Jumping Back Into The Surrealists : a book review on Mark Polizzotti's "Jump Cuts"

 

Jumping Back Into The Surrealists

WILLIAM N. COPLEY: SELECTED WRITINGS edited by Anhony Atlas (Walther König)

 

WILLIAM N. COPLEY: SELECTED WRITINGS edited by Anthony Atlas (Walther König) ISBN: 978-96098-776-5

I know the name of William N. Copley (1919-1996) as a gallerist in Los Angeles during the late 1940s who focused on Surrealist art. Copley Galleries were the first to focus on the paintings and sculptures of Man Ray and do the first Joseph Cornell exhibition in Los Angeles. Overall, as a business, the gallery was a failure. However, like a cat with nine-lives, Copley focused his life as a painter, but still drawn into the world of Surrealism. There is a cartoon quality to his visual work that reminds me of a colorful Krazy Kat comic strip but with a strong sense of eros. Philip Guston also comes to mind. "William N. Copley Selected Writings" is a collection of his texts. They are unique works, like his paintings, that fully express his 'fun' character.

The exceptional quality of Copley is his relationship with the old Surrealist guard. He was a younger man when he met Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Cornell, and Max Ernst. So, one can feel the generational difference between him and the others. Still, Copley has a wicked sense of humor that must have been a delight to the European artists. His 'American' quality to accept failure and move on is an excellent trait by Copley. As an anthology of one person's writing is all over the map, but his devotion to the world of Ernst and others never tired him. Reading this book, you get some stories over again, but the context is the key here. In a manner, Copley is an outsider. Adopted to a wealthy and influential family, he is the black sheep in the family structure. Yet, his outside view of the world is a tool for him being involved in the arts—both as an admirer or collector and artist. Copley didn't use art jargon in his essays. He's very much a journalist reporting on the facts that are in front of him. His reading audience is people who are not necessarily into the visual or literary arts. He wrote for publications such as The San Diego's Evening Tribune, Herald News from Illinois, etc. All small-time and neighborhood newspapers. His first-person accounts with Man Ray, Duchamp, and Cornell make this book a worthy read. A generous slice of cultural history as it happened. -Tosh Berman.

"Francis Picabia: Littérature" (Small Press Books)

ISBN: 978-1-942884-24-8

There are individuals from cultural or the visual art world that seems so romantic, that they can't possibly exist.  Francis Picabia was undoubtedly on the planet Earth and was a fantastic artist and poet.  "Francis Picabia: Litterature" is a collection of black ink drawings that were used for the DADA journal "Litterature."  This slim book is as elegant as the drawings.  Picabia's work is very sexy, and it flirts with the island of Eros, in that it's provocative, witty, and incredibly seductive.  The book also has excerpts from Picabia's literary work "Caravansérail" which regards Andre Breton and his world.   But with of course a touch of erotica.   This book is in a limited edition of 500 copies.  I strongly suggest if you are either a fan of the DADA world or love Picabia's work - either with words or ink, do get it.

Robert Desnos - "The Punishments of Hell" (Atlas Press)

ISBN: 978-0-9931487-3-6 Atlas Press

As a teenager who loved to read, I couldn't get enough of The Surrealists.  Before I even found their literature on the printed page, I was intrigued by their sense of dress and haircuts.  There was also a 'gang' mentality when you see a photograph of all of them together.  It's them against the world.  It's that aspect that was a huge appeal for me when approaching the world of DADA and Surrealism.  Once I have bitten into the forbidden apple that is their work, I was hooked.  As of this writing, I'm still glued to their personalities and work.   There are many cliche aspects of Surrealism, but you can't eliminate the wit of some of its writers.  Robert Desnos is the proto-type Surrealist.  He's the guy who could go into a trance and tell a tale that would be mind-blowing.  Although, I suspect that he really wasn't into a dream state, but knew how to fool Andre Breton and company.  

"The Punishments of Hell" is Desnos first prose book.  Written in 1922, I think it was much later published in France.  As mentioned, the gang mentality is very much present, even in this collection of dream prose pieces.  All of Desnos famous friends are mentioned in the narrative, and being a work that was produced during the DADA stage, that was emerging into the Surrealist era, is a fascinating document of its time, place, and more important, the individuals.  Sexual in tone, but never pornographic (at least for the contemporary reader) there are 'shocking' imageries, in the flavor of the Count de Lautrémont, who was clearly the inspiration for "The Punishments of Hell."  Still, it's fascinating how crime and Westerns very much influence surrealist text like this book.  Both in the cinematic world as well as literature.  In a way, Desnos is writing a thriller but with a different type of imagery.  

The book is very dark but humorous.  All of the named figures who were friends of Desnos, pretty much end up dead in a bizarre fashion.  There is a homage to his associates and friends, but all living in a cemetery!   In the common grave, those who are buried are such inspirations to Desnos such as Jarry, Rimbaud, Pierre Souvestre & Marcel Allain (writers of Fantomas) and so forth.   A beautiful edition from Atlas Press, who seem never to fail the fan or reader.  

Unica Zürn by Tosh Berman

There are lives that are so painful. I shutter when I hear the name Unica Zürn. Her life was not a bundle of warm joy, but more of a gothic horror story than anything else. A brilliant artist and writer, but covered in the cloak of pure misery, and being a woman in that social setting of the arts in the 20th century - is not that totally hopeful or beneficial to her fragile state of mind. Yet, she did remarkable works of art. 

Her partner-in-art-crime was the artist Hans Bellmer, who is known for his work with doll parts. Disturbing sculptures of limbs torn apart, and then re-placed in a creative fashion. Highly sexualized, as well as being demented, in other words a great artist. Zürn and Bellmer, if this was a work of fiction, this would be a perfect match-up. Alas, the truth is painful. 

She was 37 when she met Bellmer (he was 51), and came from a very troubled background. More likely she was sexually abused by her older brother, had a father whom she adored but he wasn’t around much, and his third wife, the mother of Unica, was detested by the daughter. She had a job with UFA, the German film company, at the height of the Third Reich, and was married to a much older man, where she had two children. They divorced some years later, and she lost custody of her two children due to her mental problems. During the 40s and early 1950s, she was described as a happy person. Then she met and moved in with Hans. 

Throughout her adulthood, Zürn was a remarkable artist, who totally used her madness or illness as a springboard for her work. She wasn’t an “outside” artist. Zürn was totally conscious of what she was doing. She has been compared to Anton Artaud, who both, shared the same doctor. And both, Zürn and Artaud were obsessed with their mental state or illness. This, I find, to be a tricky situation. I have always been attracted to the artist who’s mentally ill. In fact, I collect books on these figures. The thing is, as I dwell into their work and madness, I sort of forget about the pain that they live with. Blame it on my love for the surface, but often I miss the textures and deepness of such artists as Unica Zürn. This, I finally got over the complex, and now, I see her work beyond her illness. 

I’m not going to lie. Zürn is a very attractive woman to me. As I look at photographs of her, I can detect disturbance, but also the beauty of her face. The yin and yang, or opposites that gives so much textural levels. I sense her madness opened up a horrible world for her, yet, it’s the source that gave her the tools of her art. She used those tools wisely, even though her life wasn’t a happy one. I have read bits and pieces of her literature, but it is mostly the drawings that draw (no pun intended) me into her world. These inks work on paper is sort of like a map, but not one that shows a direction or destination. A landscape of her inner-thinking. Zürn has powerful eyes, and that is one of the main visual themes in her drawings. Some are human faces, but also eyes from a beast, creature or demon. They’re disturbing, but also very beautiful. Her technique is exquisite, and very refined. 

It’s not surprising that Bellmer used her as a muse - which can be a deadly position to be in for a human being. The idealized figure for inspiration can leave one feeling empty, in such a relationship. Life, or lives, is what it is that lasts in one’s lifetime. Yet, art, does have the ability to go beyond that lifeline. But often comes with a price. All reports say that their relationship was a hard one. He photographed her in various poses naked or half naked, but tied up with rope or string - where she resembles the discarded doll parts of his artwork. I now wonder if his work is more of ‘their’ work. A collaboration not only between lovers, but also as artists. I suspect she brings in something more than just inspiration. The photographs that he took of her, as a tied-up piece of sculpture, can be seen, on the surface, of one dominating over the other. But I wonder if that’s true. I suspect that she was very much part of the process in these photographs. I don’t think she’s a passive personality, at least, I don’t get that aspect of her personality through her work. 

Hans Bellmer very much looks like the perverse evil demented artist. I haven’t seen every image of Bellmer, but not one so far, is he fancy-free and smiling. Nor does she smile. Happy-go-lucky couple they ain’t! Nevertheless they both produced work that is erotic, thoughtful, disturbing, and for me, painful. Not his life so much, but just reading about Zürn’s narrative and how things just got darker for her. She suffered from bad effects of an abortion as well as mental pain regarding her life as an artist and a partner-in-art-crime with Bellmer, and both suffered from severe money issues as well. To me, there is nothing sadder of the fact he told her he couldn’t take care of her, due to his severe stroke at the time. It was around this time she decided to go out of their fifth story window. There’s a lot of tragedy connected to her art. It’s not a good-feel trip through the park. It is more like a walk in the Grimm Brothers’ park within a dark forest, and yes, one can imagine human limbs hanging from the trees. 

It’s fascinating that a lot of artists who use the pen on paper, are also writers. Off the top of my head I think of Jean Cocteau, Artaud, Denton Welch, and Boris Vian, among many others. Zürn, I feel, needed both mediums. I suspect that one medium leads into the other - and writing/drawing was very much of the standard Surrealist practice - and she and Bellmer were close to that movement. Zürn serves many purposes. One as a person who was very much part of the Surrealist world, in their later years, and her work with another artist - Bellmer. But we have to remind ourselves what she put on the table. Which was very much her drawings and profound writings/novels that pretty much exposed her inner-thoughts as well as the position of a woman in the arts - either used as a muse, but more likely a collaborator who put more than her two cents in the soup. Beautiful, brilliant, and a great artist - that’s Unica Zürn in a nutshell.

April 4, 2014

April 4, 2014

I was born in 1954, and for whatever reasons, which is a total mystery to me, I’m fascinated with an early TV series called “Captain Video and His Video Rangers, " that ran from 1949 to 1955 on the DuMont Television Network.  We didn’t have a TV set in our house at that time, so I only saw some of the episodes when I was a teenager, and for the life of me, I can’t remember the channel that it appeared on.  But what I do remember is that I had really bad reception, so I had to watch the show with the picture going in and out, or seeing the ghost images of objects on my little rabbit ears TV screen.

Even the plot of the show was mysterious to me, which I think was a big factor for me being sort of a fan of “Captain Video.” Over-all it is about a group of fighters for truth and justice.  The stories are placed in the future, where there was a certain amount of space travel as well as the characters using a walke-talkie that at the time looked futuristic.  The program was originally performed live and broadcast instantly to the East Coast and then three hours later to the West Coast.   To this day, I think of the time zones as being a part of the future.  When I go back East or especially when I am in Japan, I often feel that I’m traveling to the future, and my life back in Los Angeles is the past.

I believe the show was broadcast from Los Angeles, which appears to me to be the perfect location to do a show like this.  The city itself is a mystery to me, and I often feel like i 'm sleep-walking through the sleepy city.  When I take a walk, I make sure that I don’t have a thought in my head.  I don’t even know where I’m going.  Basically I put on a jacket, leave the house, and go on the first bus that I see approaching me. “Captain Video” strikes me as the same sort of narration as my daily walks through Los Angeles.  The narration of some of the earlier shows were extremely odd, and due to budget problems, within the show itself, they would start showing or inserting scenes from a western or cowboy movie.   The character would explain that these are agents working for the Video Rangers.

The beauty of this at the same time I was discovering a book by Isidore Ducasse, better known to the world as Comte de Lautréamont called “Les Chants de Maldoror."  Written in 1868.   It’s a key text for the Surrealists, who re-discovered the book by chance in 1917, when poet Philippe Soupault found it in a used bookstore, apparently in the mathematics section.  He read it and gave it to Andre Breton, and to this day, the book has not been out-of-print.   “Maldoror” is a prose poem regarding evil.  It doesn’t have a narrative of sorts, but more a collection of images that are startling, and to this day people find it shocking.  There is a famous description of a boy in the book, where Ducasse wrote that he was as “beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella.” The Situationists also admired Ducasse because he was the first one, in his last work “Poésies” to plagiarize other writers by inserting their lines in his work.  He was quoted as saying: “Plagiarism is necessary. It is implied in the idea of progress.   It clasps the author’s sentence tight, uses his expressions, eliminates a false idea, replaces it with the right idea. ”

“Captian Video” strikes me as something that was important to me as reading “Les Chants de Maldoror” as well as his “Poésies” in that inserting a vision that comes from somewhere else is a conscious tool in making art or in the art of writing.  The juxtaposition of me watching a TV show that was made before I was born, on a crappy TV set, that inserted another movie (the western) within the program, strikes me as the perfect formula to see the world in a much different light.  I walk through the sleepy city with my eyes ahead, and my mind looking back.

February 19, 2014

February 19, 2014


The 1928 surrealist novel “Nadja” by Andre Breton is a huge influence on my own writing as well as a lifestyle choice.  As a teenager one is dying to join a much bigger gang, yet, I couldn’t find anything that interesting besides music.  I was the sole kid in Taft High School who was a fan of Lou Christie. I became obsessed with not only the sound of his records, but like “Nadja” he conveyed ‘another wordless” with his voice.  Also I was deeply connected to his songwriting partner, the much older than him, Twyla Herbert, a mystic and classical trained pianist.  Life is often thinking about individuals, and then combining them and one sees a natural order of things or a common ground between the individuals.

For me, the main quotation from the Breton novel “Don't I love her? When I am near her I am nearer things which are near her. ” very much describes my definition of true love.  Nadja is important, but I actually find objects she touched, she wears, and locations that she was at, more enticing and erotic to me.  To this day, I am obsessed with women who I find beautiful, their natural surroundings, and why they choose certain objects over other items.  For me, it goes from the habitual obsession with a woman’s clothing to the connoisseur aesthetic of what they actually touched.

I remember I had my private “Nadja” and I brought her the Breton novel as a gift.  I told her to read the book, and if possible, could she bring it back to me.   About two months later, we had dinner and she brought the novel back to me.  I asked her if I could borrow it, and she, without giving it another thought, said “sure.” When I got back later that night, I went over each page, and imaged her actually touching the book, and perhaps wondering about a specific paragraph or phrase that she found in the novel.  She was the type of reader who liked to underline certain passages or quotes as well as writing down someone’s phone number on the title page.  I immediately felt the pain of jealousy, wondering whose number she wrote down.  I was tempted to make the phone call, but I kept hesitating, because in reality I didn’t want to lose that feeling of jealousy.

One of the lines that she underlined, got to me the most.  "He cannot enter, he does not enter.” I had no doubt that the “he” in this sentence was me.   I was only wondering if she was commenting on me, or something much larger than that.  Perhaps she feels the same way as I do, regarding that love is far more potent when attached to things or locations.  The thought that we are having an affair between us through this book made this specific edition of “Nadja” into an erotic object.

One of my favorite songs by Lou Christie is “Rhapsody In The Rain, ” which he co-wrote with Twyla Herbert.  The song is about a teenager’s memory of a sexual experience in the backseat of a car.  I was intrigued because it placed a sensual act within the weather (the rain) and an automobile.

Baby, the raindrops play for me/
A lonely rhapsody 'cause on our first date/
We were makin' out in the rain/
And in this car our love went much too far/
It was exciting as thunder/
Tonight I wonder, where you are?

What’s erotic to me is the raindrops and imagine what the car looked like and smelt like that moment that he made love in that automobile.   Beyond that, I also want to find out where the car was parked, and I would have loved to go there with my Nadja, and make love to her in that car.

"Don't Tell Sybil" by George Melly - a Memoir

Atlas Press, Distributed by D.A.P.  ISBN: 978-1-900565-65-3

Fascinating memoir by the always interesting George Melly on his life with E.L.T. Mesens, a surrealist from Belgium, who ended up as a gallery owner as well as a poet and artist in 1950s London.  In the50's, Melly became Mesens' assistant in his gallery, as well as being a jazz singer of some note.  One of the eminent London-center eccentrics, Melly dishes out the information regarding Surrealism, as it was dying out as a social scene.  

A very affectionate, yet pointed, portrait of Mesens and his world.  The reader gets the flavor of those times, and this is especially cool, because there is not that much literature on surrealism during the 50's/60's and especially from the London scene at the time.  

"Haunted House" by Pierre Reverdy Translated by John Ashbery

Pierre Reverdy

For me it's the perfect book to bring with you in the bathtub.  If you read it slowly, and wait till the water reaches your chin, it is sort of the ideal situation with regards to this book.   "Haunted House" may be the first prose piece or fiction published in English by this great poet Pierre Reverdy.  The poet John Ashbery translated Reverdy's prose into English, which can't be the easiest thing in the world.  Nevertheless this is very much a classic Surrealist text - where the images flow dream-like against the other image.  

In the back of the book the publisher/editor compares this work to Lautréamont's "Chants de Maldoror" which is a fair comparison.  Both books bring up a dread that can't really be described, it is more of a mood piece than anything else.  As a reader you just follow the pathway and let the writing take you to another place.   For those who have a collection of Surrealist text, "Haunted House" is an important part of that textural world.  It is a fave of Andre Breton, so he knows!

The Brooklyn Rail/Black Square Editions (ISBN: 978-1-934029-01-5

Fantomas, My Love

I wrote this little essay on one of my favorite films: Louis Feuillade's "Fantomas." The DVD came out in France as well as in the U.K. I strongly recommend that you, the dear reader, pick up a copy. It's an amazing film in so many ways. Anyway I want to thank Alt X for first publishing this essay on their website. I got a lot of feedback and coverage due to them publishing it. Thank you.


Fantomas, My Love

by Tosh Berman
(c) 1995



The Surrealist Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel had transmitted that he to a great extent, preferred Louis Feuillade's Fantomas serial to any of the so-called avant-garde films made at the same interval during the early Twentieth Century. Bunuel perceived the serial as an art form without the useless baggage of art attached to it.

French filmmaker Alain Resnais was quoted as saying "Feuillade is my god. I had always been a fan of the Fantomas dime thriller novels, but when I finally saw the films at the Cinematheque in 1944, I learned from him how the fantastic could be more easily and effectively created in a natural exterior than in a studio. Feuillade's cinema is very close to dreams and is therefore perhaps the most realistic kind of all, paradoxical as this may sound."



This infatuation for the physical with an additional mixture of dreams illuminates the Surrealists love for Louis Feuillade and his cinematic version of Fantomas (1913-1914). Feuillade's blend of natural exteriors and interiors with the dreamlike conspiracies comprise an inner--world, where anything can happen at any place. What seems to be the axiom is usually just an illusion. Images which seem so natural are truthfully revelations that are disturbing to the subconscious.

Ever since my father's unexpected death in a car accident, non-reality and what I feel is fundamental has become an overheated tango dance. Persons who were close friends become strangers in a matter of hours. The world has changed positions by just one incident. When I saw one segment of the five-part serial, "Juve Contre Fantomas," the film had expressed my horror and fascination with images and people, and how they can mutate mysteriously into another disguise.

The fictional character of Fantomas represents the sleeping evil which rests in our subconscious, ready to strike at a moment's notice. Obviously whenever there is a misdeed somewhere on this world, Fantomas is behind the hideous crime. A majority of the public is not aware of this fact, except for the brilliant detective from the Paris police, Juve. Only he alone can stop evil, better known in his human form as Fantomas! As a master detective, Juve recognizes that Fantomas attacks from within: meaning he detects that Fantomas exists inside the subconscious -- particularly Juve's.

Here we find the eternal theme of two brilliant (and in most cases, indifferent from the rest of society) individuals fighting for the control of...actually control itself. Good and Evil sleeping together in a bed made for sexual passion and when it manifests itself into politics - the World explodes!





In the film series and books by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, Fantomas' victims are usually people in high society. There is an undercurrent cast of political terrorism in Fantomas' methods - kidnapping, pillaging, and killing members of the upper-class. The subject of control is very strong in the series, and the question that repeatedly comes up is: who is in supremacy, Juve (good) or Fantomas (evil)?



One wonders if Feuillade's version of Fantomas is not a politically motivated. One furthermore imagines why Fantomas and his gang only rob and murder victims placed in high society. Fantomas does not seem to be a man (spirit?) involved with politics of thought, but politics of consciousness. Fantomas steals and kills - therefore he exists!

For all we know his victims may be the living dead; perhaps only the brilliance of police inspector Juve and Fantomas can endure and the flesh (which Fantomas and Juve discard like old clothes, when in disguise) is an illusion when placed in a "real" ambiance.

Feuillade played with the real and unreal in natural settings in all of his serials. The Surrealists were the first ones to notice this quality in his work, and afterward, an even stronger influence appeared in the French new-wave films by Godard, Franju, and Resnais. There is a joy of illogical happenings in his films, which only a handful of filmmakers play with. Bunuel and Godard also show us that logic becomes boring after a while.



In writing about the Fantomas texts, the magnificent poet and critic of the nineteen-teens, Guillaume Apollinaire has been quoted as saying "that extraordinary novel, full of life and imagination...from the imaginative standpoint, Fantomas is one of the richest works that exist." The wild and characteristic vision of Surrealism which is in the novel and films were highly appreciated by the artists of that time. Besides Apollinaire, there were the poets Robert Desnos, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, and Blaise Cendrars; the painters Picasso, Juan Gris, and Magritte. All of them were fans who used the resource that is Fantomas, for their own work.


Juan Gris; "Fantomas (Pipe and Newspaper) 1915. Oil on Canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

All of these artists realized the dreamlike, irrational qualities of the Fantomas (film and book) series. Not the paint-by-numbers school of art that is currently being produced in a laboratory known as a classroom, but in that mysterious interval when the conscious becomes the subconscious. As art works are being hatched in this phantom transition, so are in a sense - the crimes of Fantomas.


Magritte with his "Fantomas" painting

There is a dauntless wild abandon when entangled with crime and art. The mad impulse to move from the so-called norm into another realm - is of course, an intoxicating act of creation. In this atmosphere, Fantomas is just as creative and mad as Antonin Artaud and Marquis de Sade. Both of these artists investigated their imagination and sanity to compose a weapon with words so as to antagonize society. Fantomas is a liteary creation used for the same purpose. Intentionally, the Fantomas film and books were produced only for amusement sake, but there are unmistakably undercurrents of dread, fear, anxiety, and perverse sexuality.



In Juve Contre Fantomas there are scenes which allude to bondage and S&M. In one particular scene Juve establishes a trap for Fantomas in his apartment. To protect himself from the assassin, Juve wears a truly bizarre garment consisting of spikes around his waist and arms. He then lingers for him in his own bed.

Fantomas also has a Rasputin charm over women. In one scene he is entertaining a pair of women at a posh restaurant. He also "dominates" a young lady, who is totally devoted to him and his cause. Another female is a love slave, awaiting at a large house for her master (usually in disguise) to appear. On the other hand, Juve seems to have no time for pleasure. His only passion is to catch Fantomas...And as I mentioned earlier, perhaps Juve wants to restrain Fantomas in his own bed!

The nature or lack of character is interesting, in that the "sexual" quality of Fantomas becomes stronger owing to the scarcity of a concrete identity. He is a master of disguises because of his line of work, but one wonder if this is not tied to his sexual identity. Each character he portrays is draped in fetishism. Juve is also a master of disguises, and likewise savors the changes his body makes.

Watching the film one sees a duel to make and relinquish as many identities as possible. In the beginning montage of Juve Contre Fantomas, each character (Juve & Fantomas) displays all the disguises that they will wear in the film. By the end of the film one sees identity being adjusted as simply as changing a soiled shirt. In most modern works of art, the need of identity or conscience is a source for the "lost man or woman." One thinks of Oscar Wilde's "Portrait of Doran Gray" or Luigi Pirandello's underrated novel, "The Late Mattia Pascal" which depicts the fall of one who is seduced into the conflict of good and evil. On the other hand, Feuillade/Fantomas relishes the chance to throw conscience out the window. The film is exhilarating in its love for anarchy, bondage, perverse sexuality, political consciousness and, more importantly, aesthetic revolution. Unintentionally, (which is the main ingredient for art-making) the film and novel are an inventive terrorist attack on the fear and mores of the bourgeoisie.

During the actual filming, Feuillade never used a shooting script. Andre Bazin - the film critic and theorist - wrote that "Feuillade had no idea what would happen next, and filmed step-by-step as the morning's inspiration came." The early pioneers of cinema all worked this way; it was not till the studios insisted on ideas put on paper for financial verification that things changed. Currently, Jean Luc-Godard is perhaps the only mainstream filmmaker who does not use a script, while shooting a film.

This also suggests that early cinema-making was a Surrealist technique in making art. Along with Feuillade, one thinks of the other "native" Surrealists such as Mack Sennett and Buster Keaton. Although their works were dissimilar, they contributed a suspicion on what is real and does it matter. It was not important to them to show "logic" moving from one scene to another. The early filmmakers shared a common dream occurrence where anything was allowed.

In the conclusion of "Juve Contre Fantomas" there is the magnificent image of Fantomas, dressed fully in black with a hood over his face, raising his arms in characteristic joy as he explodes the house with what he thinks is Juve still inside the structure. This is a spectacular moment and one wonders how many in the audience are thrilled with this commitment to artistic destruction? In certainty, since this was the end of the second segment out of five in the series, it ends with a large question mark (?) on the screen. This of course may center on what will happen in the ensuing segment...or is it a straightforward question to the conscientiousness of the public out there watching the film?