Week 7 - And the winner is...
Theme for the narrative
What are the circumstances that brought to the creation of this film?
Sol Xkophyé
Geneva, Switzerland
Man Ray’s life is filled with quite serious tragedies. The very first one took place on the day he was born. The doctors were desperately trying to pull out Man Ray who wouldn’t let go of his mother’s uterus. As a last resort to extirpate the infant, the doctors asked the mother to hold the bedhead as tight as she could and PULLED! Little Man Ray was born and his mother had no arms any more. At age 21, when he learned that his mother was armless because of him, Man Ray offered her a beautiful 5 arms starfish (to be forgiven). From this day on, the woman carried the starfish everywhere. Here is a picture of Man Ray’s mother reading a book.
© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, BI, Paris 2011
Context
This picture is a frame from a film by Man Ray, based on Robert Desnos, poet, one of the most brilliant exponents of Surrealism for a period. The leg belongs to Kiki de Montparness, Man Ray lover for the first years in Paris (and subject of his most famous picture).
Real episode from "Self Portrait"
We had a farewell dinner together, including Kiki. […] Then he produced a crumpled sheet from his pocket; it was a poem he’d written that day. He read it aloud […] Desonos’s poem was like a scenario for a film, consisting of fifteen or twenty lines, each line presenting a clear, detached image of a place or of a man and woman. […] The title of the poem was ”Etoile de Mer”, Star of the Sea. […] My imagination may have been stimulated by the wine during our dinner, but the poem moved me very much, I saw it clearly as a film – a Surrealist film, and told Desnos that when we returned I’d have made a film with his poem.