René Magritte – Page 12

Ghost clocks

Ghost Clock by Yee Ling Wan (2005).

We’ve had skeleton clocks and mystery clocks this week, ghost clocks would seem the next logical step. There don’t seem to be many devices which fit the label unfortunately but this pair are interesting enough. Yee Ling Wan’s clock is relatively cheap (around £70) compared to yesterday’s antiques and can be purchased from a number of online outlets.

Ghost Clock by Wendell Castle (1985).

Wendell Castle’s Ghost Clock isn’t a timepiece at all but is a solid block of mahogany carved and laminated to give a trompe l’oeil impression of a sheeted grandfather clock. The wrapped object and the confounding of expectations reminds me of Magritte who may have been an inspiration. Ce n’est pas une horloge, perhaps.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Mystery clocks
• Skeleton clocks
• The Midsummer Chronophage
• The Corpus Clock

Monsieur Fantômas by Ernst Moerman

Jean Michel as Fantômas.

Ernst Moerman’s Belgian short from 1937 is available for viewing at Ubuweb and is described on its title card as “Un film Surrealiste”. One might equally describe it as “un film amateur” since it’s very much in the home movie mould as was much of the independent cinema of this time. The direction may be perfunctory but the photography is surprisingly good in places. The action, such as it is, concerns an avatar of the Surrealists’ favourite anti-hero, Fantômas, in a series of farcical scenes many of which are filmed on a beach with a few spare props. The most notable moment for me is one which none of the online documentation mentions, a brief appearance by a youthful René Magritte who pretends to be painting Le Viol. Magritte was a great Fantômas enthusiast so his presence here isn’t too surprising.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Dark Ledger
• Judex, from Feuillade to Franju
• Fantômas

Bruges panoramas

Do you detect a theme here? The 360º Cities site which I linked to yesterday won’t be news to some since its panorama views are now incorporated into Google Earth. I hadn’t fully investigated it before, however, so I wasted some time today wandering the streets of Bruges almost as you would in a computer game thanks to the way the different panoramas are linked. Clicking the arrows or the thumbnail views means you’re immediately transported to the next location. (Needless to say this works best using the full screen option on a large monitor.) The photographs in this instance are by Robin de Baere.

Bruges is another of those waterlogged places with cobbled streets which so beguile me, hence the choice of a Belgian town over more obvious European locations. The light skies in the night shots—a result of long exposures—lend the empty streets some of the same mysterious atmosphere captured by René Magritte in his Empire of Light series. Magritte was Belgian, of course, so it’s rather fitting, as was Paul Delvaux, another painter of noctural mystery.