The original trailer made by Melville himself clearly avoids using any Nazi imagery, since the film is a timeless masterpiece set in a notoriously particular time period. The strength of the film is the display of human condition without using conventional tools of association.

ON the other hand the trailer made for the American release in 2006 places the emphasis entirely on the Nazis; condescending the film to a convention about all period films.

This little example in itself exhibits the brutal difference of the American approach versus the European.

Information about the film provided from Criterion Collection: Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece about the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation went unreleased in the United States for thirty-seven years, before its triumphant theatrical debut in 2006. Atmospheric and gripping, Army of Shadows is Melville's most personal film, featuring Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their own brand of honor in their battle against Hitler's regime.

2. AN ART GALLERY IS AN INSULAR SPACE, ART LIKE LIFE LIVES ELSEWHERE. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME GO CHECK FOR SIGNS OF LIFE.

Pretext: Disgusting.
Freud work sets new world record
A Lucian Freud painting of a sleeping, naked woman sells for $33.6m (£17.2m) in New York, a new record.
source: BBC

On a random excursion in incomparable Soho, New York, I stumbled across a prominent typical gallery. Lovely how it all unfolds in front of my eyes.

- Where are you?

- I am outside an art gallery.

- What do you see?

- I see the reflection of my feet on the ground.

and I see paintings as well as a man facing the computer.

- What kind of paintings?

- Art history tells me that was an abstract painting.

- How does the art history come to know this?

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SYNOPSIS

A staggering work of existential science fiction, The Face of Another dissects identity with the sure hand of a surgeon. Okuyama (Yojimbo's Tatsuya Nakadai), after being burned and disfigured in an industrial accident and estranged from his family and friends, agrees to his psychiatrist's radical new experiment: a face transplant, created from the mold of a stranger. As Okuyama is thus further alienated from the strange world around him, he finds himself giving in to his darker temptations. With unforgettable imagery, Teshigahara's film explores both the limits and freedom in acquiring a new persona, and questions the notion of individuality itself.

FILM INFO

1966
124 minutes
Black and White
1.33:1
Dolby Digital Mono 1.0
Not Anamorphic
Japanese

“Provoke the unexpected. Expect it”

“Your camera catches not only physical movements that are inapprehensible by pencil, brush or pen, but also certain states of soul recognizable by indices which it alone can reveal” Bresson

The masters live through their work.
When a whole country becomes a relic of the past, the great individual who creates is stronger than the ministers, merchants and that.
Think of America in 200 years.

I was told that Bergman have already beaten death 62 times on chess for each film he made.

I am ever so grateful for the lessons you taught me. My hope is to pick up from where you leave.

An snippet of a Max Ernst interview from the 60s. He succinctly analyses the natural compound of revolutionary work. This is greatly misunderstood by many, since form has always been idolised in western civilisation, the source of our disgust keeps refreshing it's appearance until the collective consciousness grasps the mechanics to this lifelong ballet of revolt and revolution.

The document defines Surrealism as:
Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

The text includes numerous examples of the applications of Surrealism to poetry and literature, but makes it clear that the tenets of Surrealism is concerned with any circumstance of life, and is not merely limited to the artistic realm.

The manifesto also refers to the numerous precursors of Surrealism that embodied the Surrealist spirit prior to his composing the manifesto, including such luminaries as the Marquis de Sade, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Raymond Roussel, and even back as far as Dante.

It is asserted here that Surrealist activity follows no set plan or conventional pattern, and that Surrealists are ultimately nonconformists.
Signers of the manifesto included Louis Aragon, Antonin Artaud, Jacques Baron, Joe Bousquet, Jacques-André Boiffard, Jean Carrive, Rene Crevel, Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, and Breton.

The manifesto of Surrealism on the web.