Loosening the Screws, or Emak Bakia
Abstract
In 1926, Man Ray made the movie Emak Bakia, a film poem, which was also one of the manifestos of film Dadaism. Part of the film was made on the Basque coast, near Biarritz, in the house whose name was “Emak Bakia” - which in Basque means Do not bother me. Almost 90 years later, the Basque director Oskar Alegria decided to find this house, having at his disposal, as a guide, only two frames from the film depicting the shoreline and characteristic columns of the balcony from which the beach was filmed. The record of this search, though documentary, turned out to be as Dadaistic as the film by Man Ray. Not in its form, but in surrendering to the Dadaist element: the journey of Alegria, the road to the designated goal, turned out to be a radical triumph of Dada. Kosińska sees in the strategy of Man Ray and Alegria, a form of celebration: of life, of film, of chance, which without expressing any sense gives the only possible meaning to life.
Keywords:
Man Ray, dadaism, Basque Country, Oskar AlegríaReferences
Elder, R. Bruce. Dada, surrealism, and the cinematic effect. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 2013
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Authors
Karolina Kosińskakwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
Absolwentka kulturoznawstwa (specjalność filmoznawcza) w Instytucie Sztuk Audiowizualnych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Pracę magisterską dotyczącą form buntu w kinie brytyjskim obroniła pod kierunkiem prof. dr. hab. Tadeusza Lubelskiego w 2002 roku. Pracę doktorską na temat postaci androgynicznej w brytyjskim filmie i kulturze popularnej obroniła w 2008 roku (promotor: prof. dr hab. Andrzej Pitrus) również w ISzA UJ. Od 2003 roku redaktorka „Kwartalnika Filmowego”.
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