Le Sang d'un Poete

To be colloquial, I am a sucker for avant-garde films. I think they’re very exciting. I know little about the concepts behind this realm of cinema (surrealism and the avant-garde), but I love, very intensely, its aesthetics. It is definitely the way these films look that draws me in so much. Perhaps excitement is an understatement. Every time I see even a tiny little bit of a film of this period I feel like I've been witnessing something quite precious. I feel that there is a barrier between film and myself, the viewer, so precious is an apt word, but not in the sense that I would want this film to stay safely on display, I think what I’d much rather do is wrestle with it to the ground, just to break this barrier, and feel that I grasp it.

While watching the screening, I came to wonder, am I enamoured by Cocteau’s film for the wrong reasons? My love of the look of the film is, in part, to do with its antiquity. I love the film as a film of its period, and I appreciate as something which would not appear from our contemporary times. Once I have learnt more comprehensively about the film’s context and meaning, I’m sure I will appreciate it further, but I can’t help but wonder if I will ever see the film in its intended light.

We, the film’s audience on Friday – like its audiences in most contemporary contexts – have an understanding of film that has been shaped by the viewing of many hundreds of films from many different decades. Our expectations for how a film should be are firmly cemented, arguably from quite a young age. Audiences who would have been the first to see Le Sang d'un Poete would not have such extensive film history stored in their minds. What would they have seen, in contrast to us, who have watched the films to follow Le Sang d'un Poete, and to have potentially drawn from it?

For those were involved in the surrealist movement, film was something exciting – a relatively new medium. Contemporary avant-garde films, however, have a long history of film to defy: their filmmakers do not intend on creating an equal level of comfort experienced in conventional cinema, they do not use conventional cinematic language – we do not glide through the narrative by seamless editing or comfortably short takes. The discomfort created sets the film apart from conventional cinema, and perhaps allows meaning to be presented without manipulating the audience, instead, forcing them into a state of contemplation. Having been so exposed to film means that contemporary experimental filmmakers must do exactly that – experiment – to affect their audience. Cocteau’s film is experimental in its ideas and its aesthetic, but how does it fare as a piece of avant-garde cinema? Or rather, should I be asking, how do we fare as an audience to an avant-garde film…

In contemplating all this, I wonder if wanting to wrestle with Le Sang d'un Poete, to break it down and manhandle it, just in order to break the barrier and understand it more fully, is the experience of only the contemporary viewer – if only there were someone to ask.

under instructions: post number one