Page 115 - Art Review

Julian Rosefeldt Manifesto

London Film Festival/British Film Institute 6 October

This is the second coming of Julian Rosefeldt’s are the authors of the three manifestos featured on the set. The manifestos, stripped of context
Manifesto, a multiscreen installation featuring in ‘Surrealism/Spatialism’ (as the segment and then given an accent, emphasis and tone that
Cate Blanchett declaiming 50 artistic manifestos is titled in the end credits – no such guidance was presumably worked out between the director
that premiered at Melbourne’s Australian Centre appears in the film itself), including an and actor on the fly, supply these statements
for the Moving Image in 2016 and subsequently unnerving scene in which Blanchett plays with a fresh urgency. The viewer is simultane-
toured spaces such as the Hamburger Bahnhof a puppeteer holding a hand-and-rod miniature ously and continuously straining to make sense
in Berlin and the Park Avenue Armory in New of herself while reciting Breton’s ‘Second of what is being presented onscreen, such
York. Now it has been edited into a 95-minute Manifesto of Surrealism’ (1929). Over the is the disjunction between words and actions
feature film, released theatrically in the UK duration of the film, Blanchett inhabits 13 – or unexpected affinity, as when Blanchett,
at the end of 2017. Containing spoken texts roles, each acrobatically different from the playing a schoolteacher, walks through her class
ranging from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s last. Her characters are more or less present- imparting quiet words from filmmakers Lars von
‘The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism’ day: a homeless man slouches through Trier and Thomas Vinterberg’s ‘Dogme 95’ (1995).
(1909) to Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Golden Rules of an abandoned Cold War listening post while And the words themselves stand out for being
Filmmaking’ (2002), plus a prologue recitation shouting the words of Constant and Guy delivered (mostly) by female characters (only
of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s ‘Manifesto Debord (‘Situationism’), a layered and four of the original manifestos were written
of the Communist Party’ (1848), the work feathered anchorwoman delivers Sol LeWitt by women: Yvonne Rainer, Mierle Laderman,
is a disorienting and thrilling ride through and Sturtevant to camera (‘Conceptual Art/ Adrian Piper and Sturtevant). But something
the past century of cultural history. Disorienting Minimalism’), a choreographer in the mould else happens: the words become part of the
because the actor delivering the words is one of Pina Bausch runs a dance rehearsal with aesthetics of the film. What the viewer picks
of Hollywood’s great shapeshifters, that talent guidance from George Maciunas and Kurt out are the cadences and forms of manifesto-
on full display here, and thrilling because Schwitters (‘Fluxus/Merz/Performance’). writing rather than strictly its content: the
of what happens to the words in the process The time spent shooting all this was brief boldness, full of claim-staking and revolution,
of their delivery. (11 days in total), which, given the high produc- anger, naivety and idealism that connects
Addressing twentieth-century movements tion values, complicated sets and numerous Guillaume Apollinaire to Debord, and Bruno
in art, architecture and performance, the film extras deployed, suggests a technique akin Taut to Claes Oldenburg, bridging political,
is divided into 12 scenarios, each containing to single-take photography when it comes historical and cultural differences in the creation
a selection of manifestos chosen to represent to Blanchett’s delivery; there couldn’t really have of what sound like new manifestos, all making
a given category, many of which are combined. been time for more, and the director himself a claim to the importance of art regardless
André Breton and Lucio Fontana, for example, has described a sort of workshop environment of form. David Terrien

Manifesto (still), 2017, film, colour, sound, 95 min. © the artist

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