LEDA AND THE SWAN
“A
sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?�
the twenty century Irish poet William Buttler Yeats, described in this verse of his poem, the Greek myth where the God Zeus assumes a form of a giant Swan and rapes an Young woman called Leda. From that rape Leda gives birth to the beautiful Helena of Troy, later responsible for defeating Agamemnon.
The Yeats poem is filled of sonorous and visual words as an allegory to the beginning of a new and modern Era. Therefore the Poem has a strong and realistic language which offers an aesthetic experience, where you can follow the verses in a cinematic and rhythmic way. The critic Camille Paglia called the poem "the greatest poem of the twentieth century," saying that "all human beings, like Leda, are caught up moment by moment in the 'white rush' of experience. Leda and the Swan is a common theme in art history. but because the strong eroticism, the allegory just became more popular in the 16th century. The subject undoubtedly owed its sixteenth-century popularity to the paradox that it was considered more acceptable to depict a woman in the act of copulation with a swan than with a man. The earliest depictions show the pair love-making with some explicitness more so than in any depictions of a human pair made by artists of high quality in the same period. Despite the act of rape in the original myth, Leda the swan are often portrayed in a state of peaceful harmony. Like more a consensual act of love than actually terror evoked in the words of Yeats. Another poem called "Leda" written by Hilda Doolittle in 1919, suggested the perspective of Leda -The description of the sexual action going on makes it seem almost beautiful, as if Leda had given her consent.
Ah kingly kiss -- no more regret nor old deep memories to mar the bliss; where the low sedge is thick, the gold day-lily outspreads and rests beneath soft fluttering of red swan wings and the warm quivering of the red swan's breast.
Both of poets, Yeats with his cinematic poem, and H.D with her romantic and female vision inspired me to recreate in motion picture this intimate moment between Leda and the Swan, depicting the beautiful agony and the rush of the moment, only to suggest an invisible presence of the swan as showing a woman alone with her fantasies and a cushion of feathers. LEDA AND THE SWAN & THE HISTORY OF ART
Michelangelo (Date Unknown)
Leonardo da Vinci (1510)
Antonio da Correggio (1531-1532)
Bartolomeo Ammanati (1592)
Peter Paul Rubens – (1598.)
Pier Francesco Mola (1650-66)
Franรงois Boucher (1741)
Paul Cezanne (1880-1882)
Cy Twombly (1962)
Helmut Newton, 1994
Derick Santini 2012
All the representations above differed in style and time. But in none of them Leda seems to be raped by the swan. Instead what it shows is an harmony of both elements, in sensual nature poses. The swan is itself a very feminine archetypal which could suggest an interaction of Leda with herself.
____________ HELMUT NEWTON ____________ The highly acclaimed German photographer Helmut Newton and depicted Leda and the Swan for U.S Vogue Magazine in 1994. Newton is known by his high contrast balck and white glamours photographs of fashion editorials.
His photographs are a mix of eroticism and violence and everything present in the trash-pop culture of the 70’s and 80’s with his polemic style he really pushed the bounders of the fashion world.
Although, despite de disturbing subjects, his portraits are impeccable in composition and extremely calculated in terms of frame. He was probably the most imitated (and controversial) fashion photographer of his time.
His work is clearly inspired by film noir and expressionist cinema, though Newton’s models and their provocative poses were a direct reflection of the sexual revolution of that liberated era, his neo-noir settings reflected a leap backward in time—and, as a result, in the words of Karl Lagerfeld, “his pictures have survived better than the fashion they were meant to represent or illustrate.”
Feminist critics often condemned Newton’s suggestive and risqué work—much to his delight—
but the women in his photographs do not in general appear to be victims; more often, they are the powerful and manipulative perpetrators of some dark crime. The immaculate, Amazonian, and assertive figures in his multilayered mise-en-scènes take the lead rather than follow , and indeed seem capable of dominating the Masters of the Universe, both mentally and physically. Though they are often naked and surrounded by the accoutrements of sexual desire, they remain immune to seduction and are never consumed by passion. Posing insolently in richly ornamented chairs or reclining with spread legs,
His haughty, high-society belles convey a blasé aristocratic demeanor, untouched by
their surroundings and their circumstances. Sinister props (a pistol, handcuffs, medical corset, wheelchair, or dog collar) mingle with status objects (stilettos, dark lipstick, furs, an Hermès saddle, a chauffeur and his limousine), giving the erotically charged scenes a sense of palpable menace.
Newton avoided working in studios, preferring to arrange his setpieces in the lushly appointed and darkened rooms of turn-ofthe-century mansions or hotels, or in the half-decayed gardens of
elegant villas. Instead of the measured light of a controlled studio, he preferred either the harsh glare of the midday sun or nocturnal shots, illuminated by headlights or a lone street lamp.
Helmut Newton once wrote to a friend that photographers, like well-behaved children, should be seen and not heard. Fortunately for posterity, his photographs speak volumes.
To create my mise-en-scene, I had in mind to keep it simple simple and catch the erotic mood and the harsh and contrasted light. My creative process was very intuitive. I didn’t had a schedule plan, only a basic Idea inspires by Helmut Newton photography of Leda and the Swan.
TIMETABLE [[The process lasted 5 days] 1st day I arranged all the props and contacted the actress. Props :Lamp, table cloth, Small table, Feathers, , white sheets Model’s clothes :Necklace, black nightdress, High shoes, Make up. 2nd day -I’ve spent the hole day sticking A4 papers in my wall to recreate the black and white retro- wallpaper of the Hotel Room. 3rd day -Hired 2 continuous lights in the MPS studio 4th day –Shooting day. 5th day - Editing
EQUIPMENT * CANON 7D * 35-138mm Lens * Tripod * Battery * Memory Card *Macbook Pro. * Usb cable * kit of 2 Continuing lights ( Bower) + Soft boxes.
STILLS ______________________________________________________
the mise en scene has a proposital anxious rhythm. My aim was to create the confusion of both poem, one connected with agony and the other of bliss. But also keeping the style of the film noir and expressionist film, present on helmut Newton style. With contrasted shadows and harsh light. The film start with the end, with the aftermath of Leda and the swan. But it can suggest also a scene of murder, or a dirty room of a hotel.
Extremely close ups in Leda’s hair alternating with the feathers, was intentional to suggest the swan and leda were elements of the same subject.
In the
second part, Leda appears in fragile delirium. Tightening herself against the white sheet, Only to resurrect from the shadows, to admire herself in mirror under a spectral light of narcissism, Now Leda is in control again such as woman’s of Newton’s portraits.
the necklace represent the glamorised aspect of Helmut Newton’s photography, where power and sex are always connected somehow, with money.
The grand and surrealistic finale Leda climax is represented by flying feathers. My first Idea was to shot with a fake swan, but then, I thought it would be too obvious and instead I’ve decided to make allusion to the swan using only the feathers, suggesting that, the swan represented Leda’s sensuality. I also thought to put some pieces of the Yeats and Doolittle poem but I Don’t think it would work very well. It would have spoiled the subjectivity of the images leaving a small space for open interpretations
The mise-en-scene was edited with Premiere Pro. The music in it is a song called “Valtari” from the experimental band Sigur Ros
WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED ____________________________________________________ I think the end of the film is to short. The feathers falling could last more. It finishes too abruptly. In general I’m quite happy with the result of this experiment, although I think, if I had hired a real model, such as in Newton’s photograph it would look much more glamorous and fashionable.
Link of the work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgaBw1pxHFk DV3440
ANNE SANTORO GOMES/1130428