Friday, August 08, 2008

Vaslav Nijinsky in 'L'apres-midi d'un faune' (1912)


Unbelievably, I noticed footage today of Nijinsky in 'l'apres-midi d'un faune'.

26 seconds worth, discovered in 2006 in the archive of Louis MAISTRE (1862-1948) and now uploaded onto YouTube by his descendant Christian Comte, with the accompanying information:

'nijinsky original movie of nijinsky dance 1912 film inédit de Nijinsky sur fragment de pellicule découvert en 2006 dans les archives de Louis Maistre http://www.christiancomte.fr'

The legendary dancer's movement seems strangely and evenly fluid, and so slightly unnatural.

And there are a couple of seeming 're-takes', like rap music where the record is being wound back and forward.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This strikes me as a computer-generated adaptation of still images, not a lost film of Nijinsky. The "film sequences" appear to start and end with well-known photographic images, and to be connected via image-morphing software.

Unknown said...

I am one of the most widely-published authorities in the world on two relevant subject: the photographs taken of Nijinsky during his career, and the question of whether he was ever filmed performing.

It is a disservice to the arts world to present this digital creation as a genuine film of Nijinsky.

Please stop this charade.

Alex de Ravin said...

hi daniel, the longer i consider the 'footage', like you, the more i am convinced it is some sort of digital fitting of stills. have you made a comment on Christian Comte's YouTube original post yet? he is the 'owner' of this 'film', claiming it is from his ancestor's archive, that of Louis Maistre.