Antonin Artaud: Surrealist Theory and "The Seashell and the Clergyman" Germaine Dulac's 1928 film "The Seashell and the Clergyman" was the only one of several of Antonin Artaud's scenarios for Surrealist films to be produced (and the only for which he would write a screenplay.) Despite Artaud's own misgivings about the film (perhaps due to Dulac's refusal to include him in the artistic direction), "The Seashell and the Clergyman" fulfilled much of Artaud's theories about Surrealist film and would influence many future Surrealist films in their techniques and goals. An examination of theories (including Artaud's) of Surrealist film, the film itself, arguments in favor of other films, and the influence of "The Seashell and the Clergyman" on future films reveals that Dulac's film should be considered the first Surrealist film.

    David Lynch's Inland Empire follows an actress who slowly becomes so involved in her latest film that she assumes the identity of herself and her character.  The movie borrows heavily form Surrealist film, confusing the progression and overlap of time and using irrational or unexplainable events interspersed with a vague story line.  In fact, Ebert writes “There is a buried connection between the surrealists and the Sex Pistols, Bunuel and David Lynch, Dali and Damien Hirst”.  To further illustrate the connection, Lynch often respond to inquiries about the plot of the film by quoting the Aitareya Upanishad: "We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe," echoing the film theories of Antonin Artaud.  
    Inland Empire is valuable in an analysis of The Seashell and the Clergyman because both David Lynch and the film illuminate the influence of Dulac's film and Artaud's theory in Surrealist works to the present day.  The techniques Lynch used to create several times and spaces that seem to be mutually exclusive, but interact in strange, irrational ways were first used in The Seashell and the Clergyman: the subconscious obsessions of the “main” character lead him/her into a bizarre dream world where a series of surprising and inexplicable events force the audience to attempt divining meaning from a film that, despite its almost comprehensible content, is essentially meaningless.  The influence of The Seashell and the Clergyman is present in Lynch's film as well as several earlier examples already explored (e.g. Un chien andalou.)  Dulac's film fulfills the theories of Artaud, at least in part, and its influence on Surrealist filmmaking clearly marks it as the first true Surrealist film.

 

Inland Empire. Dir. David Lynch. Perf. Laura Dern and Jeremy Irons. DVD. 2007.

    Ebert's review of Un chien andalou provides both a good analysis of the film to use as a comparison to The Seashell and the Clergyman and a good example of the main arguments put forth in support of Un chien andalou as the first Surrealist film.  According to Ebert, the idea for the film originated from a discussion between Dalí and Buñuel about dreams they had had, prompting them to make a film beginning with images from their dreams.  “In collaborating on the scenario, their method was to toss shocking images or events at one another. Both had to agree before a shot was included in the film. 'No idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted,' Bunuel remembered. 'We had to open all doors to the irrational and keep only those images that surprised us, without trying to explain why'” (Ebert).  Ebert also asserts the historical primacy of the film: “It was made in the hope of administering a revolutionary shock to society. 'For the first time in the history of the cinema,' wrote the critic Ado Kyrou, 'a director tries not to please but rather to alienate nearly all potential spectators.'”
    Ebert's review provides much useful information for a comparison of Un chien andalou and The Seashell and the Clergyman and the theories behind them.  To begin with, the technique used by  Dalí and Buñuel in writing their film was quite different than those used by Dulac and those theorized by Artaud.  Ebert argues that Dalí and Buñuel sought to create a film entirely devoid of meaning with no rational connection between any of events or images, essentially a film of pure nonsense.  This varies considerably from Artaud's ideas of creating an experience that betrays a traditional narrative setting (requiring at least some connections between parts of the film) in order to include the spectator in the film.  The goal of  Dalí and Buñuel was to create a film that left the viewer with nothing and no ability to derive meaning from the experience; whereas, Artaud's goal was to force the audience to be a part of the dream world and create interpretations and conclusions on their own.  Additionally, the technique of throwing illogical, surprising images at the audience used by Dalí and Buñuel was a primary technique in Dulac's film as well.  Ebert and Kyrou advocate the uniqueness of Un chien andalou as film's first attempt to alienate an audience, but ignore the attempts of The Seashell and the Clergyman to alienate the audience from identification with the film and many other previous films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Impressionist films.  While differences between Un chien andalou and The Seashell and the Clergyman may be noted from their difference in purpose, the theory and techniques used in both originated with Dulac's film.

 

Ebert, Roger. "Un chien andalou (1928)." Rev. of Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Sun-Times 16 Apr. 2000.

Chapter four of Low's book History of British Film examines the issue of censorship and focuses on films such as The Seashell and the Clergyman, M, Poil de Carotte, La Maternelle, Freaks, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Der Ammenkoenig.  Low explains the various reasons that films were censored in Britain including sensitive subject matter such as child suicides, child murderers, and vaguer explanations such as the film containing “revolting monstrosities” and, the most infamous of all reasons which was applied to The Seashell and the Clergyman: being “So cryptic as to be almost meaningless.  If there is a meaning it is doubtless objectionable” (Low 70).  She goes on to explain the indifference with which the censorship board examined films intended for entertainment and those intended to be art, applying the same scrutiny of acceptability to both.
    This chapter may at first appear to have little to do with the thesis of this project, however it lends much to an analysis of Artaud's philosophy and film theory.  The indiscretion employed by the censorship board typifies the normative view of the homogeneity in purpose behind films which Artaud vehemently opposed.  Furthermore, the response of the board to The Seashell and the Clergyman begins to illustrate the involvement of the audience in art that Artaud advocated, though it falls short of the participation that he desired.  This response indicates that the viewers were unable to draw logical conclusions about the content of the film (which Artaud had intended) yet their review fell short of attempting to participate in the experience.  The manner of its censorship also highlights Artaud's ideal of the artistic goals to which films should aspire: as with the other films listed above, the board no doubt evaluated The Seashell and the Clergyman as a standard entertainment film, declining to consider it as Artaud and Dulac would have desired.  Finally, the inability of the board to derive any meaning from the film exhibits the effects of Surrealism that Artaud intended his works to have, displacing the viewer from a normative reality and severing any identification with characters.

Low, Rachael. History of British Film. Vol. 7. New York: Routledge, 1997. 54-73.

           Inez Hedges's review of Linda Williams's book Figures of Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film argues that Williams's analysis of only films “that were a historical part of the surrealist movement and were developed in direct contact with surrealist theory” (824) works well as a method of analyzing Surrealist cinema.  Williams uses Un chien andalou as a case study for analyzing the relationship between images and desire in Surrealist works and delves into the methods used by Buñuel to “[place] the viewer's experience in the uneasy zone between the imaginary and the symbolic, and [force] a confrontation with the very psychic energy that enables [him or] her to enjoy films," a method she views as common in Surrealist films' attempts to “[break] up the spectator's process of identification with the characters” (825).  She goes further in this analysis concluding that the film “sets up a conventional narrative space and then violates it, leaving the spectator especially vulnerable to the surrealist message" (Hedges 825) and then extends this analysis to other films such as Le Fantôme de la liberté, Cet obscur objet du désir, and L'Age d'or.
          Hedges's article provides a means of clarifying Linda Williams's theory of Surrealist film goals and practices combined with Flitterman-Lewis's writings on Artaud's intentions enable a better analysis of The Seashell and the Clergyman and its place in Surrealist film history.  Flitterman-Lewis argues that Artaud's main objection to Dulac's film was the lack of an experience forced upon the viewer.  This experience, in the view of Williams, results from the lack of character identification; without being able to identify with a character in the film and thus experience the thoughts, actions, feelings, and ideas (or as Williams would characterize them, desires) of that character, the viewer is forced into his or her own experience, one which requires the viewer to interpret, experience, and judge events and actions in the film rather than relying on characters to do so.  Flitterman-Lewis outlines common techniques used to establish this situation (superimposition, split shots, lighting, etc.) and provides an analysis of how The Seashell and the Clergyman also establishes such a situation.  Therefore, by examining Williams's theory and Flitterman-Lewis's evaluations of Artaud and the film, it is possible to construct a framework for evaluating what constitutes a Surrealist film and whether or not The Seashell and the Clergyman fits into that framework (an argument which Flitterman-Lewis makes well when it is placed into Williams's theoretical framework.)

 

Hedges, Inez. "Review: [untitled]." The French Review 59 (1986): 824-25.

            Flitterman-Lewis's article analyzes the underlying theory of Surrealism as it is manifested in film.  She focuses on The Seashell and the Clergyman directed by Germaine Dulac in 1928 and based on a scenario written by Antonin Artaud (which was based on the dream of a friend, Yvonne Allendy.)  "To be sure, Artaud's selection of Dulac as the person capable of transforming his written text into cinematic images was not arbitrary: both the poet and the filmmaker had long been preoccupied with questions of a visual language...For Dulac, whose Symbolist antecedents led her to regard the cinematic image as the site of a fusion, the film was conceived as a condensation of associations whose gradual accretion of meaning allowed the story to proceed, image by image, in a chain of metaphors.  In direct contrast to this fluid sliding of images, Artaud's conception was based on the Surrealist principles of displacement and dissociative juxtaposition, emphasizing instead the films liberating assault on the continuity system of traditional narrative"  (Flitterman-Lewis 110-1).  Artaud's conception of the Surrealist capabilities of film emphasized immersing the viewer into an experience, as in a dream, that not only affected the viewer on a subconscious level, but also required his or her participation in that experience.  Artaud was dissatisfied with the film, allegedly shouting expletives directed at the film and Dulac herself (who had not allowed Artaud to participate in the artistic direction of the film or offer clarifications of the intentions of his scenario) and participating in the subsequent rioting which forced the showing to end.  Flitterman-Lewis argues that Artaud's frustration was fueled by Dulac's inability to convey more than the material, visual qualities of a dream without creating the experience of a dream.  Although Artaud was disappointed with the final film, he still acknowledged it's status as the first Surrealist film, writing to his editor, “[C]riticism, if there still is such a thing, must recognize the hereditary derivation of all these films [Surrealist films, specifically Buñuel's L'Age d'or and Cocteau's Blood of a Poet], and say that they ALL come from The Seashell and the Clergyman...Seashell was certainly the first film of the genre [Surrealist film], and its precursor" (Flitterman-Lewis 112).

             Artaud's theory of how Surrealism should be established in film offer's a good framework for evaluating whether The Seashell and the Clergyman should be considered the first Surrealist film.  Despite his own misgivings about the film, he considers it to be the first (if Flitterman-Lewis did not take much liberty of judgment in her use of brackets), a good starting point for evaluation.  He advocates the use of juxtaposed, seemingly unconnected images meant to surprise the audience and force them to consider the logical connection (or lack thereof) between those images.  Techniques such as superimposition, split shots, lighting, and editing should be used to break down the constructed materiality of the world into the materiality of the dream world wherein objects flowed into each other and actors.  Indeed these techniques are utilized not only in Dulac's film, but in subsequent Surrealist films such as Un chien andalou, L'Age d'or, and Blood of a Poet as well as modern Surrealist films.

 

Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy. Dada and Surrealist Film. Ed. Rudolf E. Kuenzli. New York: MIT P, 1996. 110-24.

         “12 oz. Mouse” is a modern TV series (although it is not a film, the show is strongly Surrealist and congruent with the techniques and goals of many Surrealist films; additionally, Foster writes that "The surrealists, many of whom were avid film spectators, despised impressionism, but they admired lowbrow American serials and slapstick comedies") about a crudely animated green mouse called by many names including Mouse, Fitz, and Butch and his companion Skillet who do odd jobs for a shark (named Shark) in order to be able to buy more beer.  As the show progresses, other bizarre characters (such as a wealthy businessman named Square, a hitman specializing in archery named Pronto, a peanut-shaped police officer more concerned with his drug habit than maintaing law and order, a character capable of morphing between a male and female representation, and several clocks that perpetually display 2:22) are introduced and what first appears to be a meaningless cartoon world is revealed to be a dream world imposed on people represented by these characters through the use of Asprind (what one is led to believe is a mind-erasing drug) and Time Gas (a drug released by the 2:22 clock in order to freeze time at a single instant in the dream world).  Much of the plot is left unresolved as the show was cancelled after 20 episodes and although another episode (released solely on the internet) was made after the cancellation, the writers opted to start a new chapter of the story rather than writing a conclusion to the show.
           “12 oz. Mouse” uses many methods common to Surrealist film in order to establish an ever-changing dream world through hierarchies of knowledge: upon the first viewing, it is slowly revealed that the world of Fitz is in fact a dream world imposed on him by other characters (represented by Shark and Square); on the second viewing, the viewer is able to pick up on what seemed to be simple passing comments and disconnected statements at first, but are actually clues which reveal that this dream world is actually based on the real world that the characters live in; a third viewing reveals even more of the intensely complex plot, as the viewer is now more aware of the nature of this world and able to notice clues that previously one would not have connected to this world on a higher level.  The show very effectively utilizes many of the techniques used by Surrealist film makers: establishing a normative narrative forum which is then interrupted by the characters, thus breaking character identification.  The show forces the viewer to not only interpret what happens in the show, but to rethink these interpretations upon subsequent viewings when the viewer is equipped with more knowledge of the situation.  Furthermore, because much of the plot is unresolved, the viewer is also forced to fill in certain holes and postulate explanations for unexplained elements.  The same techniques that were first used for this purpose in The Seashell and the Clergyman are utilized in “12 oz. Mouse” to create not just a simple dream world, but an experience which requires participation, consideration, and evaluation from the viewers in a manner that one hopes would garner at least the interest of Antonin Artaud.

 

Maiellaro, Matt. "12 oz. Mouse." Atlanta. 19 June 2005.

“In keeping with the principal tenets of surrealism, Artaud would claim that art is a real experience that goes far beyond human understanding and attempts to reach a metaphysical truth. The artist is always a man inspired who reveals a new aspect of the world” (Fowlie).  Fowlie's biographical account of Artaud's life and his theories of theater reveal much about his beliefs on Surrealism.  In addition to seeing the potential for a new type of theatre in the French movements of his time, Artaud also spent a number of years in a sanitorium and while Fowlie makes no connection between this and Artaud's theory of surrealism, an examination of that theory strongly implies a connection to a confusing world where the interpretations of others did not match what Artaud himself must have been experiencing at the time.  Artaud's theory of Surrealism centered on dream worlds and the idea that art should be a collaboration between artist and viewer, requiring the viewer to play a role in creating the experience as much as the artist does.  Artaud's theory began in theatre and focused on the use of speech and gesticulation as well as the content and scenery of the play: everything played a role in creating the experience. 
    Thus, it is easy to see the jump between Artaud's theory of Surrealist theatre and Surrealist film, both of which contain not only the spatial elements of other forms of art, but temporal elements and the ability to manipulate them.  Film offered one potential advantage over theatre: the ability to control temporal aspects more tightly and cleanly than theatre.  Artaud became devoted to his theory, obsessing over a multitude of things, including the theatre.  “However one interprets the terrifying obsessions of Artaud, they allowed him to see into unusual depths of the human mind, where he claimed the eternal questions on life and death are clearly visible” (Fowlie).  He rebelled against morality and rationality as constructs of humans in a material world and thus obsessed over the dream world where such things did not exist.  These obsessions can be seen in The Seashell and the Clergyman: a priest erotically obsessed with a woman consistently sees her in various situations in his blurred, dimly lit, and confusing dream world.  The obvious immorality of a man sworn to celibacy obsessing over a woman is combined with the irrationality of a dream wherein the man seemingly has no control over the course of events and is subjected to a number of random, inexplicable visions and experiences.

 

Dionysus in Paris. Wallace Fowlie. New York: Meridian Books, Inc., 1960. p. 203-209.

          Erin Foster's article gives a brief history of Surrealism in cinema beginning with the desire of French filmmakers in the avant-garde movement to establish itself against Hollywood, the role of Impressionism and Dada in the years before Surrealist cinema, and then focusing on a few directors (such as Dulac and Buñuel and Dalí) and a few films (such as The Seashell and the Clergyman, Un chien andalou, and later films).  She writes that The Seashell and the Clergyman was the only screenplay of his scenarios that Artaud completed and he deposited it at a film institute because he lacked the money to produce it himself where it was picked up by Dulac.  “The surrealists considered Dulac, who was already well established in the Parisian avant-garde film community, to be strictly impressionist—too loyal to traditions of naturalism and symbolism for their liking” however “Dulac followed Artaud's script closely in her 1928 film, only changing a few practical elements when necessary” (Foster).  Foster comments as well on Artaud's rejection of Dulac's film as “a distortion of his theories on surrealism” but does not mention his subsequent acknowledgement of it as the first Surrealist film.  Foster also adds later that “Though the surrealists themselves rejected the film, most critics today consider La Coquille et le Clergyman to be the first surrealist film”.
         Foster's article adds another layer of complexity to an attempt to discern whether The Seashell and the Clergyman should be considered the first Surrealist film: the rejection of contemporary Surrealists despite it's characterization by modern critics.  The analysis in the works by Flitterman-Lewis and Williams revealed that not only did Dulac's movie fulfill some of the basic elements of Surrealist films, namely in its characterization of a dream as well as its attempt to create a participatory experience for the viewer, it was also accepted as Artaud as the first Surrealist film regardless of his own dissatisfaction with it.  The film satisfies these criteria, but how should the perception of other Surrealists who denied it's status as Surrealist play into this evaluation?  Here Artaud's own reactions should be considered as he was a Surrealist.  His initial rejection of the film is overshadowed by his later acceptance of it (perhaps in the vein of conflicting, surprising messages that permeated Surrealist work) as the first Surrealist film.  Ultimately, the question becomes one of criteria: should the evaluation of modern critics based on theories of Surrealism in art be valued more than the seemingly arbitrary (at the time, Artaud was the only one who had written a somewhat comprehensive theory of Surrealist cinema; see Flitterman-Lewis) evaluation of contemporary Surrealists?  In the end, Artaud's own evaluation based on the methods and goals of later Surrealist films and that of modern critics is more convincing than that of contemporary Surrealists who, as Artaud illustrates, have a conflicting record of what they consider to be Surrealist cinema.

 

Foster, Erin. "Surrealism: Surrealist Film." 2008. Film Reference. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/romantic-comedy-yugoslavia/surrealism-surrealist-cinema.html>.

            Linda William's article reviews Steven Kovàcs's book From Enchantment to Rage: The Story of Surrealist Cinema and offers a method of examining the history of Surrealist cinema, namely “a return to the history of Surrealism proper: how the Surrealist poets and artists in the main phase of the movement (1923-1930) turned their talent and energy to film; how their painting, photography, and poetry found new forms of expression in this emerging art; the development of this new aesthetics of film from the 'enchantment' of the early twenties to the 'rage' typified by the 1930 L'Age d'or" (Williams 41).  William's chastises Kovàcs's lack of significant analysis of the role of dreams in Surrealist film, an element she views as extremely important to understanding the goals of the movement.  To illustrate this point, she takes the example of Kovàcs's examination of Dalí and Buñuel: "the issue points out a problem in the book's general approach: an assessment of Surrealist cinema is not a question of sorting out individual personalities and their contributions.  If Surrealism deserves its 'ism' then there is something more to Buñuel and Dalí's collaboration than the fortuitous encounter of two individual psychic obsessions.  To my mind that something is to be found in the formal procedures of the unconscious which Buñuel and Dalí so brilliantly adapted to the creation of their films" (Williams 42).
            Williams's review offers two important tools for the examination of The Seashell and the Clergyman: first, she argues that an examination of the history of Surrealist film should focus on how Surrealist artists turned their ideas into film and how film enabled a method of expression unavailable in other art forms; and second, she highlights the importance of dreams, their structure, and their natural functioning and the role they played in the making of Surrealist films.  The first tool lends more analysis to Flitterman-Lewis's examination of Artaud's paradoxical claim that The Seashell and the Clergyman was the first surrealist film despite his insistence that Dulac failed to recreate more than the material appearance of construction of dreams, without expressing an experience of dreaming.  William's method of analysis would factor in the exclusion of Artaud from the artistic direction of the film, separating Artaud from the ability to express through film and leaving it entirely up to Dulac.  To resolve this seeming paradox, the only logical conclusion must be that Artaud found the film to be an adequate Surrealist expression of the dream, though it was not an interpretation true to his understanding and visualization of the scenario.  Williams places the “main phase” of the movement within the period 1923-30, ending just after The Seashell and the Clergyman and Un chien andalou were made, thus reinforcing Flitterman-Lewis's agument that Dulac and Artaud's film was the first Surrealist film due to the amount in terms of technique and means of expression that later movies would borrow from it.

 

Williams, Linda. "From Enchantment to Rage: The Story of Surrealist Cinema." Film Quarterly 34 (1981): 41-42.

“Artaud’s film theory extends directly from his philosophical views. He believed that, in establishing and expanding civilisation, humankind has fabricated a spiritless, material world in which to exist. Consequently, we have repressed our primitive instincts and lost contact with our spiritual senses. With the development of film as a serious art form in 1920s France, Artaud saw an opportunity to hijack the medium, to use it as a tool with which to pierce the ‘skin’ of civilised reality. Thus, Artaud gave his cinema a purpose, outflanking the prized entertainment values of the 1920s film industry” (Jamieson).  Jamieson's article begins with a lengthy analysis of the interaction between Artaud's personal philosophy and his theory of film, exploring both his rejection of cinema's focuses on visual presentation and entertainment as devoid of emotion and purpose and his desire to give film a new purpose as a means of reconnecting with our primitive selves and instincts.  He viewed the world as a material construction of humans and art as a means of deconstructing this world and giving to it a portion of the artist's essence.  He believed that visual representations often failed because they did not retain the energy of the originating thought, but sought a method of avoiding this short-fall through film.
    In his section on The Seashell and the Clergyman, Jamieson provides a clear contextualization of its place in the surrealist film world and establishes it as the basis for later surrealist films: “Artaud’s scenario for The Seashell and the Clergyman set the groundwork for subsequent surrealist film initiatives and was the first to develop many of the æsthetic principles typical of the movement. Reportedly, Buñuel had seen Artaud and Dulac’s film whilst preparing for Un chien andalou and, interestingly, both films share similar cinematic devices. Both films employ disruptive temporal structures that unfold with the fabric of a dream and incorporate visual shocks designed to impact viscerally upon the viewer”.  This provides two important points for an evaluation of The Seashell and the Clergyman's place in film history: first, it establishes a derivative quality to Un chien andalou, argued by many to be the actual first Surrealist film; second, it sets up the unique ability and methods of film that enable Surrealist film makers to create dream worlds and viscerally impact its viewers.  If the debate over which is the first Surrealist film can be reduced to a comparison of The Seashell and the Clergman and Un chien andalou, Jamieson provides a good body of evidence in support of Dulac's film.

 

Jamieson, Lee. "The Lost Prophet of Cinema: The Film Theory of Antonin Artaud." Senses of Cinema Inc. 27 Nov. 2008 .