Artist: ERIK AAES (1899-1966)
Size: 16 1/2 x 23 1/4 in./42 x 59 cm
Condition: A-/ Unobtrusive folds.
Printer:
Reference:
Key Words: Film; Art Deco

L'Inhumaine. 1924.
In stark black-and-white, in prime Deco lettering, this is an announcement for a second month's screening of "L'Inhumaine," a French science fiction drama-fantasy film which premiered at the Madeleine Cinema in November 1924. The film is historic for its cinematic technique: L'Herbier wanted to present "a miscellany of modern art" in which many artistic styles collaborated on a single aesthetic goal. (L'Herbier had previously written on the promise of cinema as "a synthesis of all the arts"; he intended the film as a prologue to the landmark 1925 Exposition des Arts Dècoratifs and described the project as "this fairy story of modern decorative art.") For one scene, L'Herbier invited all of Paris society to a theater to perform the role of an unruly crowd; participants are said to have included Picasso, Man Ray, James Joyce, and Erik Satie. This scene mimicked the audience's own reactions to the completed film: "at each screening, spectators insulted each other... women, hats askew, wanted their money back; men, with their faces screwed up, tumbled out onto the pavement where sometimes fist-fights continued." Yet the architect Adolf Loos enthused, "It is a brilliant song on the greatness of modern technique. The final images...surpass the imagination... You have the impression of... birth of a new art."