the director as acrobat

the director as acrobat
Originally uploaded by a nameless yeast.

a frame from Dusan Makaveyev's "innocence unprotected". Makaveyev often took a collage approach in his films, most notably in the essential "wr: mysteries of the organism." here, he takes a serbian melodrama called "innocence unprotected" made in 1942 under German occupation and selectively tints and hand-colors passages; these are intercut with then present-day (1968) footage of surviving cast members, including the fellow on the right, a death-defying acrobat and love interest who happens to also be the director of the 1942 film. contemporary footage of the grey-haired acrobat show him still unafraid to test the limits of the human body; at one point he takes a steel bar and bends it using his teeth as a fulcrum. he spits out the tooth or two that succumb to the show of strength. makavejev's most famous films, wr and "sweet movie" are joyously sexual. "innocence" is appropriately less sexual, though no less a celebration of the human body.