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| « Tout ce qui bouge sur un écran est du cinéma. » (Jean Renoir) | |
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Joris Ivens, De Brug (The Bridge), 1927-28
Also known as "The Bridge". "Close shots of a railway train underway: track racing underneath, steam escaping, cars coupling, gears ... all » ratchetting, signals changing. The train reaches a lift bridge which must rise to allow a merchantman to pass below... Bridge section and counterweight move choreographically. The balletic motion of beam relative to girder creates an elegant, abstract expression of the precision of technology..." A film by Joris Ivens, 1928.
A vertical lift-bridge is the object of study in The Bridge. Ivens managed to produce a tremendously dynamic film based on what otherwise might appear to be a static object. "For me, The Bridge consisted of a laboratory of movements, tints, forms, contrasts, rhythms and the relationship between all these phenomena." The film was immediately recognized as a masterpiece by international critics and fellow filmmakers, and Ivens was instantly catapulted to fame as an avant-garde filmmaker.
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