Abstract

This chapter makes a case study of a central subgenre in cinepoetry: the poem-scenario. Beginning in 1917, with a work by Apollinaire and Billy, up to the arrival of the Talkies, a number of poets wrote in this hybrid genre. The poem-scenario can be defined as a short treatment in run-in lines or short verse-like paragraphs describing a film in a way that 'enacts' the film rather than describing more technically its actual shooting. Poem-scenarios by Cendrars, Canudo, Hillel-Erlanger, Desnos, Romains, Rolland and Artaud are closely read, together with some of the art accompanying them (by Léger, Van Dongen, and Mazereel). Among the central themes of these poem-scenarios are: war trauma, duplication, a film-within-the film, temporal prolepsis, affect and madness. In the words of Benjamin Fondane, poets were most fascinated by the poem-scenario's paradoxical imaginary as "unshootable."

Share