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''Ballet Mécanique'' (1923–24) is a
Dadaist Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...
, post-
Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
and the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from
Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American naturalized French visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, ...
).Chilvers, Ian & Glaves-Smith, John eds., Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford:
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, 2009. p. 400
It has a musical score by the American composer
George Antheil George Johann Carl Antheil ( ; July 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author, and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the sounds – musical, industrial, and mechanical – of the ear ...
. The film premiered in a silent version on September 24, 1924 at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International Exposition for New Theater Technique) in Vienna presented by Frederick Kiesler. It is considered to be a major work of early
experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...
making.


Film credit and history

In her book ''Dudley Murphy: Hollywood Wild Card'', film historian Susan Delson writes that Murphy was the film's driving force but that Léger was more successful at promoting the film as his own creation. However, some scholars argue that Léger conceived of the film himself, as part of his making the dazzling effects of mechanical technology the exclusive subject of his art; this after fighting at the front in
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
and spending the year of 1917 in a hospital after being gassed there. This controversy might be settled by observing that the 1924 version of the film, in its opening moments, credits Léger and Murphy equally. Despite that, the credits in the opening moments of a 2016 reconstruction mention only Léger. Léger's experiences in World War I had a significant effect on all of his work. Mobilized in August 1914 for service in the
French army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (, , ), is the principal Army, land warfare force of France, and the largest component of the French Armed Forces; it is responsible to the Government of France, alongside the French Navy, Fren ...
, he spent two years at the front in Argonne. He produced many sketches of artillery pieces, airplanes, and fellow soldiers while in the trenches, and painted ''Soldier with a Pipe'' (1916) while on furlough. In September 1916, he almost died after a
mustard gas Mustard gas or sulfur mustard are names commonly used for the organosulfur compound, organosulfur chemical compound bis(2-chloroethyl) sulfide, which has the chemical structure S(CH2CH2Cl)2, as well as other Chemical species, species. In the wi ...
attack by the
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
troops at
Verdun Verdun ( , ; ; ; official name before 1970: Verdun-sur-Meuse) is a city in the Meuse (department), Meuse departments of France, department in Grand Est, northeastern France. It is an arrondissement of the department. In 843, the Treaty of V ...
. During a period of convalescence in Villepinte, he painted ''The Card Players'' (1917), a canvas whose robot-like, monstrous figures reflect the ambivalence of his experience of war. As he explained: ''The Card Players'' marked the beginning of his "mechanical period" of which ''Ballet Mécanique'' is a part, an artistic technique that combined the dynamic abstraction of constructivism with the absurd and unruly qualities of
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...
. We see this trend in the film from beginning to end. However, a photo of a Dada sculpture with the name ''Ballet Mécanique'' had been previously featured in ''391'', a periodical created and edited by the Dadaist
Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typography, typographist closely associated with Dada. When consid ...
that first appeared in January 1917 and continued to be published until 1924. It is not known if Fernand Léger was aware of it or not.


Visual puns

In its original release, the film's French title was ''"Charlot présente le ballet mécanique"'' (as seen on the original print), referring to
Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered o ...
's Little Tramp character as he was known in France. The image of a
Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
-style paper puppet of Charlot, by Leger, appears several times in the film. It is only the first of many visual puns in the film—a seeming display of the film's sheer visual modernity, as intended by its creators from the get-go.


''Ballet Mécanique'' as a score


Composition

George Antheil's ''Ballet Mécanique'' (1924) was originally conceived as an accompaniment for the film and was scheduled to be premiered at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik. However before completion, director and composer agreed to go their separate ways. The musical work runs close to 30 minutes, while the film is about 19 minutes long. Antheil's music for ''Ballet Mécanique'' became a concert piece, premiered by Antheil himself in Paris in 1926. As a composition, it is Antheil's best known and most enduring work. It remains famous for its radical repetitive style and instrumentation, as well as its storied history. The original orchestration called for 16
player piano A player piano is a self-playing piano with a pneumatic or electromechanical mechanism that operates the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls. Modern versions use MIDI. The player piano gained popularity as mass-produced home ...
s (or pianolas) in four parts, 2 regular pianos, 3
xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...
s, at least 7 electric bells, 3
propeller A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...
s, siren, 4
bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter usually greater than its depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. The head ...
s, and 1
tam-tam A gongFrom Indonesian and ; ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ; ; ; ; is a percussion instrument originating from Southeast Asia, and used widely in Southeast Asian and East Asian musical traditions. Gongs are made of metal and are circular and fl ...
. As it turned out, there was no way to keep so many pianolas synchronized, so early performances combined the four parts into a single set of pianola rolls and augmented the two human-played pianos with 6 or more additional instruments. Antheil assiduously promoted the work and even engineered his supposed "disappearance" while on a visit to Africa so as to get media attention for a preview concert. The official Paris première in June 1926 was sponsored by an American patroness who at the end of the concert was tossed in a blanket by three baronesses and a duke. The work enraged some of the concertgoers, whose objections were drowned out by the cacophonous music,Suzanne Rodriguez ''Wild Heart: A Life: Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris'' (New York: HarperCollins, 2002): 249. . while others vocally supported the work. After the concert, there were some fights in the street. Antheil tried to replicate this scandal at Carnegie Hall by hiring provocateurs, but they were largely ignored. In concert performance, ''Ballet Mécanique'' is not a show of human dancers but of mechanical instruments. Among these, player pianos, airplane propellers, and electric bells stand prominently onstage, moving as machines do, and providing the visual side of the ballet. As the bizarre instrumentation may suggest, this was no ordinary piece of music; it was loud and percussive, a medley of noises, much as the Italian
Futurists Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...
envisioned new music of the 20th century. In 1927, Antheil arranged the first part of the Ballet for
Welte-Mignon M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte (1807–1880) in 1832. Overview From 1832 until 1932, the firm produced mechanical mu ...
. This piano-roll was performed on 16 July 1927 at the "Deutsche Kammermusik
Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the ...
1927". Unfortunately, these piano rolls are now thought to be lost.


Later history

In 1953, Antheil wrote a shortened (and much tamer) version for 4 pianos, 4 xylophones, 2 electric bells, 2 propellers,
timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...
,
glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( ; or , : bells and : play) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a Musical keyboard, keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the v ...
, and other percussion. The original orchestration was first realized in 1992 by Maurice Peress. In 1986, the film was premiered with a new score by
Michael Nyman Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his lengthy ...
. In 1999, the
University of Massachusetts Lowell The University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell and UML) is a Public university, public research university in Lowell, Massachusetts, with a satellite campus in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It is the northernmost member of the University of M ...
Percussion Ensemble, under the direction of Jeff Fischer, presented the first performance of the original score (without the film) using 16 player pianos and live players. The player pianos were Yamaha Disklaviers, controlled via MIDI using the Macintosh software program Opcode StudioVision. Although the film was intended to use Antheil's score as a soundtrack, the two parts were not brought together until much later. In 2000, Paul Lehrman produced a married print of the film. This version of the film was included in the DVD collection ''Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1894–1941'' released in October 2005 and also in the DVD set ''Bad Boy Made Good'', which also contains Lehrman's documentary film about Antheil and the ''Ballet mécanique'', which was released in April 2006. Lehrman used an edited version of the original orchestration in which he used player pianos recorded after the Lowell performance, with the rest of the instruments played electronically. In November 2002, a version of the score for live ensemble (which required further editing, since live players couldn't play it as fast as electronic instruments) was premiered in
Columbus, Ohio Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...
by an ensemble from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, conducted by Julian Pellicano. The performance, with the newly-realized soundtrack and the 1952 version of ''Ballet mécanique'', was repeated at the Friedberg Concert Hall at Peabody Conservatory on February 17, 2003. The work was then performed in Montreal at the Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques festival, conducted by Walter Boudreau. This version was then performed a dozen times in Europe by the
London Sinfonietta The London Sinfonietta is an English contemporary chamber music, chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble has headquarters at Kings Place and is Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Since its inaugural concert ...
in 2004 and 2005. In 2005, the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
in Washington, DC commissioned Lehrman and the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR), Eric Singer, director, to create a computer-driven robotic ensemble to play ''Ballet mécanique''. This installation was at the Gallery from 12 March to 7 May 2006. It was installed in December 2007 at the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach, FL, and again at 3-Legged Dog in New York City, where it was used to accompany a play about Antheil and Hedy Lamarr, and their invention of spread-spectrum technology, called ''Frequency Hopping''. During the run of the play, the Léger/Murphy film was shown, with the robotic orchestra performing the score, at two special "after-concerts."


Analysis

It is in a
sonata rondo form Sonata rondo form is a musical form often used during the Classical and Romantic music eras. As the name implies, it is a blend of sonata and rondo forms. Structure Sonata and rondo forms Rondo form involves the repeated use of a theme ...
with the following sections: B ′C ″B″ Coda">Coda_(music).html" ;"title="nowiki/>Coda (music)">Codapattern, where A is a first Theme (music)">theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical appearance for certain software. * Theme (linguistics), topic * Theme ( ...
, B is a second theme, and C is a middle section loosely related to A and B: * A – Theme 1 starts at the beginning of the piece. It is easily identified by the oscillating melody in the
xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...
s. It moves through rhythmic and intervallic variations until a
bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...
into the next theme ( 38 in the original scoring). * B – Theme 2 (m. 77) features the pianolas, supported by drums. The melody is mostly built from parallel series of consonant chords, sometimes sounding
pentatonic A pentatonic scale is a Scale (music), musical scale with five Musical note, notes per octave, in contrast to heptatonic scales, which have seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed inde ...
but often making no tonal sense at all. Antheil uses pianolas for things that would be difficult for human players (a 7-note chord at m. 142, for example). * A′ – Xylophones return in Triple metre">triple meter Triple is used in several contexts to mean "threefold" or a " treble": Sports * Triple (baseball), a three-base hit * A basketball three-point field goal * A figure skating jump with three rotations * In bowling terms, three strikes in a row ...
to recall Theme 1 (m. 187). This is not strictly a repeat of Theme 1 but another variation and development upon it. This section descends into increasing chaos (starting m. 283) which signals a transition into part C (m. 328). * C – The xylophones and pianolas play a new tune. They stay in better rhythmic agreement here and give a more ordered feel to this section. The xylophones eventually cut out to make way for a serene pianola passage. * A″B″ – The xylophones return (m. 403) with the theme from the beginning. There are differences from the original AB part, including new bitonal passage (m. 530) and miniature round (m. 622) between xylophones and pianolas. The pentatonic melody, hinted in part B, returns (m. 649) and gets developed in the context of the round. * Coda – A startling change occurs when all instruments cut out except for a lone bell (m. 1134). This signals the beginning of a very long and thinly textured coda. It alternates between irregular measures of complete silence and pianola with percussion. The measures of silence get longer until the listener begins to wonder whether the piece is already over. Finally, there is a crescendo of pianola, a flurry of percussion and a bang to mark the real ending. The score indicates the last measure of the piece to be ended with the pianos and drums only, but modern performances have the xylophones joining back in and doubling the melody of the pianolas to create a more firm, solid, and recognizable ending. The mechanical pianos keep the tempo strictly at  = 152. All longer rests in the pianola part are notated in 8th rests, as if to suggest the exactness of the instrument. At this rate, the 1920s pianola played 8.5 feet per minute of paper rolls over three rolls. This logistical nightmare has been described by some scholars as being an error, and that Antheil's suggested tempo was actually half that  = 76, but in fact Antheil's 1953 ''Ballet Mécanique'' score indicates a tempo of 144–160. The airplane propellers were actually large
electric fan A fan is a powered machine that creates airflow. A fan consists of rotating vanes or blades, generally made of wood, plastic, or metal, which act on the air. The rotating assembly of blades and hub is known as an '' impeller'', '' rotor'', or '' ...
s, into which musicians would insert object such as wooden poles or leather straps to create sound, since the fans don't make much noise. In the Paris performances, beginning in June 1926, the fans were pointed up at the ceiling. However, at the
Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...
premiere on 10 April 1927, the fans were positioned to blow into the audience, upsetting the patrons.


''Ballet Mécanique'' as synchronized film

Nevertheless, with respect to the original synchronized film, and despite the quality of last sound performance and its consistent reliability with Antheil's original plans for its concert (made by Lehrman himself and endorsed by the Schirmer publisher for the DVD ''Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1894–1941'', 2005), its timing with the film it is still in full debate today. New points of view were offered by Ortiz Morales in his thesis, '' El ballet mécanique y el Synchro-ciné'', in 2008. He discusses most of the points of view that have given origin to the realization of Lehrman and proposes other alternatives within what he calls ''the state of confusion'' around the film. Among others, the score of 30 minutes and 16 synchronized pianolas so laboriously obtained is not really the original musical idea for the film, but a subsequent ''expansion'' of the original idea, which was carried out by Antheil as a '' spectacular '' and independent concert, once proved that it could not synchronize its music together with the images of Léger. The true film score must have been much simpler and more precise, possibly for solo pianola and noise machines, and, after various reductions and modifications, close to the one he would end up orchestrating in 1935. It argues, therefore, that the problem of ''original synchronization'' was never in the 16 synchronized pianolas of the giant score, but the problem with the simple version (for the film) must have been in the device that had to synchronize it ''mechanically'' : the Synchro-Ciné of the inventor Charles Delacommune, possibly the first
audio-visual Audiovisual (AV) is electronic media possessing both a sound and a visual component, such as slide-tape presentations, films, television programs, corporate conferencing, church services, and live theater productions. Audiovisual service pro ...
mixing table in history and with which it is known that they were desperately trying for a while (as is documented) the material for that film, signed by Léger and Delacommune). According to technical studies on documentation (the apparatus as such was lost in II World War), it seems that the synchro-ciné was a '' synchronizer '' capable of good audio-video simultaneities in standard measures, but the fleeting and devilish rhythm of the work far exceeded its possibilities: especially the complex rhythms, of 7 and 5, very used in the work and impossible to obtain with a such precarious device. With a more restrained and square music, they could have been tuned and synchronized mechanically, which was what Léger promised to the press after talking to Delacommune (but before having tried it in practice with the music of Antheil). This thesis was reinforced in 2016 with the publication of the reconstruction of cinematic synchronism according to the so-called ''Canonical version'' (i.e., based on the "tempo-spatial" rhythmic patterns, or audiovisual "canons of proportions" which Léger and Antheil are known to have used to coordinate, or at least attempt to coordinate, images and music. This version, made by Ortiz Morales with the collaboration of the Ensemble Modern, uses
algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...
s to search the exact copy of the film and the correct Antheil score, which they both joined together in 1935 (the only time they know that proper 'timing' occurred, according to themselves). Thus, in each period, a slightly different copy of the Ballet has circulated. That explains, in part, doubts about its ascription to a certain
aesthetic Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,'' , acces ...
. The most modern and complete study on the subject, that of Elder, from 2018 (Cubism and Futurism), supports, in whole or in part, those same ideas.Elder, R.Bruce, ''Cubism and Futurism-spiritual machines and the cinematic effect''. Ontario (Canadá)
Wilfrid Laurier University Press Wilfrid Laurier University Press, based in Waterloo, Ontario, is a publisher of scholarly writing and is part of Wilfrid Laurier University. The fourth-largest university press in Canada, WLUP publishes work in a variety of disciplines in the hum ...
, 2018.
Especially in the verification of the existence of many different versions of the film (12 at least, plus some others lost); in which the Delacommune system of
synchronization Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the Conductor (music), conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are sa ...
was called in 1924 "Synchronismes Cinématographiques", abbreviated " Synchro-Ciné", before becoming the name of its own production company, and was the one that was tried to be used in the original
synchronization Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the Conductor (music), conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are sa ...
with unsuccessful result; in that the original music for Antheil's "Ballet" was most likely a different version of the famous 16 synchronized player pianos and was for either a Photoplayer or a simple player piano with a single roll; in that since 1927 there have been various modifications of the film, and of the
score SCORE may refer to: *SCORE (software), a music scorewriter program * SCORE (television), a weekend sports service of the defunct Financial News Network *SCORE! Educational Centers *SCORE International, an offroad racing organization *Sarawak Corrido ...
, each time shorter and tighter; and in that the theories of Moritz generally accepted in the US about the almost exclusive Dadaism of the film are obviously exaggerated and do not correspond to the reality:
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
retouched the original film so much that the copies we know are much more
cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
than
dadaist Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...
.


Discography (audio)

*"Ballet Mécanique" MusicMasters. Cond. Maurice Peress, 1992. 01612-67094-2 *"Fighting the Waves: Music of George Antheil." Ensemble Moderne, cond. HK Gruber. RCA, 1996. *"George Antheil: Ballet Mécanique." Boston Modern Orchestra Project, cond. Gil Rose. BMOP/sound, 2013. *"Ballet Mecanique and Other Works for Player Pianos, Percussion, and Electronics." UMass Lowell Percussion Ensemble, cond. Jeffrey Fischer. Electronic Music Foundation, 2000. *"George Antheil Ballet Mecanique (1953)" (and other works by Antheil), Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Spalding, conductor, Naxos American Classics, 2001.


Bibliography

*Buck, Robert T. et al. (1982). ''Fernand Léger''. New York: Abbeville Publishers. *Chilvers, Ian & Glaves-Smith, John eds., Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford:
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2009. * *Elder, R.Bruce, ''Cubism and Futurism-spiritual machines and the cinematic effect''. Ontario (Canadá)
Wilfrid Laurier University Press Wilfrid Laurier University Press, based in Waterloo, Ontario, is a publisher of scholarly writing and is part of Wilfrid Laurier University. The fourth-largest university press in Canada, WLUP publishes work in a variety of disciplines in the hum ...
, 2018. . Pages 139-379. *James Donald, "Jazz Modernism and Film Art: Dudley Murphy and ''Ballet mécanique'' in Modernism/modernity 16:1
January 2009
, pages 25–49 * * * *Néret, Gilles (1993). ''F. Léger''. New York: BDD Illustrated Books. * *Richter, H. ''Dada: Art and Anti-Art'' (Thames and Hudson 1965)


References


External links

*
Paul Lehrman's website about ''Ballet Mécanique'' both Leger's film and Antheil's music1924. The first version of the film, co-crediting Léger and Murphy2016. The last version of film : the canonical version
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballet Mecanique 1924 films French avant-garde and experimental films French black-and-white films Futurist film Futurist theatre Films directed by Dudley Murphy Films scored by George Antheil Articles containing video clips Ballet controversies Music riots French silent short films 1920s French films