Anemic Cinema

1926 film

The complete film

Anemic Cinema or Anémic Cinéma is a 1926 Dada/surrealist French experimental film by Marcel Duchamp (credited to his alter ego, Rrose Sélavy), made in collaboration with Man Ray and Marc Allégret.

The seven-minute film is composed of alternating static camera shots of spinning animated drawings disks — which Duchamp called Rotoreliefs — inscribed with puns and alliterations in French. The text, which spirals in a counterclockwise motion, suggests erotic scenarios and the words, if read aloud, produce repetitive patterns of sounds that lead to scatological or obscene associations in reference to pulsating human sexual activity.[1] To make Anémic Cinéma, Duchamp filmed painted designs he made on flat cardboard circles while they spun on a phonograph turntable. When spinning, the flat disks appeared three-dimensional.[2]

The film premiered in a private screening in Paris in August 1926 and was acquired by MoMA in 1938, the first Duchamp work to enter a museum.

Duchamp had a commercial printer run off 500 sets of six of the designs and set up a booth at a 1935 Paris inventors' show to sell them. The venture was a financial disaster, but some optical scientists thought they might be of use in restoring three-dimensional sight to people with one eye.[3]

## History

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Anemic Cinema cover of The Little Review, 1925

Duchamp first showed Anemic Cinema at a private screening for friends in Paris on August 30, 1926.[4] He brought the film on a trip to New York later that year, where he held another private screening at the Fifth Avenue Playhouse on December 22, 1926, and another at Miles Studio in early 1927.[5]

Artist Hans Richter acquired a print of the film and gave it its public debut in 1929, screening it at the Film und Foto exhibition in Stuttgart.[6] New York art dealer Julien Levy obtained another print and screened it at his gallery in 1936 and 1937.[7] The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) acquired a print from Duchamp in 1938; this was the first of Duchamp's works to enter a museum collection.[8]

The film gained recognition in the 1930s and 1940s as Richter's copy circulated to film clubs in Europe, and MoMA's copy was lent to museums and universities around North America.[9]

## Rotoreliefs texts

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The texts on the Rotoreliefs, in French, are the following:

* "Bains de gros thé pour grains de beauté sans trop de bengué." (Bengay was a French analgesic rub invented by Dr. Jules Bengué)
* "L'enfant qui tète est un souffleur de chair chaude et n'aime pas le chou-fleur de serre-chaude."
* "Si je te donne un sou, me donneras-tu une paire de ciseaux ?"
* "On demande des moustiques domestiques (demi-stock) pour la cure d'azote sur la Côte d'Azur."
* "Inceste ou passion de famille, à coups trop tirés."
* "Esquivons les ecchymoses des Esquimaux aux mots exquis."
* "Avez-vous déjà mis la moëlle de l'épée dans le poêle de l'aimée ?"
* "Parmi nos articles de quincaillerie paresseuse, nous recommandons le robinet qui s'arrête de couler quand on ne l'écoute pas."
* "L'aspirant habite Javel et moi j'avais l'habite en spirale."

## See also

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* List of works by Marcel Duchamp
* 8 × 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements

## Notes and references

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Notes

1. ^ Affron, Mathew. The Essential Duchamp, Yale University Press (2018), p. 85
2. ^ "Marcel Duchamp's Rotoreliefs". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
3. ^ Calvin Tomkins, Duchamp: A Biography (1996), pages 301–303.
4. ^ Kauffman 2017a, p. 130, Note 9.
5. ^ Kauffman 2017a, pp. 130–131, Note 9.
6. ^ Kauffman 2017b, p. 214.
7. ^ Kauffman 2017b, p. 215.
8. ^ Kauffman 2017a, p. 131.
9. ^ Kauffman 2017b, p. 215-216.

References

* Kauffman, Alexander (2017a). "The Anemic Cinemas of Marcel Duchamp". The Art Bulletin. 99 (1): 128–159. doi:10.1080/00043079.2017.1249255. JSTOR 44973139.
* Kauffman, Alexander (2017b). "Faire Un Cinéma": Marcel Duchamp And The Moving Image (PhD). University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 17 September 2022.

## External links

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* Anémic Cinéma at IMDB
* Anémic Cinéma film at Ubuweb
* [1] Animated display of Duchamp's Rotoreliefs at Aqualoop

* v
* t
* e

Marcel Duchamp

Artworks|

* List of works by Marcel Duchamp
* Portrait of Dr. Dumouchel (1910)
* The Bush (1910–11)
* Yvonne and Magdeleine Torn in Tatters (1911)
* Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912)
* Bicycle Wheel (1913)
* Bottle Rack (1914)
* In Advance of the Broken Arm (1915)
* The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915–1923)
* Apolinère Enameled (c. 1916)
* Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating (1917)
* Fountain (1917)
* L.H.O.O.Q. (1919)
* Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette (1920–21)
* Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? (1921)
* Monte Carlo Bonds (1924)
* La Boîte-en-valise (1934–1966)
* Étant donnés (1946–1966)

Films|

* Anemic Cinema (1926)
* 8 × 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957)

Related|

* Readymades of Marcel Duchamp
* Anti-art
* Dada
* New York Dada
* The Blind Man
* Fountain Archive
* Portrait of Marcel Duchamp
* Alexina Duchamp (wife)
* Jacques Villon (brother)
* Raymond Duchamp-Villon (brother)
* Suzanne Duchamp (sister)
* Marcel Duchamp Prize

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