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Comparison Of Ballet Mecanique And Return To Reason

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Return to Reason and Ballet Mecanique have massive abstraction influences. In fact, since the film Return to Reason has “Dada-Abstractionist” tendencies (O’Pray 18) it can expand well beyond the photographically structural chronicle that is being portrayed in Ballet Mecanique. The shapes or figures that are presented in some of the scenes as well patterns that are generated by focused loop editing underline the ongoing change in a technologically-fluent world. They are portrayed as a cycle of discovery; because technology has become more useful, humans quickly discover that technology can not only be expanded in the future, but the way a social landscape operates will also change to reflect its rising influences. To a certain extent, it …show more content…

They are purposefully not supposed to tell a specific story, but do so inadvertently. The story is that through abstract figures, the world is not entirely a constructed setting; it also has some rather peculiar features that populate its environment (statues are a perfect example). Ballet Mecanique, however, takes a subtle approach into associating links between objects. Instead, of relying on pattern-object parallel to convey an inferred narrative, Ballet Mecanique uses the process of object composition and detaching certain parts of the object(s) to infer alternating graphic complements. In order to make the complement much more plausible, a carousel scene would be cleverly and delicately dissected and rotated as if it were a side wheel. It would then be followed by a rotating colt so that the viewer can continue to identify the graphical pattern. In Ballet Mecanique, the open/close eyes side up and upside down, if put together would relay a symmetrical cinematic feature that instantly catches the viewer’s attention. Editing techniques are employed to change concrete perceptions of graphically matching scenes. Also, the objects become familiar as soon as they are grasped, but by editing them they are observed very differently (Bordwell & Thompson 407) and the context drastically changes. Some familiar objects are incased in black or white backgrounds. Also, the swinging and turning objects become part of a “mechanized ballet” theme supplementing the bond that man and machine have when contributing to a developing world. To emphasize this theme, it focuses on an array of rotating or swinging objects into an abstract style of both humans and objects synchronizing to convey a broader universal concept. The

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