Europe after the Rain, Part One

Surrealism and Dada from their Beginnings

This feature-length film examines the movements of Dada and Surrealism, and follows the development of their main exponents, Duchamp, Tzara, Arp, Ernst, Schwitters, Breton and Dali, concentrating on the contradictions and ambivalences between their innovatory techniques and philosophies and their desire to transform the world. The film uses contemporary newsreels, some dramatization and detailed accounts of the artists' work to show how, building on the nihilism and anti-aestheticism of Dada and the collage and Constructivist aspects of Cubism, the Surrealists attempted to express the tradition of thought freed from moral preoccupation. Beginning with the birth of Dada in Zürich, against the background of the First World War, the film examines the different forms the movement assumed in Berlin, New York and Paris. Following the collapse of Dada, André Breton more or less invented Surrealism, which developed in two phases: the exploration of pure fantasy via found objects and frottages, and the depiction of irrationality - the imaginary landscapes of Yves Tanguy or Salvador Dali, or Max Ernst's collages from nineteenth-century illustrations.

© 1998-2001 The Roland Collection & Pira Intl.