Sunday, July 24, 2011

Rose Hobart


Joseph Cornell, Box for Rose Hobart, 1936.
16 mm film, 20 min




Rose Hobart


Secret Surrealist Flix—
Terrifying, awe-inspiring even
In waking life inspiring dream.

Beyond Surrealist Astronomy—
There in the South Pacific with collaged
Eclipse “East of Borneo.”

It falls out of sight disappears—
Into the depths of outer space
Id the cinematic unconscious.
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Inserted by Cornell another world—
It shows a small crowd, heads tilted sky,
Watching an alien craft eclipse.

Echoing Eugene Atget’s photograph—
L’Eclipse (1912) which Man Ray placed on
Cover of La Révolution Surréaliste in 1926.

In the photo, people on a bridge—
Looking up at the sky through special filters
The way Cornell watched “East of Borneo.”
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Hollywood potboilers work best—
The synthetic criticism of the Surrealists
Wandering from cinema to cinema.

Making a new form of art—
Consisting of absorbing & collaging
The art that preceded them.

Cornell watched East of Borneo—
Saw it as a flâneur like Andre Breton
Skipping from scene to scene.
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Creating his own film—
Seeing it as a Surrealist so thoroughly
He robbed the mind of Dalí across the sea.

He watched it with a longing—
For the lost arts it evoked with that
Yearning beyond the conscious mind.

East of Borneo the sun fell—
Outta the sky and into the ocean
Where could finally see the eclipse.
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The eclipse of the conscious mind—
Into the yearned for mystifying Id taken
Beyond the limits of the civilized world.

Only from a volcanic island—
Where time reversed itself oneirically
East of Borneo, East of Eden.

Jack Smith piecing together—
A portrait of his own unconscious mind
Transcending Borneo & New York City.
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Maria Montez his Rose Hobart—
Camp kitschy logic working thru dreams,
Memories and forbidden desires.

Flaming Creatures of Cobra Island—
UFO Eclipse a receptacle of echoes
Resonant images of the mind.

Images of the Hollywood screen—
Assembling the moments called for
Maria Montez on the phone.
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Leaping from image to image—
Gesture to gesture like Cornell unveiling
The way the mind works when freed.

Not trapped by logic or narrative—
Not confined by the limits of Hollywood
A peephole into the secret-flix.

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