Totnes Cinema THURS 15th Nov 20:00
DOUBLE BILL
Matt Harvey with imagery by Claudia Schmid
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Shadow Factory playing live to the 1928 surrealist silent film “The Seashell and the Clergyman”
Q&A Matt Harvey and Shadow Factory
Matt uses Totnes Cinema’s big screen to present images by brilliant local Totnes artist Claudia Schmid, with poetic accompaniment.
Most poet/artist collaborations offer illustrations of poems; with Claudia and Matt it’s the other way round. Claudia and Matt’s first full-length collaboration is the best-selling book Sit!
This evening’s performance includes the best of those plus new drawing/poem combos that will bring delight, recognition and a vague sense of unease. Claudia has exhibited regularly in Totnes and has started to work on new book projects.
Matt performs all over the country and has written extensively for page, stage and radio. His musical version of Rumpelstiltskin (with Thomas Hewitt Jones) received rave reviews and is currently being translated into German for a 2019 tour.
Totnesian jazz/rock ensemble Shadow Factory will be playing live, their specially composed soundtrack for the silent 1928 film The Seashell & The Clergyman.
The film is a visually imaginative critique of patriarchy – state and church and of male sexuality.
Acclaimed as the first surrealist film of the 1920s, it’s an important example of radical feminist film making.
Obsessed with a general’s woman, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.
Director: Germaine Dulac
Writer: Antonin Artaud
Stars: Alex Allin, Genica Athanasiou, Lucien Bataille
The BFI included The Seashell and the Clergyman on a list of 10 Great Feminist Films.
Germaine Dulac was involved in the avant garde in Paris in the 1920s. Both The Smiling Madame Beudet (1922) and The Seashell and the Clergyman are important early examples of radical experimental feminist filmmaking, and provide an antidote to the art made by the surrealist brotherhood. The latter film, an interpretation of Anton Artaud’s book of the same name, is a visually imaginative critique of patriarchy – state and church – and of male sexuality. On its premiere, the surrealists greeted it with noisy derision, calling Dulac “une vache”.
Doors open at 19:00
BOOKING – SOLD OUT
or visit 27a High St
Totnes TQ9 5NP
