The Painter with a Movie Camera
It was quite a surprise when a moving picture camera was brought to the Munch Museum several years ago. It was a so-called Pathé-Baby with a 9,5 mm. film cassette and a projector in a specially made traveller's case. The advanced traveller's camera was said to have belonged to Edvard Munch, a fact confirmed by a viewing of the four accompanying films, which had originally been developed at Nerlien's in Oslo.
In connection with Munch's exhibition of Honour at the National Gallery in Berlin in the spring of 1927 he went on an extended trip to the Continent, during which he also visited Dresden before returning to Oslo in May. One of the cassette films were taken in Dresden, the other three in Oslo and Aker. All the shots seem to be from that summer.
The film from Dresden can be identified through the shots from the Schlossplatz overlooking the river Elbe and of the equestrian statue of the Saxon King Albert. This is obviously Munch's first experiment in cinema; and the film consists mainly of brief sequences from the centre of the city. Munch seems to have been fascinated by the street life. The camera has captured tramways, cars and horsedrawn carriages running in all directions, dwelling on the crowd of people passing in the street, and focussing on a man and woman laboriously shifting a cart. It is characteristic of the reel that most people have their backs turned, suggesting that they were unaware of being filmed; Munch probably sought out places from where he could film in secret.
The next film was mainly taken in the garden of Ekely, where Munch's old terrier is lying in the sunshine. Munch thought, according to Christian Gierløff, that 'the soul of an old wise man had taken place in the dog'. The film sweeps over the landscape anc captures a building in the neighbourhood.
The next scene is of Dronningparken, and then from in front of the Palace, but most of the film was taken at and around Karl Johan Street, where he stood outside Kirkeristen filming the busy street life. Munch filmed people rushing about and cars passing by, panning through 180 degrees. He seems to have wanted to capture the pulse of life by moving the camera. He also created contrasting scenes: He stops at a menu-card at the entrance of a restaurant, just as he stops at an oil and colour shop to film the display through the window.
The fourth film shows, in sweeping movements, parts of Solveien at Nordstrand, where his aunt and his sister lived. Inger's statuesque figure is seen and in a brief moment the head of his aunt fills out the whole picture. A longer close-up sequence of a fence rail is taken with an "Impressionist" approach.
The last part of the film is of Munch himself at the foot of the stairs at Ekely. Munch enters from the right, approaches the lens, bends down and gazes directly into the lens. After this he gets up and walks slowly out of the picture. Parts of his body -- for instance, a longer shot of his jacket with his handkerchief in the pocket -- fill out the picture, giving the scene the sense of a radical experiment.
Such short close-ups had been discussed by Fernand Léger the previous year in his article 'A New Realism -- The Object: Its Plastic and Cinematic Value'. However, the closest source of inspiration is probably experimental film, which Munch must have been exposed to during his many travels abroad in the years 1925-1927.
The Russian film artist Dziga Vertov was very much in vogue in this period, having already, in a manifesto in 1922, launched a new kind of documentary film: instead of fusing a plot the artist should convey impressions of reality through a new kind of rythm like that of a musical composer. One of Vertovs bestknown works, The Man with the Movie Camera, was built up through street scenes, deliberate blurring through movement, double-exposure effects, such as shots through windows, and stopping at, for instance, a poster to give the effect of a still life.
Munch seems to have tried out exactly the same kind of effects, and his camera was especially good for such sequences. Vertov was the first film artist introduced in Das Kunstblatt (May 1929), perhaps his style was viewed in unison with the programme of The New Objectivity.
From: Arne Eggum, Munch and Photography (New Haven, Yale university Press, 1989)
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