An Upside-Down World: “The Adventure of a Good Citizen” by Franciszka and Stefan Themerson as a Portmanteau Film

Anna Taszycka

Abstract

Taszycka presents an analysis of The Adventure of a Good Citizen (1937) based on a back-to front showing of the film. Themerson himself, in a letter to Clyde Jeavons, suggested that showing the film backwards might be an interesting idea. Taszycka argues that not only is the backwards projection of the film possible, but it opens up the film to new interpretations. The author points to the well thought and coherent concept of the film as a whole (understood as a combination of showing the film in the conventional way and backwards) and the auto-thematic character of the film, showing its surfictional nature. The adventure… can also be placed in a wider context thanks to its circular structure, where the beginning can also be the end of the film (and vice versa). This shows that Themersons were ahead of their time, as their film is a precursor of structural films and expanded cinema made decades later. Additionally, Taszycka shows that The Adventure… is a sort of a film palindrome that reveals its meaning both in the conventional and backwards projection. In order to describe the film – according to its structure – Taszycka also uses the metaphor of a portmanteau. Two identically symmetrical parts (the same ones, but not identical) of the portmanteau film create a new being, that has an autonomous existence. [originally published in Polish in Kwartalnik Filmowy 2010, no. 70, pp. 15-25]