This morning we saw 3 short films by Jan Svankmajer - Dimensions of a Dialogue (1982),The Flat (1968) and Food (1992).
Three short films, so three short comments :
Theme throughout of one person eating another, either represented through animated objects looking like people, a room consuming a person or real people eating each other. Clearly a comment on the dog eat dog society of the day or something to do with eating in Czechoslovakia - cannibalism is the last taboo ?
Brilliant animation in introduction to Dimensions of a Dialogue - almost every shot was a starter for an interesting painting.
Why was the music used for the section when the man was trapped in the room, so difficult to take ? - loud and discordant, it set the tone for the whole piece.
The main film was the first half of Fellini's Satyricon (1968) - dubbed and an original film print.
Extraordinary ambition by the Director in the settings for each scene, especially the Tower of Babel-like labyrinth that housed a wide range of brothels,
the scene set on the open plains
and the scene on the beach as he was being loaded with the other slaves/gladiators onto the ship
The story was difficult to follow and it must have caused uproar at the time in focusing on a male love triangle. It was like walking through a massive and challenging art gallery.
I found the dubbing really distracting and unfortunately the sound was really unclear on this print. I would have preferred the original Italian speech with subtitles.
The film left me wondering what the whole film looks like but am not sure I am really that ready for yet another fantastical, gladitorial, fall of Rome, post-apocalyptic, feasting orgy, slave love triangle epic...
The Projection Room
Anyway enough about the films - much more interesting, and a real treat, was a tour for five of us around the Odeon Leicester Square projection room - built in 1937, it still had its original green wall tiles and wooden parquet flooring. Found a great old photo on the wall of the room of how it looked when it opened.
Now it is a mixture of film and digital projectors, but still has the heat extractors dissapearing out through the ceiling.
While we were in there, they dimmed the lights in the room to start the next programme - The King's Speech.
Very appropriate to see a letter from the Queen on the wall thanking the cinema for its premiere of Ladies in Lavender.
Also found the original film reel of one of the short films, Dimensions of a Dialogue, which we had seen earlier - it seems it was too delicate to use so we saw a digital version.
Our delightful tour guide Mark, showed us how to splice film.
and there were the various 3D spectacles scattered around the room.
Great old key cupboard ...
And one of two massive spotlights - I really like the old mechanism for opening the hatch.
On the way out we passed another room - much needed after the disturbing nature of the films today ...
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