The MA [Today] and Tomorrow
The MA [Today] and Tomorrow

Film Theory and Practice in the Classical and Neo-avant-garde

Summary/Abstract: MA (‘Today’) published only a few articles and documents about films, but these were the most important ones in the period of silent cinema. These articles concentrated around 1921, the starting point of international avant-garde cinema (German Expressionism, French Surrealism, the Soviet montage film). The most important ones are Victor Eggeling’s fundamental essay on moving picture (published first in Hungarian in Kassák’s periodical 1921 No. 8) and László Moholy-Nagy’s illustrated film plan (written in 1921/22, published in an extra issue of 1924). The paper examines the theoretical and historical context of the two texts and their influences to the next avant-garde period in Hungarian cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. It seeks to find connections between the classical and neo-avant-garde period, among others, in the fields of intermediality and political sensibility, which are the most particular attributes of the two periods, except the fundamental difference, namely that the classical period produced only theoretical works and plans, and no (Hungarian) films, while the neo-avant-garde period had both theoretical and practical outcomes, as it can be seen in the life work of Gábor Bódy.

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