Experimental Project: Fernand Léger - 'Ballet Mecanique'

Filmmaker: Fernand Léger

Experimental Film: Ballet Mecanique

Year: 1924

Fernand Léger was a French filmmaker and artist. He created the film ‘Ballet Mecanique’, to tell the story of ballet – Ballet not being a show performed by human dancers, but rather mechanical instruments. The mechanical pieces were supported by ‘Ballet visuals’ such as pianos, propellers from planes and more.

I believe that the idea of structure was based around everyday objects. The objects are sometimes enlarged, passing one another, repeating throughout the piece, interrupting each other and changing.

The film begins with a woman, who is seen swinging towards the lens and then away again repeatedly. The shot shows the depth of the frame in the piece. The shot is also over-exposed, as well as black and white. It gives you the feeling that the light or luminance is important to the story of the piece.

The piece then shows a woman’s lips, which change from a smile to a saddened expression. There is no face, therefore it takes away the personal element of the person and isolates the motion of the lips.

The piece moves onto the repetition of a motion of spinning, twirling or ‘pirouetting’.  Everything spins, all the objects, the propellers, and the woman on the swing. The image turns upside down and darker, which I found quite interesting because it shows even further depth.

We’re then introduced to vast amounts of geometric forms, they attack/interrupt each other, such as the numbers, the rotating steel objects and the reflections of the camera. These images are changed, transformed by the mechanical process of filmmaking – for example, it says ‘we have stolen the pearl necklace for 5 million’ and the 0’s flash and rotate creating a more mechanical effect than an emotional one.

I think the main aim was to have mechanical motion, and no emotion. For example, when we finally see the woman’s face (of who the lips belong to) and her eyes, however they are closed, as the head rotates delicately. The eyes close up, and then always stay closed.