2/4, Cohl and Deren on the absurdity of movement

Maya Deren writes that the concern of the motion photographer lies with a body in motion through time. Still photography, she argues, has claim on the capturing of a body in an instant, frozen. The movie camera should explore its own strengths. One of its strengths is its ability to create the illusion of continuity.

Emil Cohl explored this relationship of movement through time and space in his "trick" movie The Great Pumpkin Race. As a cart load of pumpkins began rolling down a hill, there seems to be little spectacle in the employment of gravity. However, these particular renegade pumpkins have little regard for any laws of nature. They chase each other, run over innocent pedestrians, and escape a mob of people trying to restore order: even when the escape required rolling uphill, jumping over obstacles and climbing through chimneys. The bodies in motion that Cohl concerns himself with are not human, as Deren mainly did, but are traditionally inanimate. The pumpkins behave as humans and even interact with them, outsmart them.

A still photograph could not capture the absurdity and humor of watching the pumpkins move of their own accord. If the pumpkin was immobile in mid air, the viewer would rationalize that it was under the influence of gravity or propelled by an intervening party. Only the medium of moving pictures can illustrate the thought that pumpkins could flee under no influence but their own.