What is a manifesto?
A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government.
Manifesto (film notes)
When the film first started I had absolutely no idea what was going on apart from knowing that Cate Blanchett so I was just making notes on what I saw and whether it linked to anything I had already learnt. At the start of the film there was lots of different words popping up, different names, artists and phrases.
The film then starts with a homeless person walking through a demolished building site talking about a form of art. Each character had a different view on the art world.
I then noticed that all the main characters seemed to be middle aged so I wasn't sure whether the opinions were being focused on a particular generation. Some of the main characters seemed to stare straight into the camera so I wasn't sure if they were in deep thought. I then started to realise that each character was talking about a different form of art or movement so I decided to Google during the film to see whether it could help me understand the film anymore. I actually found all this information on Wikipedia which I know you're not supposed to use as a source but I got all the information I needed from Wikipedia.
The film consists of 13 segments, each 10:30 minutes long. In each, a character recites parts of manifestos of various political or artistic movements. -
The 13 different movements are:
Prologue - burning fuse at the start
Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto 1918 (1918)
Philippe Soupault, Literature and the Rest (1920)
Situationism - Homeless Man
(Lucio Fontana, White Manifesto (1946)
John Reed Club of New York, Draft Manifesto (1932)
Constant Nieuwenhuys, Manifesto (1948)
Alexander Rodchenko, Manifesto of Suprematists and Non-Objective Painters (1919)
Guy Debord, Situationist Manifesto (1960)
Futurism - Broker
Giacomo Balla / Umberto Boccioni / Carlo Carrà / Luigi Russolo / Gino Severini, Manifesto of the Futurist Painters (1910)
Guillaume Apollinaire, The Futurist Antitradition (1913)
Dziga Vertov, WE: Variant of a Manifesto (1922)
Architecture - Worker in a garbage incineration plant
(Bruno Taut, Down with Seriousism! (1920)
Bruno Taut, Daybreak (1921)
Antonio Sant'Elia, Manifesto of Futurist Architecture (1914)
Coop Himmelb(l)au, Architecture Must Blaze (1980)
Robert Venturi, Non-Straightforward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto(1966)
Vorticism/Blue Rider/Abstract Expressionism - CEO at private party
(Wassily Kandinsky / Franz Marc, "Preface to the Blue Rider Almanac" (1912)
Barnett Newman, The Sublime is Now (1948)
Wyndham Lewis, Manifesto (1914)
Stridentism / Creationism - Tattooed punk
(Manuel Maples Arce, A Strident Prescription (1921)
Vicente Huidobro, We Must Create (1922)
Naum Gabo / Antoine Pevsner, The Realist Manifesto (1920)
Suprematism/Constructivism - Scientist
(Naum Gabo / Antoine Pevsner, The Realistic Manifesto (1920)
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Manifesto (1916)
Olga Rozanova, Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism (1917)
Alexander Rodchenko, Manifesto of Suprematists and Non-Objective Painters (1919)
Dadaism - Funeral speaker
(Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto 1918 (1918)
Tristan Tzara, Manifesto of Monsieur Aa the Antiphilosopher (1920)
Francis Picabia, Dada Cannibalistic Manifesto (1920)
Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, The Pleasures of Dada (1920)
Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, To the Public (1920)
Paul Éluard, Five Ways to Dada Shortage or two Words of Explanation(1920)
Louis Aragon, Dada Manifesto (1920)
Richard Huelsenbeck, First German Dada Manifesto (1918)
Surrealism/Spatialism - Puppeteer
(André Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism (1924)
André Breton, Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1929)
Lucio Fontana, White Manifesto (1946)
Pop art - Conservative mother with family
(Claes Oldenburg, I am for an Art... (1961)
Fluxus / Merz / Performance - Choreographer
(Yvonne Rainer, No Manifesto (1965)
Emmett Williams, Philip Corner, John Cage, Dick Higgins, Allen Bukoff, Larry Miller, Eric Andersen, Tomas Schmit, Ben Vautier (1963–1978), George Maciunas, Fluxus Manifesto (1963)
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Maintenance Art Manifesto (1969)
Kurt Schwitters, The Merz Stage (1919)
Conceptual art / minimalism - Newsreader and reporter
(Sol LeWitt, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art (1967)
Sol LeWitt, Sentences on Conceptual Art (1969)
Sturtevant, Shifting Mental Structures (1999)
Sturtevant, Man is Double Man is Copy Man is Clone (2004)
Adrian Piper, Idea, Form, Context (1969)
Film/ epilogue - Teacher
(Stan Brakhage, Metaphors on Vision (1963)
Jim Jarmusch, Golden Rules of Filmmaking (2002)
Lars von Trier / Thomas Vinterberg, Dogme 95 (1995)
Werner Herzog, Minnesota Declaration (1999)
Lebbeus Woods, Manifesto (1993) – Epilogue
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