“Fernand Léger's film, 'Ballet Mecanique' is the result of the desire for a picture in motion.”

— Alexander Calder

1930s - 1950s, Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture', (1933)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Fernand Léger's film, 'Ballet Mecanique' is the result of the desire for a picture in motion." by Alexander Calder?

Alexander Calder 41

American artist 1898–1976

Related quotes

“One day Pierre Loeb said to me that the ideal picture is one which is completely clear in the artist's mind before he puts a mark on the canvas, and this was, at any rate in this period.... Léger's opinion. It is the basis on which classical art is built. Therefore the setting-down of the picture on the canvas is in itself something quite unimportant. This is connected with [Fernand] Léger's hatred of textural effects in painting. But I love these effects. I remember that I was once told off because I had applied a thick layer of color instead of the thin and even layer that Léger wanted. To him that was not painting but mere color. If he could have got a machine instead of a brush to apply the color, he would have done so.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Quote in Jorn's letter, 1952; as cited on the website of the Jorn Museum 'Articles' by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255,
his critical comment on the art teachings of Fernand Léger, which Jorn started to follow circa 1936, in Paris.
1949 - 1958, Various sources

“Micro-motion study, presented for the first time at this meeting, is a new and accurate method of recording and transmitting skill. Based upon the principles of motion study and time study, it makes possible simultaneous measurement of both time and path of motions. It produces an entirely different result from any of the methods attempted by its predecessors, in that it shows a measured difference in the time of day on each and every cinematograph picture, even when the pictures are taken at a rate much faster than ever considered in work where positive films are printed and projected upon the screen.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: The present state of art of industrial management, 1913, p. 1225

“Ballet for a rainy day
Silent film of melting miracle play
Dancing out there through my window
To the backdrop of a slow descending grey”

Andy Partridge (1953) British musician

"Ballet For A Rainy Day".
Skylarking (1986)

“A motion picture must be true to life. If a picture portrays a false emotion it trains people seeing it to react abnormally.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2014), p. 136.

“As I watch television films on my own set I am continually aware that I do not have a complete control of the end results. For there is an engineer in every television station control booth who can change the screen image according to his instructions and depending upon the condition of his equipment. And there are the TV viewers who are their own "engineers." I believe that the time is not too distant when the only engineers will be the technicians who actually create the film that is transmitted. Only when that day arrives will we really have film quality comparable to motion picture standards as we know them today.”

Karl Freund (1890–1969) German film director and cinematographer

Filming The Lucy Show (December 1953)

“Marcel Duchamp's 'Nude descending the stairs' is the result of the desire for motion. Here he has also eliminated representative form. This avoids the connotation of ideas which would interfere with the success of the main issue - the sense of movement.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1930s - 1950s, Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture', (1933)
Source: en.wikiquote.org - Alexander Calder / Quotes of Alexander Calder / 1930s - 1950s / Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture', (1933)

“The picture's over. Now I have to go and put it on film.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

“The cutting of films is a parable in the motion of any art that lives in time, as well as a parable in the ethics of communication.”

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) poet and political activist

Source: The Life of Poetry (1949), p. 150
Context: The continuity of film, in which the writer deals with a track of images moving at a given rate of speed, and a separate sound-track which is joined arbitrarily to the image-track, is closer to the continuity of poetry than anything else in art. But the heaviness of the collective work on a commercial film, the repressive codes and sanctions, unspoken and spoken, the company-town feeling raised to its highest, richest, most obsessive-compulsive level in Hollywood, puts the process at the end of any creative spectrum farthest from the making of a poem.
At the same time, almost anything that can be said to make the difficulties of poetry dissolve for the reader, or even to make the reader want to deal with those "difficulties," can be said in terms of film. These images are like the action sequences of a well-made movie — a good thriller will use the excitement of timing, of action let in from several approaches, of crisis prepared for emotionally and intellectually, so that you can look back and recognize the way of its arrival; or, better, feel it coming until the moment of proof arrives, meeting your memory and your recognition.
The cutting of films is a parable in the motion of any art that lives in time, as well as a parable in the ethics of communication.

“The Birds could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made.”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

Movie trailer for the 1960s film The Birds.

“On those rare occasions when a great motion picture reaches multiplexes, the film critic must add another aspect to his or her job description: that of cheerleader. It is incumbent upon those of us who routinely dissect movies to applaud the arrival of something like Minority Report.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Writing a review isn't enough — we have to get out there and actively stump for the movie. The underlying reason is sound: if Minority Report makes a lot of money, the studios will be encouraged to fashion more films of this sort. And that is a good thing — not just for science fiction lovers but for fans of intelligent, thought-provoking pictures of all genres.
Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/m/minority_report.html of Minority Report (2002).
Four star reviews

“Fernand Léger's film, 'Ballet Mecanique' is the result of the desire for a picture in motion.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Alexander Calder 41

Related quotes

Related topics