Exquisite corpse

The exquisite corpse is a collective play invented by the surrealist towards 1925.

Definition, history and rules

Here the definition that gives some the Dictionnaire shortened of the Surréalisme : “play which consists in making compose a sentence, or a drawing, by several people without none them being able to take account of collaboration or preceding collaborations.”

The example become traditional, which gave its name to the play, holds in the first sentence obtained in this manner: “The corpse - exquisite - will drink - wine - new”.

the syntactic order: name-adjective-verb-COD-adjective must be respected so that the sentence is grammatically correct.

He was invented in the house of 54 rue du Château where lived Marcel Duhamel, Jacques Prévert and Yves Tanguy. He was with the departure only one play activity, according to André Breton: “Although, by measurement of defense, sometimes, this activity was said, by us, " expérimentale" , we sought there before all the entertainment. What we could there discover enriching under the report/ratio by knowledge came only then. ” ( Medium n° 2,1954)

the surrealist revolution - exquisite Corpses (1927) Extracted:

The love will decorate the people.
The wounded women distort the guillotine with the hair blonds.
The dove of the branches contaminates the stone lamartinienne.
The curly hippogriffe continues the black hind.
The strike of stars corrects the house without sucre.
The millepede in love and frail competes of spite with the languid procession.
The winged vapor allures the bird locked.

Literature and detective novels

Sentence with the novel, it had there only one step which the authors crossed, allured by this process of writing. The rules had to be modified: the author must necessarily be able to read the preceding chapters, before involving intrigue and characters with the liking of his imagination. The author of detective novels who tests himself with the exquisite corpse finds placed under the conditions of a real investigation, in the ignorance of the causes and the conclusions of a business. He takes the business in terms which he had not determined and transmits it for conclusions of which he had undoubtedly not thought.

First novel built on this principle, the floating Admiral ( The Floating Admiral , 1931) is the work of twelve authors, all members of Detection Club. In the order indicated by the fate, G.K. Chesterton was charged to write the first chapter. The other authors were V.L. Whitechurch, G.D.H. and Margaret Stick, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rode, Milward Kennedy, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane. Anthony Berkeley brought the conclusion to this investigation into the death of the admiral Pennistone.

By sharing the chapters of the novel which they prepare together, in turn, “none the authors, as explains it Michel Lebrun in the Almanac of the crime 1980 , knows the continuation of the history and owes ingénier, firstly: to untie the delicate situation by which the predecessor concluded the preceding chapter; secondly: to complicate the situation to the maximum to leave in the embarrassment that which will take over”.

With five titles, the collection “the 13 ways of the Rebound” (1998-2000) aimed to associate young authors with already known authors, to try the cohabitation of the styles and to benefit from diversity from imaginary to see people and the town of various points of sights, the authors having to present, each one through a typified character, a section of life of a building.

The exquisite corpse can be interactive. The two collections of Brigitte Kernel, Exquisite corpses , gather the new black ones written by the stimulating radio and its listeners, during his emission Noctiluque , on France Inter.

With few authors, the exquisite corpse takes the forms of a turning novel, such as for example the Life duraille (1985) of Jean-Bernard Pouy, Daniel Pennac and Patrick Raynal, signed J. - B. Nacray.

To carry out graphic novels, certain authors and illustrators resort to this process, operating a parallel work, without anything to let appear to the reader. Thus, to work out Chronic railway (Futuropolis, 1989) and Pigalle , Hyman Miles and Marc Villard chose to tell the same history in two different ways: one narrative, the other graph, Hyman carrying out part of the drawings, Marc Villard being more or less inspired some to create the text. And Hyman Miles to supplement the illustrations with an attention more specific to the account of Villard.

Cinema

Mysterious Object At Noon , a cinematographic experimental approach inspired of the play of the exquisite corpse, is initiated by the scenario writer Apichatpong Weerasethakul in 2000. On support 16mm, turning proceeded over three years in various places of Thailand.

Revealed at the time of the 30e birthday of the Festival of films of the world of Montreal, Exquisite Corpse first edition, original idea of Adrien Lorion, David-Etienne and Michel Laroche, mark an artistic evolution by amalgamating the art of the cinema and the writing of the song. In this edition, they grafted some alternatives with this exquisite corpse. They have, to start, imposed a bible of about thirty fictitious characters who were used as universe and distribution on nine scenario writers, like with nine composer-songwriters, who took as a starting point them to produce their film segment or their song. Moreover, as example, the artist of the song and the scenario writer producing the third clip on the new ones, knew only the text of four last measurements of the song and the last scene of the second clip and so on. What caused to produce a history whose evolution is surprising, sometimes in a way radical or amusing.

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