Between Acts 1924

Considered a classic of 1920s French avant-garde cinema and arguably the most important Dadaist film, René Clair's Entr'acte was filmed for the premiere of Francis Picabia's Dadaist ballet Relâche (Between Acts) in 1924. The beginning of the short film served as the prologue to the ballet: French composer Eric Satie and Francis Picabia jump into the frame in slow motion and aim a cannon at the audience. The rest of Entr'acte was screened during the intermission between the two acts of the ballet, with such famously illogical sequencing as the deflation and inflation of balloon-heads, the ballet dancer photographed from below, Dadaist painter Marcel Duchamp and photographer Man Ray playing chess, a hunter aiming at an egg above the fountain, men and women running after a camel-drawn hearse in slow and rapid motion, for which Satie composed a synchronised film score.