STUDIES IN THE MOTION PICTURE AND 20TH CENTURY ART, 1909 - 1930

This dissertation is a series of studies on the motion picture and its relation to Twentieth Century Art, 1910-1930. Because of the importance of Futurism to this general subject, its role will be explored as a leitmotif stretching across the five essays.;The first study, "Leger, Ballet mecanique and Futurism," considers Fernand Leger's relation to Futurism and the influence of that movement on Leger's motion picture. The second essay, "Marcel Duchamp and the Metaphor of the Arcane Pornographic Film," touches briefly on Futurism, but its major concern lies in the extraordinary and peculiar role the cinema came to play in Duchamp's oeuvre. The third essay, "The Cinematograph: A Critique of Futurism and Vorticism," raises questions concerning the impact of Futurism in England with special emphasis on Imagism and Vorticism. The subsequent study, "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold--an Emblematic Work," explores the dense background behind this painting with special emphasis on the roles of Futurism and the cinema in the development of American modernism. The final essay, "Suprematism and the Motion Picture," questions Malevich's role in the rich interchange between the cinema and modern art in Russia during the two decades between 1910 and 1930.;It is the intent of this dissertation to help provide, through the montage of these various essays, a broader and richer understanding of the interchange between modern art and the motion picture.;The studies in this dissertation, however, are not confined solely to issues within Futurism, but rather the focus is on a broader set of concerns. The sequence of the essays moves from studies of individual artists to broader cultural assessments. In this way a variety of problems will be examined, thus providing a fuller understanding of the issues involved.