Interweaving Realities: Spoken Language and Moving Images in the Sonne halt!, Experimental Film by Ferry Radax

Luka  Bešlagić

doi:10.25038/am.v0i15.228

Authors

Luka Bešlagić

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i15.228

Keywords:

Ferry Radax, Sonne halt! [Sun Stop!, 1959–1962], experimental film, Konrad Bayer, der sechste sinn [the sixth sense, 1966], Austrian neo-avant-garde, spoken language, moving image

Abstract

This paper analyses the experimental film Sonne halt! by Ferry Radax, an Austrian filmmaker renowned for his unconventional approach to cinematic practice. Filmed and edited between the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, the film at first may appear to be a belated homage to the previous European experiments in avant-garde cinema, already carried out a few decades earlier. However, since there have been no great ‘historical avant-garde’ movements in Vienna in the period between the two world wars – according to the novel argument made by Klaus Kastberger – it was already the middle of the 20th century when the ‘original’ avant-garde strategies were finally acknowledged in Austria, and simultaneously appropriated by the ‘neo-avant-garde’. In this peculiar historico-cultural context Sonne halt!, in its fragmentary non-narrative structure which resembles Dadaist or Surrealist playfulness and openness, innovatively and radically interweaved two disparate film registers: moving image and spoken language. Various sentences arbitrarily enounced throughout the film – which have their origin in Konrad Bayer’s unfinished experimental, pseudo-autobiographical, montage novel der sechste sinn – do not constitute dialogues or narration of a traditional movie script but rather a random collection of fictional and philosophical statements. At certain moments there is a lack of rapport between moving image and speech – an experimental attempt by Ferry Radax to challenge one of the most common principles of sound and narrative cinema. By deconstructing Sonne halt! to its linguistic and cinematic aspects, this article particularly focuses on the role of verbal commentaries within the film.

Article received: December 28, 2017; Article accepted: January 10, 2018; Published online: April 15, 2018; Original scholarly paper

How to cite this article: Bešlagić, Luka. "Interweaving Realities: Spoken Language and Moving Images in the Sonne halt!, Experimental Film by Ferry Radax." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 15 (2018): 35–45. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i15.228

Author Biography

Luka Bešlagić

Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade
Serbia

Luka Bešlagić (1985) acquired bachelor’s and master’s degree in Communication at the Faculty of Media and Communications (Singidunum University, Belgrade); at the same university he defended doctoral thesis Teorije savremene eksperimentalne tekstualne produkcije in 2017. His research is concerned with inter- and transdisciplinary theories of art, culture, and media with special emphasis on experimental textual practices. He is an author of several articles and literary texts published in journals such as ProFemina, AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, Srpska politička misao, Agon, Proletter, and theoretical/prose poly-genre text Dva govora romana (Utopia, Belgrade, 2012) as well. His most recent publication is theoretical study Teorije eksperimentalne tekstualne produkcije (FMK, Belgrade, 2017), based on his doctoral dissertation. Currently he is engaged as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Media and Communications.

References

Austin, John L. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962.

Bayer, Konrad. the sixth sense. Translated by Malcolm Green. London: Atlas Press, 2008.

Bešlagić, Luka. Teorije eksperimentalne tekstualne produkcije. Beograd: Fakultet za medije i komunikacije, 2017.

Bešlagić, Luka. “The Influence of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Language on the Textual Production of the Vienna Group.” AM: Journal of Art and Media Studies 9 (April 2016): 55–64.

Foster, Hal. “Who’s Afraid of the Neo-Avant-Garde.” In The Return of the Real, 1–34. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996.

Janetzki, Ulrich. Alphabet und Welt. Über Konrad Bayer. Königstein i. Ts.: Hain, 1982.

Kastberger, Klaus. “Wien 50/60. Eine Art einzige österreichische Avantgarde.” In Schluß mit dem Abendland. Der lange Atem der österreichischen Avantgarde (Profile 5), edited by Thomas Eder and Klaus Kastberger, 5–26. Wien: Zsolnay, 2000.

Lopate, Phillip. “In Search of the Centaur: The Essay-Film.” The Threepenny Review, 48 (Winter 1992): 19–22.

Mörth, Otto, Isabella Hirt, Georg Vogt, ed. Ferry Radax – Vision, Utopie, Experiment. Wien: Sonderzahl, 2014.

Radax, Ferry. Sonne halt! Vienna: DVD Edition Der Standard/Hoanzl, Der österreichische Film, #91, 2007.

Tscherkassky, Peter. “Die rekonstruierte Kinematografie. Zur Filmavantgarde in Österreich,” 1–40. http://www.tscherkassky.at/download/kinemato.pdf. Accessed December 4, 2017.

Tscherkassky, Peter. “The Roots of Diversity.” In Innovative Film Austria, 10–13. Vienna: Federal Chancellery, Film Division, 2005.

Tscherkassky, Peter, ed. Film Unframed: A History of Austrian Avant-Garde Cinema. Vienna: SYNEMA-Gesellschaft für Film und Media/Sixpack Film, 2012.

Wiener, Oswald. “das ‘literarische cabaret’ der wiener gruppe.” In Die Wiener Gruppe. Achleitner, Artmann, Bayer, Rühm, Wiener. Texte, Gemeinschaftsarbeiten, Aktionen, edited by Gerhard Rühm, 401–18. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1967.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1997.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i15.228 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i15.228