When I was asked to write another article on art films in general and the Storck-Haesaerts production Rubens in particular, to tie up with the screening of this film at the Centennial Festival of Documentary in Christchurch this October, my first reaction was to refuse; on the ground that the subject had already been well covered and that I had personal experience of nothing new which could profitably be discussed. I was overlooking the fact that, because of New Zealand's isolation, this development of the art film — one of the most vigorous creative movements in the cinema today —is really quite new to us here: I was, too, conscious of some articles I had myself written on this theme while overseas with Unesco, and the work that was done there in 1948–49 towards organizing an International Conference on Art Films in Paris and forming an International Federation of Art Films as a permanent body charged with fostering this branch of the cinema. By the time that Conference met, Unesco's Film Section had already compiled, in draft form, a world list of films on architecture, painting, design, tapestry, sculpture, etc., and much of this preliminary documentation has since been incorporated into an excellent and authoritative brochure entitled Films on Art, which made its appearance at the end of last year under Unesco's sponsorship and which contains a catalogue of 150 art films from thirteen countries. My feeling that the topic was now well past the introductory stage was further reinforced by my knowledge that much space has already been devoted to art films in such publications as Hollywood Quarterly and Sight and Sound; that three issues of the Unesco Courier in the first months of 1950 alone have contained discussions of the subject; and, especially, that the Second International Congress of Art Films was held in Brussels last February, when delegates saw and judged more than forty new films produced in fifteen countries since 1948.

These details seem worth mentioning, for the dual purpose of emphasizing the importance of this new aspect of the cinema, and the fact that —in spite of all that has been happening — it still remains for New Zealand to ‘discover’ the art film. And for that introductory purpose, among the many varieties of this type of film now in existence, no better example could have been found than Rubens. It is now two years since I saw three screenings of this film in Paris — the first was a preview at which the producer himself was seeing his film for the first time in completed form — and therefore it may well be that in the meantime some new films have appeared which are more remarkable. It would be surprising indeed if such were not the case: after all, the mere figure of forty new films of the genre produced in two years and worthy of submission to an international congress indicates what a creative ferment is at present going on in this quarter of the screen. There has certainly been in overseas publications some criticism of Rubens which suggests that it is not quite the masterpiece, or the last word on the subject, which it seemed to many of us when it first appeared. Even at that time, indeed, my own enthusiasm was tempered by awareness of a few obvious faults: chiefly, perhaps, its rather excessive length (six reels then, though there is some reason to believe that the length has since been reduced), and the fact that, to quote something I wrote at the time, ‘the producers have been so enthusiastic about some of their innovations in technique that devices which are striking in the extreme when first encountered lose much of their impact through repetition and towards the end become little more than dull thuds on one's consciousness.’

However, as Paul Duvay has pointed out, Rubens introduces a new and important didactic technique: it represents the triumphal entry of the history of art into the domain of the cinema. The producers bring a critical attitude to the screen and do not pretend to be objective. They present us with one view of Rubens and, in an attempt to place the man in the evolution of art, seek to measure his stature by a series of comparisons. Having given the audience a general picture of the painter himself, the film explores his paintings. With its use of the split screen to point the contrast or the similarity between the work of Rubens and his successors as well as his predecessors; with its use of spotlighting and, especially, of white outlines drawn around sections of a painting to focus attention on detail and composition or to suggest analogies and even actual movement within the frame of the picture; and above all with its fine photographic quality and its musical background to draw out the very essence of the work and illuminate the intention of the artist —with all this, Rubens is certain to make quite as strong an impression on audiences at the Christchurch Festival as it did two years ago on those in Paris and at the 1948 Film Festival in Venice.

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It is, of course, a pity in some ways that those New Zealanders who will be lucky enough to see Rubens when it comes here will be lacking the background of prior experience and knowledge of other art films desirable for a proper appreciation of this outstanding example. Apart from one or two French films on Matisse, Rodin, and Maillol, there has been nothing available in this country to provide a context for its presentation: audiences therefore will have to receive its impact virtually in a vacuum. With this in mind, one needs to mention that these are art films we are discussing: most of them so far have been made in Europe, and in Europe the ordinary person of any age as well as the artist takes the human form very much more for granted than is the case here. There is none of the prudery about the nude which can still be found page 40 in this corner of the world; and if the film were intended for general exhibition I don't know just how some of the solid burghers of Christchurch and their wives and families (or for that matter those of any New Zealand city) would accept the camera's frank and detailed scrutiny of the ripe nudes in which the artist Rubens delighted. But that is another headache for the Censor, poor fellow, and doubtless he can find a way to overcome it. At least it is not such a difficult problem in the present case as it might be, for example, if he had to consider passing for general New Zealand exhibition another notable example of the art film which I have seen — Le Monde de Paul Delvaux, where the camera, aided by an imaginative script and sound-track, explores the curious private world of the painter Delvaux. peopled by men and women who have shed their clothes in settings which are a weird composite of modernity and timelessness, reality and dream-fantasy.

The two films mentioned, Rubens and Le Monde de Paul Delvaux, are both from Belgium, a small country which, in the development of the art film. has throughout made a contribution out of all proportion to its size. Perhaps this is due precisely to that very fact of Belgium's smallness which

White outlines are used in the new Rubens film to focus attention on details of composition.

A close-up from the Belgian film “Rubens”, created by Paul Haesaerts and Henri Storck: Rubens eye, from his famous self-portrait at Windsor Castle.

Self-portrait at Windsor Castle

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The rape of the doughters of Leucippus. Painted about 1619 by Rubens.

by limiting native film production almost exclusively to documentaries, turned the attention of Belgian producers to their country's artistic heritage — to its paintings, sculptures, architecture, and illuminations — as a source of material. But whatever the cause, the result has been that some of the most important pioneering and experimental efforts in the realm of the art film, as well as some of its most striking achievements up to the present, have emerged from Belgium.

In this sphere, indeed, Belgium shares pride of place with Italy (even in advance of France), although Italy has produced probably a greater quantity of such films and appears, on the evidence, to have been rather earlier in the field. Production of films on art subjects in Italy dates back to the 1920's, but most early examples of such films — indeed; most of them up to 1940 — were intended to serve solely ‘educational’ purposes in the narrow sense: they presented pictures of paintings, statues, monuments, and buildings, but were conceived by teachers rather than by artists and, considered as films, had little aesthetic appeal in their own right. About 1940. however, began the new approach to the art film: to treat the painting or the sculpture or even the historic piece of architecture not as an indivisible whole but as an object whose qualities and design and aesthetic conception could be revealed brilliantly by the film itself through skilful cutting and cross-cutting, selection and juxtaposition of details, music and commentary. The result in one or two cases has been something which, dealing with an established work of art in another form, comes close to qualifying as a new work of art in itself.

In Italy, Luciano Emmer and Enrico Gras are the counterparts of Storck and Haesaerts in Belgium (and perhaps one should at this point include reference to Gaston Diehl of France, whose excellent Van Gogh, which I saw in unfinished form in Paris about two years ago, is also, I understand, to be included at the Christchurch Festival). Emmer, who has specialized in applying the analytical technique to some of the classic Italian frescos, should be known even in New Zealand by repute: let us hope he may some day be known by his works. There have been those who have criticised the technique itself, on the ground that a painting should be looked at whole and not in parts — but can this argument hold good for some of the great Italian frescos, which are painted in sequence almost like a modern comic-strip, or of those many murals and paintings which are too large and too detailed for the human eye to comprehend in one piece? It is surely then legitimate to use the eye of the camera as Emmer and his colleagues in several countries are doing, since the details already exist in the paintings, and this photographic treatment ensures that they are not overlooked. But of course it does something else, too — something which is well expressed in the words of Francesco Monotti: ‘A spell is upon us. It is impossible to shake it off again. Art, as Art — as the fixed image of a dead and unchangeable world — is gone for ever. Invention and expression, light and colour, burn and flicker again before us as they did of yore in the great creative periods of humanity.’

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When I touched earlier on the topic of censorship, I did so solely to indicate that problems other than those of distance and economics might be encountered for a start in any effort to transplant some of these exotic films to the rather rigorous cultural climate of New Zealand. At the same time, just because of our isolation from the art centres of the world, and the consequent inability of most of our people to see the world's architectural, sculptural and painted treasures in the original and on the spot, these art films have a special value to us. It is probably very true that the main reason why more people do not appreciate good art and good design is not because they are, in general, insensitive to beauty, but because they do not get enough chance to see it and understand it. But now, just as the radio has done much to bring music to the people, so the cinema is beginning to do the same for the pictorial and plastic arts. That is why the present development of the art film overseas is so worthwhile, why the securing of such a film as Rubens for the Christchurch Festival is so much to be welcomed.

Apology

We regret very much having made an error in the July-August issue of Design Review. On page 13 T. F. Hough should read T. F. Haughey.