Artaud: The Screaming Body

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book is simply a journal article padded to book length.Moreover, there is really nothing new or interesting that cannot be learned from a rigorous reading of Artaud's published work. Barber should have published this in ArtForum and we readers could have saved our money. A profound disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating obsession this Artaud
Review: There are many who consider Antonin Artaud a madman, yet there's no question that he revolutionized contemporary theater. Artaud was such a powerful, anarchic force that critics and fans alike are still trying to find the right place for him in cultural history.

Stephen Barber has just written his second book on this visionary: Artaud: The Screaming Body. It's not a major work on the artist, but it is one of the many (and much-needed) pieces of the Artaud puzzle. At present there is not an essential English-language book on Artaud. There are anthologies here and there, but not one big critical book on this fascinating figure. Perhaps it's an impossible task; Artaud influenced not only the theater, but also poetry, drawing, radio performances, and the cinema. He's worthy of many volumes.

Artaud started out as an actor and was involved in two key films in cinema history: Carl Dreyer's 1927 film classic, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Abel Gance's 1927 masterpiece, Napoléon. Due to his stunning looks, he was on his way to becoming a major movie star, but Artaud decided to veer in another direction. He believed that performance was not a job, but rather a way of life. He felt the world was damned, and that there needed to be a new language to convey to the world that it had lost its ability to speak. Artaud was frustrated by the uselessness of contemporary gestures and language to express what he was thinking and feeling. In response, he single-handedly invented a new theater, which later became the foundation for the Theater of the Absurd and for the works of the Living Theater, as well as the springboard for Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco, and Samuel Beckett. Artaud created a new form that ran screaming from a dependence on language and logical thought.

While his presence was hugely felt in the theater, Artaud believed it was the cinema that would prove to be the perfect medium for his theories. Between 1924 and 1935 Artaud wrote 15 film scenarios. Only one became a film: La Coquille et le Clergyman ("The Seashell and The Clergyman") (1927). The brilliant Germaine Dulac directed the film and, as legend has it, there was a major battle between her and Artaud. Dulac added her own thoughts to the screenplay; Artaud was especially annoyed when she suggested that the events of the film were all part of a dream, since he had wanted to blur the line between reality and dream. Something that's a dream is, after all, merely a dream.

Artaud: The Screaming Body is a good introduction to the world beyond Artaud's theater essays and theories. Barber focuses mostly on Artaud's work in the cinema, his influence on drawing, and his radio performances, which took place just before Artaud's death in 1948. What we need now is the ultimate, sweeping biography of Antonin Artaud. This small, well-written book offers only a peek at the man and his magnificent, disturbed visions.