oh the inhumanity

in a similar vein, one often forgets that the precepts of modernism were followed with a rather varying rigour depending on country and political presuasion. what, for hans richter or eisenstein might have been deadly serious questions of political aesthetics, becomes in the hands of others something more frivolous- a question essentially of style. the french, unsuprisingly, were particularly good at this couturier's constuctivism.

this would encompass l'inhumaine, marcel l'herbier's modernist fantasy of 1924. this outlines the career of a 'moderne' opera singer and her parade of suitors (putting one in mind of kodwo eshun's description of kraftwerk as 'bachelormachines')- one a businessman, one a thinly-disguised communist, one a maharaja and one, a young, idealistic and heavily made-up scientist. the film uses all the trappings of fuctionalism: de stijl-esque dwellings, a meyerholdian, constricted notion of movement, intersecting geometries (a gorgeous alchemical factory designed by leger), and a delirious obsession with the machine- in the service of a decidely hokey tale of inhuman women, dangerous orientals and corrupt lefties.



(the latter cause a riot at one of our protagonist's concerts- according to the NFT programme notes, a real concert riot was filmed, at which georges antheil played some especially dissonant 'mechanisms'. shouting down the protestors was apparently erik satie, james joyce, ezra pound, les six, various surrealists...)

another interesting popularisation of these ideas- alexander korda's things to come, discussed by k-punk a while ago.