Page 68 - Studio International - November 1971

much a style as a religion, a pantheism of the imbecility for which their creator seems to
man-made environment, of second nature. It has yearn, surrounded by Art Deco paraphernalia
its shrines (Hillier's own word): the Radio City and impedimenta, wearing monogrammed
Music Hall, the Rainbow Room at Derry and slippers, shaking cocktails, flicking ash from
Toms'. It has its altars, its chalices, its vestments Balkan Sobranies. Perhaps, after all, Art Deco
and, of course, its Bible— Oola-Boola's Wonder does have a unifying principle; anodyne,
Book. It even has its branching candlestick, reverie-laden, snobbish, garrulous pastiche. On
plastic and chrome, which seems to have passed the other hand, it would be wrong to base any
from the possession of one evangelist (Hillier) verdict on the dream world of Bevis Hillier. It
to another (John Jesse) since it figured as 'coll. occurred to me that it might be possible to
the author' in Bevis Hillier's earlier ur-gospel defend Art Deco by a parallel with the art of the
or Q, Art Deco (Studio Vista, 1968). It is Golden Century of Gongora and Gracian, a
revealing to note what has been excluded from hypertrophy of rhetoric. But it is impossible to
this mystical communion. First, any work by an convince oneself that a sofa with velvet
established artist, a paid-up member of the imitating zebra skin, or an ashtray of plastic
modern movement; there is no-one from the imitating onyx, are effects of contrived
Bauhaus or de Stijl, there are no Surrealists, no astonishment which really parallel conceits of
Constructivists. Of the School of Paris, Sonia intellectual agility and ingenuity. Art Deco does
Delaunay is allowed in, with a textile design. have an element of wit, but it is empty-headed
Other artists admitted on the basis of their to the last. Occasionally it glitters, flares into the
slighter work are Frank Lloyd Wright (a chair), work of a Sonia Delaunay, say, (if she is really
Eliel Saarinen and Jean Lurcat. The effect of Art Deco at all) or a Mallet-Stevens (if he is Art
this is to produce an entirely split-level, two- Deco either). These were artists of originality,
tone idea of style. Art Deco does have its 'men however; the religion of Art Deco is merely the
of genius', according to Hillier, but they exist in ultimate resource of eclecticism.
a different world from that inhabited by artists PETER WOLLEN
with whom we are familiar, and ambitious art
within the modern tradition is downgraded; the Zooms and in-fights
Bauhaus and de Stijl appear simply as 'sources'
or 'influences', alongside Tutankhamen's tomb, Film Culture. Edited by P. Adams Sitney.
Aztec temples and the vogue for sunbathing. 438 pp with 16 pp of illustrations. Secker and
Thus, the parasitism which marks an enormous Warburg. £3.50.
amount of Art Deco is minimized; and what
sting was given to its syrupy mixture was Film Culture consists of selected essays from
usually a dash of lifted modernism. Hillier's the magazine of that name, 'for 15 years the
approach interdicts comparison between one set voice of the independent cinema'. From 1955
of 'men of genius' and another. Art Nouveau, on, Film Culture was the most relevant film
often invoked by connoisseurs of Art Deco, is mag around. Some of the stock-writers, such
quite different in this respect; the Ostend as Andrew Sarris and Parker Tyler, are
exhibition of 1967 showed that Art Nouveau did notorious reactionaries when it comes to
not simply exist in this Minneapolis ghetto of cinema; but compared with what the dailies
`low art' where 'low art' becomes 'high art' to its (here and in the USA) offer us, they're
initiates. brilliant analysts and lively minds.
And yet, curiously enough, though we are no The essays are a mixed lot, brilliantly edited
longer in the ivory tower (or a rosewood tower by one of Film Culture's editors and Jonas
with ivory inlay) neither are we in the world of Mekas' longtime assistant at the New York
real history. Both Hillier and Battersby allude Film Co-op, Cinemateque, etc. From the
to the rise of Fascism and to the Depression, but present we have Sitney's seminal though often
this seems a kind of esoteric knowledge they off-base essay, Structural Cinema (the cinema
have gleaned from elsewhere. This is stranger in of, more or less, Warhol, Snow, Frampton,
Hillier's case than in Battersby's, since he would Kubelka, Landow, Jacobs, etc). From the past
have us believe that Art Deco was a mass art, a we have the brilliant writings of one Denis
popular style, not the opulent taste of a Kaufman, better known as Dziga Vertov,
fashionable coterie. If we look at the major mass whose 1919 (at age 23) Kino-Eye philosophy
art of the period, the movies, we would be in no and practice was not only the forerunner of
doubt about the existence of violence, for Eisenstein et al in Russia, but was the first
instance, or sex. Art Deco, at least in its example of clear precise thinking about
Minneapolis version, seems practically devoid cinema, movies, film...film as art, film as
even of eroticism. Almost the only moment when document; and his was the pragmatic
politics enters is due to the inclusion of a complement to theory: he was a brilliant film
Lalique radiator mascot 'of the kind Hitler maker. Vertov howls in despair against the
presented to his marshals for their Mercedes narrative commercial cinema, `...literary
Limousines'. skeleton plus cinematic illustration... movie
Bevis Hillier's introduction conjures up the dramas dressed with an excellent technological
portrait of a fictional family; a stockbroker, his sauce. The organism of cinematography is
wife, daughter and son 'down from Oxford for poisoned by the frightful venom of habit!'
the long vacation'. They lead a life of idyllic And so on. Vertov gives a clear system of his