In the post this week, a handful of original fiction from the generous Mr Royle at Nightjar Press. Thanks, Nicholas!
Forbidden reproductions
La Reproduction Interdite (1937) by René Magritte.
English translations of the title of Magritte’s painting vary, with Not to be Reproduced and Reproduction Prohibited being two of the most popular. I prefer Reproduction Forbidden, a title that sounds more serious, and with a use reinforced by Forbidden Games, the English title of a René Clement feature film, Jeux Interdits. Whatever the translation, this is one of Magritte’s most popular inventions, one that people like recreating.
The Flat (1968).
Jan Svankmajer’s short has more justification for copying the painting than some of the examples which follow. Svankmajer and Eva Svankmajerová were members of the long-running Prague Surrealist group, and The Flat is very much a Surrealist piece, with a man trapped inside a room where none of the mundane objects behave as he expects. In addition to the overt Magritte quote there’s an appearance by Svankmajer’s film-directing friend, Juraj Herz, as a bowler-hatted man carrying a chicken.
Sabotage (1975) by Black Sabbath.
The front cover is the Magritte idea but with them all facing away from the mirror.
One Of The Boys (1977) by Roger Daltrey.
One of the things that makes Magritte’s original work so well is the blank space in the mirror which directs attention to the impossible reflection. I suspect that if design group Hipgnosis had been asked to imitate the painting they would have done something similar, avoiding the lacklustre effect achieved here by photographer Graham Hughes. Hipgnosis acknowledged their own debt to Magritte in the title of their first book, Walk Away René in 1978, and often constructed whole sets for photo shoots. Hughes tried another Magritte-like effect for the back cover of the Daltrey album but with diminished success.
Dolores Claiborne (1995).
The following images are from films (and a TV series), two of which are coincidentally based on Stephen King stories. To date I’ve only seen Secret Window which isn’t one I’d recommend. Are there any more forbidden reproductions out there?
Secret Window (2004).
The Double (2013).
Us (2019).
Euphoria (2019).
Update: Added Sabotage and Euphoria.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Surrealism archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• René Magritte, Cinéaste
• Magritte: The False Mirror
• Magritte, ou la lecon de chose
• René Magritte album covers
• Monsieur René Magritte, a film by Adrian Maben
• George Melly’s Memoirs of a Self-Confessed Surrealist
• The Secret Life of Edward James
• René Magritte by David Wheatley
Stricklandia
At the weekend I finally caught up with Peter Strickland’s latest, Flux Gourmet. These films (and their soundtracks): I recommend them.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Peter Strickland’s Stone Tape
Ragnar von Holten’s Maldoror
More Maldoror, and more collage, this time from Swedish artist and art historian Ragnar von Holten (1934–2009). The Historical Dictionary of Surrealism describes von Holten as a Gustave Moreau enthusiast who first contacted the Paris Surrealists in 1960 when he was organising a retrospective of Moreau’s work at the Louvre. André Breton had long been a champion of Moreau, especially in the decades when the artist was out of fashion, and wrote a preface for von Holten’s L’Art Fantastique Gustave Moreau. One of the many things I like about the Surrealists is the continuity they provide with the history of fantastic and visionary art.
Von Holten’s Maldoror collages were begun in the late 1960s and completed in 1972 when they were published in a Swedish edition of the novel. I don’t know how many illustrations there were in all but you can see more at the Moderna Museet website. Not all the collages are labelled as being derived from Maldoror but many of the titles refer to the text all the same. Also there are two drawings intended as vignettes, one of which depicts in a rather literal fashion Lautréamont’s most popular metaphor.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Surrealism archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Harry O. Morris’s Maldoror
• Covering Maldoror
• Kenneth Anger’s Maldoror
• Chance encounters on the dissecting table
• Santiago Caruso’s Maldoror
• Jacques Houplain’s Maldoror
• Hans Bellmer’s Maldoror
• Les Chants de Maldoror by Shuji Terayama
• Polypodes
• Ulysses versus Maldoror
• Maldoror
• Books of blood
• Magritte’s Maldoror
• Frans De Geetere’s illustrated Maldoror
• Maldoror illustrated
Weekend links 708
Landscape from a Dream (1936–38) by Paul Nash.
• “I was telling a close friend recently, ‘at my funeral, please play this record…’” Yu Su on her love of Laurie Anderson’s second album, Mister Heartbreak.
• “Surrealism is more of an attitude than an art movement,” says Mark Polizzotti, talking about his new book, Why Surrealism Matters.
• New music: Spinning by Julia Holter; The Night Dwells In The Day by Jozef Van Wissem; and The River Of Light And Radiation by Ben Frost.
• The late David J. Skal, author of Hollywood Gothic and others, is remembered at Swan River Press.
• At Colossal: Dizzying gifs by Etienne Jacob infuse mathematical equations into endless loops.
• At Public Domain Review: Charles Rabot’s Arctic photographs (ca. 1881).
• At Unquiet Things, S. Elizabeth says “Help me downsize my library!”
• Drone footage of the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland.
• Mix of the week is a mix for The Wire by Kavari.
• At Dennis Cooper’s: Robert Bresson Day.
• Dance On A Volcano (1975) by Genesis | Volcano Diving (1989) by David Van Tieghem | Eye Of The Volcano (2006) by Stereolab