Antonin Artaud

Robert Warshow, author of The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theater and Other Aspects of Popular Culture, was at once a student and teacher of experience. He was a lover of popular culture in all forms, a “New York Intellectual”, and a disenchanted writer searching for the cultural value in everything he saw, read or experienced. (denby 2001, xiii) Through reading his collection of critical essays one can see Warshow as a Jewish man, with strong opinions about communism and its affect on society, a movie buff, and a critic enamored with experience. Experience both from the perspective of the artist, as well as the observer of the art.

He exclaims that we give entirely too much credit to old masterpieces of past times. Artaud even wants museums to disappear so that something new can be there. He believed the power of new art, which gave the mystery that people were greedy for, was far greater than that of masterpieces. In Artaud’s opinion, old art is simply outdated, and it does not need to be made anymore. The art of past was formatted for its time, such as the refined language in Sophocles’ Oepidus Rex. Just as it was for that time, new art should constantly be made to cater to the needs of the modern world. Old art is not bad. There is just no need for it to posted as the epitome of good art. Artaud does not want to live in the past. He wants to the live in the now. To him, if theatre ever becomes an inferior art, it is because old art has revealed to much of its illusion and falsehood. He even accuses Shakespeare for threatening the life of theatre. One of Artaud’s solution to getting rid of masterpieces was theatre of cruelty. He wanted to disrupt the relationship between and audience and performer by going beyond word and connecting with emotions. The purpose of theatre to him was to confront the audience about modern issues through a deeper level. This is how theatre could possibly put an end to war, riots, and

Likewise, Artaud relied on the scientific aspects of sociology in order to best influences the crowds packed inside theaters. The spirt of destruction did not stand solely as a matter of sociologic observation, but also a source of artistic inspiration. Artaud recognized the value of cruelty within art and capitalized on shock value to connect with audiences. Like Simmel, he focused highly on the concept of human connection. He negatively refers to film as “reflected, filtered and projected images that no longer connect” because film contrasts harshly with Artaud’s goal in destroying the standard version of theatre (Artaud, #). To be able to destroy something, it must possess some level of vulnerability. Cinema is a polished, carefully constructed art form. Because it is pre-recorded, it lacks the emotional rawness that accompanies experiencing it live and gives way to more

“but the sense of a capable ensemble pulling together to show mankind’s capacity for mental disintegration under the marionette-tugs of its impulses leaves you feeling curiously and rather shamefacedly invigorated.”. Another example can be seen in the film Marat/Sade by Peter Brook in 1967 which also adopts Artaud’s form of theatre and surrealism in film. Hence, establishing the influence of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty and his techniques in the 20th/21st

Antonin Artaud was an artist who was cursed physically, tormented emotionally, and was constantly walking in the shadow of his childhood ailments. Though his illnesses set him back in many ways, Artaud was ever persistent and dedicated to expressing himself artistically, even if it meant he had to work twice as hard as anyone else to be heard and understood. As such, Artaud’s work in the theater gives us a sense that anything is possible. His writing, directing and conceptualizing are evidence of his inability to be bound or limited in any sort of artistic way. Artaud’s theater is one full of possibilities and unexplored territories. As Artaud himself said, “If there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames.”1

Another artist of the Impressionism era that was impacted by the great wave of Japanese artwork was Paul Cézanne. In Cézanne’s case, his relationship with Japanese art forms was vague in comparison to the other Impressionists. He was not an avid collector of Japanese prints such as Degas, nor was he privy to the fascination with these unique objects. Cézanne was an artist “who admired Puget and Michelangelo for their sculptural volume: he was temperamentally incapable of adopting Japanese prints as his ideal,” (Berger 112). Studies have shown that Cézanne paid closer attention to what was going on in the art world than his counterparts, therefore, it is hard to determine how Cézanne could have possibly overlooked Japanese art (Berger 113).

The well established theater production, The Rose of Castille, delighted me throughout it’s splendiferous performance at the Olympic Theatre in New York. Firstly, as I looked outside the theater, its massive gray bricks expressed its beauty. As soon as I walked inside, the Olympic Theatre had French Renaissance paintings on its walls, magnificent.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” (Shaw). Change is inevitable. Times change and ideas progress. One thing we think to be unacceptable now may very well be acceptable in the future. Look at the use of marijuana and even the homosexual agenda. Society is slowly progressing with its postmodern thinking and statistically speaking, those people are thinking it is more and more acceptable. We might not think that what I just said has anything to do with Theatre, but we need to put in perspective why we now have the theatre we do now. Ancient Greek theatre was not as open to civil human rights

At the turn of the century Paris was one of the capitals of culture and art to the outside world. However, the truth of the matter was that this taboo-ridden society was being run by an aristocracy that was repressing the arts. Naturally, when World War 1 broke out, the suppressed French society finally had a release and a rebellion against order arose. WWI specifically affected the theatre of French and it’s aftermath. From the ashes of war the avant-garde theatre grew and styles such as Dadaism and Surrealism were born. It was both the climate of culture before the war and the devastation of the war that lead to the outbreak of avant-garde theatre in France.

If the world of theatre can be accredited for anything, it would be for drama’s constant criticism of societal structure. Through it’s epic use of comedic and dramatic storytelling, theatre subconsciously inspires the minds of it’s audience to genuinely analyze the inner workings of their community’s sturcture. Some playwrights successfully incorporate this masterful mind game through their humorous and entertaining comedies; Others entice by their jarring and encompassing dramas. No matter the style, playwrights are constantly attempting to challenge the minds of their audiences and bring truth to light through their art. A phenomenal and extremely direct example of this comes from Moliere’s most

As Richard Abel observes, “The materiality of silent cinema…has become so unfamiliar to us, so different from that of our own cinema in the late twentieth century” that it is difficult to view silent film as anything but anachronistic (4). However, with 2011’s The Artist—an homage to silent film—winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards, it may be worthwhile to examine the nature and appeal of silent film. In a way, silent film does something that the modern day special effects spectaculars do not do: it leaves more to the imagination and calls upon the viewer to use his or her own mind in correspondence with the moving pictures. This paper will analyze what it is that makes silent film unique and show how the nature of silent film

Theatre of Cruelty is a theatre practice created by Antonin Artaud. The purpose of this practice is to present real problems and have the audience reflect on how they would act in these given situations. Theatre of Cruelty highlights the lives of those who were tormented as a result of those in power. This leads to audience members walking out and reanalyzing their own lives and actions (Cash). Considering Theatre of Cruelty, Roberto must be imagined because of the final monologue by Paulina and the stage directions that follow. She poses several questions to Roberto, as she reaches the climactic moment of shooting Roberto and asks, “And why does it always have to be people like me who have to sacrifice, why are we the ones who have to make concessions

Musical theatre has been a form of art and entertainment for hundreds of years. The early example of opera plays is Dofene, performed in 1597. La boheme was written and composed by Giacomo Puccini. The play is based in a french play ’Scénes de la vie de boléme’ by Henri Murger published in 1851. The world premiere was in Turin, Italy in 1896. This was close to the end of the 19th century where the theatre was turning from romanticism more into the genre of social realism. In contrast, Rent was written in 1996 which was close to the end of 20th century. During this one century, many things were acceptable by the society that were not acceptable during the time of La boheme. Rent demonstrates the things that would normally not be performed in a theatre. In other words, the movie provokes some audience. This essay is going to explain how interconnected audience and the theatre is and how they affect each other.

To look at cinema in the light of these two points, one can rely on David Bordwell's article "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice," which appeared in Film Criticism in 1979. (Gierse) . Art cinema has long been viewed with a keen eye by the critics. Even though it is generally considered that art cinema is difficult to comprehend and uses symbols to convey messages, it is becoming more and more popular worldwide. The viewers look at these films and the symbols in them in their own way and comprehend them in their own

This article gives an analysis of a theatre performance Les Miserable directed by Tom Hooper. It analyses on the best aspects of the play that was performed on stage. The play is a musical and an acting performance with the main character being Jean Valean. An analysis of the plot is given and also the sub plots with the characters featured.