-garde effort; in English, the term was used to label a composer whose music was considered ‘difficult.’"
Enrico Prampolini was an Italian Futurist painter, sculptor and scenographer. He assisted in the design of the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution and was active in Aeropainting.
Fillìa was the name adopted by Luigi Colombo, an Italian artist associated with the second generation of Futurism. Aside from painting, his works included interior design, architecture, furniture and decorative objects.
Giovanni Lista is an Italian art historian and art critic born in Italy on February 13, 1943, at Castiglione del Lago (Perugia) and resides in Paris. He is a specialist in the artistic cultural scene of the 1920s, particularly in Futurism.
Thaïs is a 1917 Italian silent film directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. The movie is the sole surviving Italian Futurist film, and currently kept at the Cinémathèque Française. It is not based on the novel of the same name by Anatole France.
Arnaldo Ginna, also known as Arnaldo Ginanni Corradini, was an Italian painter, sculptor and filmmaker. He was born in Ravenna, 7 May 1890; he died in Rome, 26 September 1982.
Benedetta Cappa was an Italian futurist artist who has had retrospectives at the Walker Art Center and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Her work fits within the second phase of Italian Futurism.
Lacerba was an Italian literary journal based in Florence closely associated with the Futurist movement. It published many Futurist manifestos by Filippo Marinetti, Antonio Sant'Elia, and others.
Rosa Rosà was a writer and author associated with the inter-war Italian Futurist movement. She is renowned for her first short novel, Una donna con tre anime.
Ivo Pannaggi was an Italian painter and architect who was active in the Futurist movement and later associated with the Bauhaus.
1 2 Heil, Jerry (1986). "Russian Futurism and the Cinema: Majakovskij's Film Work of 1913". Russian Literature. 19 (2): 175–191. doi:10.1016/S0304-3479(86)80003-5.
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