2 x Plansequenz (Dante und Mubarek)
Year
1990
Country
dffb / Berlin
(Germany)
Technique
16 mm.
Highband
Length
10′
With Fenna Heinrich, Martin Figura. Camera Christian Frosch. Music: Prince “Anna Stesia”. Text: Gertrude Stein “Tender Buttons”. Thanks to Sophie Maintigneux.
The film is based on fragments of a certain choreography of movements and dialogues taken from a scene from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof“ with Elisabeth Taylor and Paul Newman
Angelika Levi´s Statement, 1990:
Dante and Mubarek, however, neither imitate the movements of the two film figures nor E.T. and P.N., they should not express emotions or dramatise the film.
In my initial considerations, I wrote: “they are media agents, they appear as figures, they are channels for the language (and images) of others. They are speakers, newspapers, advertisements, transformers from one medium to another.”
They are no individuals and have no individuality. The film is not about a plot. It is about pictures and writings around quotes and code fragments. None of the protagonists of the play can take on his person, which she/he never represents alone.
I would like to try a working method which is opposite to the previous one. In the other scenes (the film “the small object a”), Fenna and Martin have written their own texts. Here they will not know the text and have fixed movement they are going to make. Via headphones a voice says the text and they repeat it without reflection. The camera describes a fixed geometric figure independently of the actors. Separation of body, voice and camera.