The Starfish
About The Starfish
A woman (Alice Prin, called Kiki) and a man (André de la Rivière) walk, climb a stair, and part after she undresses, almost every shot taken through textured glass or off a mirror. A starfish sits in a jar. Newspapers blow, boats dock, and the man leaves the starfish on a step while she appears with a knife. A second man, Robert Desnos, arrives. She goes with him. In a mirror the word belle breaks apart.
Cast & crew
More about The Starfish
Man Ray produced the film and photographed it for Studio-Films of Paris, from a poem and a longer scenario by Robert Desnos. The Cinémathèque française credits Man Ray alone as director. English Wikipedia also lists Jacques-André Boiffard. Kiki of Montparnasse and André de la Rivière play the couple. Desnos plays the second man in the last scene.
Themes
Making
On the evening of 21 February 1928 Desnos read the poem, stretched into fifteen or twenty verses, at a farewell dinner with Man Ray, Kiki, and one of her friends. Man Ray said he would finish a film before Desnos came back from Cuba, and the next day he shot the closing scene with Desnos in it.
Look
Man Ray shot almost every scene through a sheet of gelatin, which gave him the look of textured glass, or reflected in a mirror. He used the diffusion to soften nude shots that he expected censors to cut.
Music
The film was silent. Jacques Guillot later fitted copies with music taken from records Man Ray owned at the time.
Notes
- The French title is L'Étoile de mer.
- Desnos wrote the short poem from a starfish he owned, which he treated as a lost love, shortly before sailing for Cuba on 21 February 1928.
- One intertitle, on women's teeth, comes from his book Deuil pour deuil, with the last word changed from death to love.
- English Wikipedia times the film at 17 minutes. The Cinémathèque française lists 12 minutes. Wikidata lists 18.
- Man Ray also used lines that play on words: Si belle! Cybèle? and Il faut battre les morts quand ils sont froids.
Scenes
- The couple climb the stairs, seen through thick distorting glass, and he leaves her in the bedroom.
- A man buys a starfish in a jar and studies it at home.
- The woman is superimposed with a long knife and the starfish.
- A mirror carrying the word belle shatters.
Influenced by
- Robert Desnos's poem Étoile de mer
Also available
- Internet Archive (ltoile-de-mer-aka-the-starfish_1928)
Quotes
Les dents des femmes sont des objets si charmants qu'on ne devrait les voir qu'en rêve ou à l'instant de l'amour.
Qu'elle était belle.
Qu'elle est belle.
