The Seashell and the Clergyman
About The Seashell and the Clergyman
A clergyman lusts after a general's wife. Instead of a plotted chase, the film stays inside his hallucinations: the officer, the woman, keys, doors, and a seashell replace one another as he tries to reach her and is blocked.
Cast & crew
More about The Seashell and the Clergyman
Germaine Dulac directed and produced it from a scenario by Antonin Artaud. Artaud disapproved of her treatment of the script. It premiered in Paris on 9 February 1928. Alex Allin plays the clergyman, Lucien Bataille the general, and Génica Athanasiou the general's wife.
Themes
Background
The film opened in Paris in February 1928, a year before Buñuel and Dalí's Un Chien Andalou. It is grouped with French surrealist work even though Artaud rejected Dulac's cut.
Making
Dulac was already known for The Smiling Madame Beudet (1922). She staged Artaud's scenario with superimpositions and dissolves rather than as a staged play.
Reviews
The British Board of Film Censors refused it with the line that it was so cryptic as to be almost meaningless, and that any meaning would be objectionable.
Music
The original release was silent. Later scores include Larry Marotta's music for the 2005 Kino set and a 2019 In the Nursery score.
Preservation
Prints survive. A copy runs 38 minutes 34 seconds.
Notes
- The British Board of Film Censors wrote that the film was "so cryptic as to be almost meaningless. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable.
- At the Paris premiere, surrealist hecklers shouted Dulac down. A BFI note records them calling her "une vache.
- A circulating copy runs 38 minutes 34 seconds.
- Kino International included it in the 2005 DVD set Avant-garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and '30s, with a score by Larry Marotta.
Scenes
- The clergyman's pursuit of the general's wife breaks into a chain of objects, including the seashell.
Also available
- Internet Archive (la-coquille-et-le-clergyman-1928)
- Kino International DVD Avant-garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and '30s (2005)
