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MAX ERNST -- ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY & SCREENCAP GALLERY |
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The atmosphere was explosive. The faces were sombre and self-important. With the exception of that of the class joker, Max Ernst, up front and center, which wears a distinct smirk, as if in secret judgment on the rest of the gang.
On his right, Tanguy, on his left Chagall and Leger. Then Matta, Breton, Zadkine, Masson, Ozenfant, Tchelitchew, Lipchitz, Seligmann, Berman, and Mondrian. Marcel Duchamp was present as a mere observer because "I have stopped being an artist and now only play chess."
He whispered to me what they might have thought about each other.
'Leger a proletarian? He's nothing but a petty bourgeois horsemeat butcher. Chagall would cover his grandmother with cerulean blue paint if he could sell her for dollars.' Unfortunately, I was not so familiar with the objects of derision then, but I was rather disturbed watching these eminent artists behave like Hollywood starlets.
NARRATOR: In 1946, a Hollywood movie company, invited famous American and European artists to participate in a competition on the subject of the temptation of St. Anthony.
Max Ernst describes his entry as follows:
MAX ERNST: Shrieking for help and light across the stagnant water of his dark, sick soul, St. Anthony receives as an answer the echo of his fear.
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