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Essential
Films
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Dream
of a Rarebit Fiend Starring:
Jack Brawn |
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Ion
Martea | |
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Few films that were originally heralded for their technical ingenuity have kept their ability to inspire of awe over the years. Méliès' works, for example, have become little more than interesting chores for film historians. Porter's adaptation of Winsor McCay's comic, 'Dream of a Rarebit Fiend', is the exception that proves the rule, immersing the spectator in a world that may lack clarity, but speaks of the life all of us experience. It is rather difficult to explain the storyline that is developed over seven minutes. The comic character, played by Jack Brawn, is enjoying a rather niece piece of Welsh rarebit, topped up with a fair amount of alcohol. On his way home, the world slowly starts to lose its usual appearance. Gravity evaporates as the rarebit is digested in the gluttonous hero's stomach. Once he finds himself in bed, even his dreams refuse to conform to normality. Little devils roam above his head, his bed starts flying over the city, and the objects in his room acquire a life of their own. By the end of it, one may as well conclude that that Welsh rarebit was rather a rare bit of LSD. (McCay would have loved the comparison, if he had been writing in late 1960s.) Dream of a Rarebit Fiend fits as no other production of the period into what one might define as dream cinema, meaning that it is both the actors in the frame and the spectators outside it who have the illusion of the world running from under their feet. The key lies not necessarily in the way an alien world is constructed for the characters using stage sets and visual effects (as Méliès also did), but rather in distorting the viewer's own perception. Porter's destabilisation process begins at the moment of shooting. The camera is the eye of the viewer, and by blurring the vision of the camera, shooting off-focus, or changing and doubling the point of view, Porter ensures that we see the action just as the character does, thus the act of dreaming becomes a surreal awakening state. The entire film then is a dream we share together, a rigid one due to the nature of the art form, but also one that lingers, haunts, returns always the same, always surprising. Beyond the early history of cinema, Porter's technical feast can be located within the wider avant-garde movement of the 20th century. The effectiveness of the visionary editing system at work in Dream of a Rarebit Fiend has oddly never reached fruition in mainstream cinema. It is true, Porter did not devise the film as a piece of entertainment. At least, this is not entertainment for a lazy viewer, but nor does the spectator need to work hard to approach the film. What Porter does ask is unconditional engagement or nothing. If viewers refuse to let the cinematic medium possess them completely, they will be left unsatisfied. However, succumbing senselessly to it is a transcendental experience, which reproduces the mysteriousness of life itself. As in life, we struggle to grasp the relationship between cause and effect as the film unfolds. It is
not the details of the dream that are of interest, then, but rather
our acceptance of the filmmaker's vision. Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
makes sense only at the point of unconditional surrender to the
illusion of film. What is important is not whether the viewer is lazy
or intellectually engaged, then, but whether we are willing to
accept unconditionally the flow of artistic imagination. Only by doing
that can we engage meaningfully with the film, and become self-aware
within the context of the film, in the spirit of Descartes' 'cogito
ergo sum'. The outcome of the experience can be intellectual in a way,
but everything hinges on the fact that the encounter with art is first
of all emotional - and in the case of great art, unconditionally arresting.
Of course, if the viewer is not intellectually engaged, none of this
can happen, but crucially, that engagement begins with emotionally surrender
to the film: the viewer doesn't have to go into the cinema with a self-consciously
intellectual attitude, intent on studying the film. Once they
enter the world of the film, however they cannot help but bring their
whole experience, intellectual and emotional, to bear. Dream of a Rarebit Fiend is Porter's most accomplished work, and in many ways the first non-experimental film to come with a clearly defined auteurist vision. The reason the approach embodied in this film did not become mainstream surely has to do with its lack of continuous rational narrative. The perception that audiences expect straightforward entertainment, which does not require much work, is definitely to blame. Unfortunately, many film directors and countless producers misinterpret the need to succumb unconditionally to a work of art as a requirement for up-front intellectual engagement. Porter made a double-edged sword here. On one hand, he paved the way for auteurist cinema, on the other his film was a reasonable hit at the time, being perceived as a novel piece of entertainment. By combining the two together he showed what true cinema should do. Unfortunately for the public, the studios preferred to focus on pure entertainment, just because it didn't ask anything from viewers but the price of a ticket. Yet, Dream of a Rarebit Fiend continues to linger with nonchalance for categorisation. About the Essential Films series.
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