Jean Cocteau’s use of special effects revel in their artifice, making themselves known as special effects. There is a sense of immediacy, like a direct magic trick, as what we see has actually happened in front of the camera. As Orphée passes through the ‘mirror’ into the underworld, in reality he moves into an identical adjoining set.
I find the scene this scene where Orphée moves through purgatory fascinating. Heurtebise leads an Orphée who has been pre-recorded on location and is being projected back behind Heurtebise. The dialogue is choreographed to make it appear as if they are conversing in real time. The choreography even extends to a passing vendor who appears in the foreground set with Heurtebise then after moving out of shot appears in the projected footage. As he moves from one space to another it initially appears as no time as passed, as if the foreground and the location footage as one and the same thing. Yet as the scene progresses there is a sense of something not quite right, a move out of the linear path of time, as there is an interaction between a past and present moment.
The manual special effect continues to be an important way of working in my practice. Through physically manipulating projected footage, the projection apparatus and the camera itself there is a sense of immediacy as I work with choreographing myself ‘on set’, in real time with former footage. There is an honesty and integrity to this way of working with no intention to trick a viewer with postproduction illusions. Clumsy and awkward smoke and mirrors rather than digital effects. Through manually creating the effect there is the chance for the work to fall apart to expose the struggle of its creation and re-creation, allowing a viewer to ‘figure out’ my attempts to make a past and present moment interact.
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