Germaine Dulac (Amiens, 1882 – Paris, 1942) is considered to be one of the pioneers in the history of cinema, That is to say, she is one of the few female filmmakers at the beginning of the 20th century in a particularly masculine context. About thirty films have been documented from it, including documentaries, narrative works and experimental pieces between 1917 and 1934.
She, along with Louis Delluc, Marcel cinematographic impressionism: the first wave of experimental cinema in France that emerged after the First World War as a response to narrative cinema and the Hollywood model.
A group that understands that Cinema is a new medium that opens new possibilities for contemporary man and claims it as a great art, capable of exploring the folds of the self and interior worlds that neither painting, nor theater, nor nineteenth-century soap operas – inspired by narrative cinema – can reach.
And that is so because, according to them, cinema brings something new that is specific to it, such as movement or rhythm. The poetry, the soul, the moving aspects of the world can only be revealed and observed through cinema.
Three short films by Dulac – independently produced – are presented in the exhibition. Disc 957 (1928), Themes and variations (1928) y Cinematic study on an arabesque (1929) which, although late, didactically express that ideal of cinema.
Germaine Dulac: ‘Themes and variations’, 1929. Photo: Museu Tàpies
These are pieces with a endless optical resources and in which the frames, movements, rhythms, plays of light and shadow and abstract effects have a special importance. Visual symphonies that seek, like music or abstract painting, suggestion and evocation.
There is a very important aspect in this type of experiences: the substrate of symbolismwhich is why cinematographic impressionism motivated incendiary censorship and appeared as something outdated in later, more aggressive circles of experimentation.
And another question: the sound liquidated this cinema based on visuality. Significantly, in the final stage of his career, already with sound, Dulac reoriented his cinema towards documentary as a political tool, an example of which is What he said, what he did (1939), about the figure of Hitler.
The exhibition has three dimensions. The first, the aforementioned short films that are exhibited in the room and the documentation that complements them. The second is the book with its theoretical texts that are translated into Spanish for the first time and the third, the very complete cycle about her in the Filmoteca de Catalunya.
Germaine Dulac: ‘The Shell and the Clergyman, 1928. Foto: Museu Tàpies
It is not necessary to vindicate the figure of Dulac, recognized in conventional film stories, but an exhibition like this is necessary that contributes to resituating and rereading it.
In addition to the aforementioned pieces, a creative work of the filmmaker Mercedes Álvarez which, based on Dulac’s analysis, explores the subtext, that is, feminine desire, evident at times, subliminal at others, as well as masculine desire, seen from the perspective of a woman who we know was a lesbian.
Germaine Dulac: ‘The Shell and the Clergyman’, 1928. Photo: Museu Tàpies
The commissioners insist on presenting Dulac as the director of the first surrealist film before surrealism or like a figure queera term without meaning at that time. It is not the first time and, without a doubt, it works as a slogan, but wouldn’t it deserve a more detailed explanation?