The Marey Project: A Work in Progress

		The Marey Project A Work in Progress James Clayden

		Human Perception of Space and Time To make an investigation into the original photographic and chronophotographic experiments carried out by the French physiologist E.J. Marey (1830 - 1904).

		Film:	a fiction on the invention of cinema
			the birth and re-birth

		Forces:	gravity and light
			the human nervous system - feeding on light
			discord and harmony

		Faith:	to come not from the self but from what remains
			just before darkness swallows all

		Exorcism of a Bad Dream To be against art.

		Note one:	Rotterdam/Venice/Buenos Aires 2004
			bridge lamp titian basin
			drunk pink-rabbit-girl christ
			pornography lamp shit goose

		Note two:	Japan/London/Ireland 2004
			time and weight
			the vibrating eye
			water and light
			blur and coarse graining

		Note three:	Paris/London/Prague 1999

from An Unidentified Woman (1884)

Scene 10: Night. Interior. Large Bedroom of Estate.

The rich sound of a child’s heart-beat is joined by a distant wind growing nearer - as Ciceley’s face appears out of the shifting dark - deathly pale, her eyes wide open, unblinking. Her long black hair on the white linen of the pillow, where she lies in a pale nightgown. Stillness, as the child’s heart beats.

Moving back in the room, away from the bed - Walter is standing at the window that holds the storming sky of night outside. With his back to us, and where his wife lies. The sound of the storm draws nearer, accompanying the beating heart.

The mid-wife, Anna stands at Ciceley’s bedside, the newborn child in her arms. The Doctor standing beside her, reaches to close Ciceley’s eyes. Walter is suddenly at his side, grabs the Doctor’s hand away before he touches Ciceley, and flings him aside, demanding that he leave.

The heartbeat has stopped, sucking the sound of the storm into its own decay. Only a high pitched distant howling can be heard. Anna moves closer to Walter, the child in her arms, prevailing on him to collect himself and hold his newborn daughter.

Unable to look at the child, he ushers them out, locking the door after them. He sees his own reflection in the silvered mirror on the door. He turns from his possessed reflection to go to Ciceley.

Ciceley looks like a bird that’s fallen, broken on the bed. The threat of the pending storm accompanies his movements to her side. The rumblings fade as the features of Ciceley’s face fill the screen.

A high-pitched animal-like sound comes from out of the dark. Water drips from above onto Ciceley’s cheek. Widening our view, slowly we look up to see water running from the ceiling above the bed. Unnatural sounds have grown out of the animal-like squeal. The ceiling collapses, flooding water - falling very slowly, as we look past its falling to see Ciceley is gone - and where she lay, now writhes the blackest liquid, shrinking, seemingly to swim in on itself - sucking, sound and us into its writhing mass. A vortex-like abyss.

Darkness and silence.

Then: Dark clouds swirl in the night sky. The animal-like scream rings out in the distance before silence swallows all.

Scene 23: Night. Interior. Sideshow Theatre.

Several years later. Walter creating his moving images in the dark. Human forms becoming terrifying creatures (as in Scene Thirteen - in his mind): Inanimate objects breathe, becoming tortured and fallen forms, not quite animal, not quite human. The mother breastfeeding her child reappears for a moment, the child is sucked into the breast from which it feeds. The woman smiles beguilingly, then opens her own belly with her bare hands, bloodless, many fish slither out of her alive. Her dark wings flap, spreading out to cast a huge shadow over the audience, who sit spellbound, aghast at what they see.

Darkness takes the theatre. A child’s scream rings out.

Close-up of Walter’s face caught in concentration, as the child’s scream subsides into the darkness that surrounds him. Out of which a voice calls out his name, beckons him in an eerie whisper. Walter’s look of concentration becomes distant, lost.

By himself in bedroom. Goes to bed, looking at the wind blowing the frail curtains. He closes his eyes. There is a sound, a shifting in the wind? He opens his eyes to see a female figure standing at the window, bending to look out. She turns in the dim light telling him "Don’t fret... I’ll tell you what happened... things aren’t as they seem... humans have been living in optic fault... for a long time..."

Chapter 2: The Man Who Lost His Head/
An Unidentified Woman

HER ON HER BACK ON THE FLOOR, CENTRE; WRITHING SLOWLY, STRAINING IN PLEASURE/PAIN – CAUGHT UP IN HERSELF. HE APPROACHES SLOWLY, APPREHENSIVELY FROM THE SIDE. HE KNEELS TO ONE SIDE OF HER, CAREFULLY BEGINS TO MASSAGE HER BARE LEG CLOSEST TO HIM. HER WRITHING GROWS MORE INTENSE.

He:	Which way?
	Which way do you like?

HE PAUSES, CRAWLS ROUND HER STILL WRITHING FIGURE TO MASSAGE HER OTHER LEG. HER WRITHING BECOMES SLOWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STRAINING.

He:	Which way do you like best?

HE MASSAGES HER LEG IN A DIFFERENT MANNER.

He:

This way?

HE GOES BACK TO THE FIRST WAY OF MASSAGE.

He:	Or this way?

SHE OPENS HER EYES. STOPS WRITHING/STRAINING.
HE STOPS HIS MASSAGE.

She:	The first way. It’s hard to tell, but the first way I’d say.

HE STARTS SLOWLY FACING FRONT.
IN EARNEST TELLS US:

He:	Yeah! Hey – Pals! Me hopes ya have not ...

She:	AT THE SAME TIME, TWISTING/STRAINING ON THE FLOOR. IN A HARSH WHISPER.
	So foul an' fair a day he has not seen.

He:	... have not forgotten me? PAUSE

SHE RISES WATCHING HIM INTENTLY, MOVES AS IF POSSESSED; UTTERS HARSH STRAINING THINGS TO HIM AS HE SPEAKS, SHE MOVES TO AND FROM HIM; HISSING AT HIM TOO.

She:	Hovers through the fog and filthy air

He:	For us I mean ...

She:	Where hast thou been sister?

He:	Now that you’re here – we’re here for yer ...

She:	Killing swine.

He:	Well, you might ask, "how can that be"?

She:	Sister, where thou?

He:	This is a play – yet a play it is not –

She:	A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap.

He:	Who would have a play – a play in here?

She:	And munched, and munched, and munched.
	"Give me." quoth I:

He:	With hell being so near? We would!

She:	"Be gone witch!" the rump-fed mangy creature cries.

He:	Love it! Die for it – we did – will!

She:	Her husbands to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger:

HE SHIFTS TO INTIMATE/SERIOUS MOOD.
STILL TO FRONT. IN EARNEST.

He:	I saw a house. I had a dream.
	I saw a house and she was heaven in it
	- like, in the house.

SHE BECOMING SOFTER IN HER DELIVERY MORE AT HIM NOW. TO SEDUCE?

She:	But in a sieve I’ll thither said,

He:	You – I hope – and pray – have not forgotten me?
	for your sake ...

She:	And, like a rat without a tail,
	I’ll do, and I’ll do.
	I’ll give thee a wind.

He:	I woke up from the dream in her house
	– yet the house was not.

She:	ALL TO HERSELF
	Thor’t kind
	And I another
	I myself have all the other
	Look what I have.

He:	The girl (her daughter) eating cereal (it was
	morning) loosely spilling from her mouth.
	Her mother showering nearby.

She:	Show me, show me
	Here I have a pilot’s thumb.
	Wreck’d as homeward he did come.

He:	The girl (her jacket hood tied tightly around her
	face) asks her mother for a lift to school
	– mother says no – "Not on Fridays".

She:	Speak, if you can: What are you?

He:	She’s told, she must walk – even if it’s raining
	MORE CONCERNED
	Girl not happy – not happy.
	I could take her? Girl happy.
	Mother no – "No".
	Girl’s friend; Asian girl asks for food
	Mother tells her time to go – no time
	They go, leaving ...

SHE SHIFTS INTO MORE CONFIDING ROLE AS IF WARNING HIM; MOVES ABOUT HIM WITH HARSH WARNING-LIKE WHISPERS TO THE AIR ABOUT HIS HEAD.

She:	I fear upon the night. Of murder.
	(The) awful considerations press in;
	overwhelm sanity.
	TO HERSELF. Repel them for the time
	TO HIM AGAIN. These deeds must not be thought
	After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

He:	I left with mother – out of shower – all wet goes
	outside into street – no clothes
	Three agents of the estate – two men – one woman
	(all suited) talk with her in laneway (three agents
	just not dead)

She:	I’ll take it from him – forced test hideous
	TO HIM. In self violence, into the dark corridor.
	TO FRONT. BLANKLY/EXPECTING. If he do bleed
	I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal
	For it must seem their guilt

He:	Now she suited, others all no clothes three

She:	TO HIM AND AIR ABOUT HIM. NERVOUS. FRIGHTENED.
	The knocking at the gate, BECOMING THRILLED
	TO HIM. Infirm of purpose!
	Give me the daggers: the sleeping dead
	Are but pictures: ‘tis the age of childhood
	That fears a painted devil.

He:	I wander off – into different house.
	She brings me here – how?

She:	There’s things to do.

He:	If we should fail?

She:	We fail.
	MOVEMENT. PAUSE
	AT AND TO EACH OTHER. INTIMATE,

He:	Here you are swiftly.

She:	Her face bloodless and unblinking.
	She yanked her bag open. Too fast.
	Instinct. Too late. Chest feeding.

He:	BREAKS AWAY FROM HER, CIRCLING TO FACE AND
	ACCUSE HER.
	He offers you a seat as his table.

She:	STAND-OFFISH. You should know.

He:	You don’t move. RELIEVED.

She:	You touched my cheek. SOFTLY, LOVINGLY ALMOST.

PAUSE. HE SUDDENLY BREAKS AWAY FROM HER TO REPORT TO FRONT.

He:	She naked from waist up in mirror
	In and kills me – hear lost
	lust all gone – for death or life
	She lives (cannot)

SHE JOINS HIM IN HIS REPORT TO FRONT

She:	Hands looking (touching?)
	We back again – like you – we are
	drawing to and end for life/for death
	on earth now
	this

He:	We off to work like all

She:

Not all.

He:

Not all?

She:	No, not all.

He:	Oh well! No matter we leave you, our pals ...

She:	... of ours

Both:

... of all.

THEY OBSERVE EACH OTHER, CIRCLING SLOWLY. HE REELS OFF. TOWARDS US. PROJECTED IMAGERY OF ‘THE MAN WHO LOST HIS HEAD’.

He:

(What if) Our journey is entirely imaginary. That

is its strength. It goes from life to death. People, animals, cities, things; are all imagined. It’s just a fictitious narrative … And beside, in the first place, anyone can do as much. You just have to close your eyes. It’s on the other side of life.

She:

Walter is our man who is obsessed with his making

of photographic imagery along with the tiny objects he collects. He is a man possessed, so much so, that when not pursuing his photographic excursions he inhabits his cell-like place near the river, on the edge of the city. When he is not at work on his photography he sits transfixed on some object he has collected.

After he has felt the object for long enough, he hears its sounds – then he proceeds to make a delicate ink drawing of the object onto the walls, adding to the hundreds made previously. Each time he completes a drawing the ink trickles a little down the wall, taking with it Walter – into the past. He sees himself alive when photography first came about.

Again and again he escapes into the past. These escapades catch up to the present. His thoughts into one. He can now lie down to sleep. Walter’s head falls off. He wakes up. Someone he knew – a dream gives it back to him.

PROJECTED IMAGERY SHIFTS TO PRAGUE FROM
‘AN UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN’.

He is shaving in a small mirror (with his back to us). Her hand appears, caressing the back of his neck and head from out of nowhere (the mirror). He pauses shaving, his breath, her voice close, intimate "Sssh, it’s alright... God does not see things the same way as man, remember?" Her hand withdraws. Pause. He drops the razor, rests with both hands against the wall, his head bent against the mirror. Her voice again "I’ll be there for you... sssh..." His breathing.

He:	The Man Who Lost His Head somehow shifted into
	a project called Unidentified Woman. It’s set in the Nineteenth Century about the birth and rebirth of cinema. It didn’t happen either. Now, both of these films rattle about somewhere in my brain.

She:	I never knew my mother in this world, she died
	when I was born, as I met this stuff called air. She was twenty years old. I had lived inside my mother for eight months or so. My mother knew me. My father had heard me too. My grandparents were killed, murdered in an attack by a group of revolutionaries, the so-called Nihilists of the day. This happened on the snow-covered streets of the city.

HE TURNS THE PROJECTOR OFF. SHE TURNS THE LIGHT ON. HE CROUCHES AT BACK WALL.

She:	And I came into the world that same night in this
	very room. The Abyss that night claimed my father, or he it. He who would not look at me. I could not see, but hear.

SHE LIFTS HER SKIRT AS HE GOES UNDER FROM BEHIND.

She:	I am memory come alive ... echoes in my brain.

HE APPEARS FROM UNDER HER SKIRT.

He:	You are so full of shit!

SHE BACKS HIM INTO A CORNER.
HE COWERS BACK ON ALL FOURS.

She:	A man gets up from the footpath is hit by a taxi.
	A woman holds a handkerchief to his face to stop the flow of blood.

He:	He was a peddler ...
	REACHING OUT. HEAD TURNED AWAY, SUBMISSIVE. SHE MOVES THREATINGLY GESTURING AS IF TO STRIKE WITH A HISSING SOUND. HE HOLDS OUT A HANDFUL OF PENCILS.
	... of pencils
	HE THROWS/DROPS THE PENCILS TO THE FLOOR.

She:	That’s bribery!

SHE TURNS FROM HIM.

HE RUSHES TO THE FAR CORNER, PUTS HAT ON HEAD, A LARGE WHITE HANDKERCHIEF TO COVER HIS FACE AND ENTERS WITH ONE HAND OUT TO FEEL HIS WAY/TO WARD OFF BLOWS/PHOTOGRAPHS.

SHE TAKES SEVERAL FLASH PHOTOGRAPHS AS HE CRAWLS TO PICK UP THE PENCILS. AS HE PICKS UP THE LAST PENCIL SHE GENTLY STOPS HIM, CALMS HIM AND SUDDENLY PULLS A HANDKERCHIEF FROM HIS FACE, DRAGS THE TABLE INTO PLACE AND PUSHES HIM TO KNEEL (AS HE STUFFS THE PENCILS INTO HIS JACKET POCKET), HEAD DOWN ON THE TABLE. TAKES HAT FROM HIM.

She:	God is back!

WHACKS THE TABLE WITH THE NEWSPAPER (THAT’S ON THE TABLE) HOLDING HIS HEAD FIRMLY DOWN, CHEEK TO TABLE. HE RESISTS.

He:

No!

She:

Yes!

(REPEATED TWICE)

SHE MOVES AWAY FROM THE TABLE, SMOOTHING HIS HAT SPEAKING TO AUDIENCE.

She:	To finish a hat, dear George
	REVERIE-LIKE / SIGH
	THEN DIRECT TO AUDIENCE: Dear Audience,
	spectators – and then I married him. No. Not him
	PAUSE / DREAMY

She:	I came home late. There was a murderer on the loose.

HE STANDS FEELS THE TABLE WHERE HIS HEAD HAS BEEN PRESSED DOWN. SHE BACKS UPSTAGE. SHE LEANS BACK INTO HIM. HE GRABS HER AND FORCES HER HEAD DOWN IN THE SAME PLACE AS HIS WAS, SPREADS HER FEET APART, LIFTS HER DRESS FROM BEHIND AND COVERS HIMSELF WITH IT. SUDDENLY HE DROPS THE SKIRT AND LETS GO OF HER.

He:	There I told you so. BACKING AWAY

SHE TURNS TO HIM AND PUSHES HIM AGAINST THE WALL. SHE LETS THE RULER SWING ON THE WALL.

She:	Do you remember this?

SHE CROSSES STAGE TO THE TWO LONG RULERS WRAPPED IN ‘FRAGILE’ TAPE HANGING ON THE WALL. THREATENINGLY TOUCHES ONE AFTER THE OTHER WATCHING HIM.

He:	No, don’t, you can’t do this!

THREATENINGLY, SHE GOES AS IF TO REMOVE THEM.

He:	Please ...

SHE WAITS, VIA A CORD LOWERS THE SIMPLE CHAIR DOWN THE WALL INTO PLACE.

She:	When I came round – I was lying flat on the table.
	Someone began tapping me on the leg. I thought it was you. BACKS INTO LARGE TABLE. But nobody was there. LEANING ON TABLE WITH BOTH HANDS. The first man glanced down at the floor, then squatted beside the bed. Looked under the bed. He felt something under the bed. The sound of someone urinating onto gravel was heard in the room.

He:	She slipped along the wall. Gravity.
	She finally fell. SHE GETS BOX THEN CUP AND BOTTLE. Beautifully slumped. Fucked. Drunk. ... licked and loved. She said. You can put your hand on my breast. If you want. She did. I did.

HE MOVES UP CLOSE BEHIND HER. PAUSES. SLIPS HIS RIGHT HAND OVER HER RIGHT SHOULDER, SLIPPING HIS HAND DOWN HER DRESS TO FEEL HER LEFT BREAST. SHE BREATHES DEEPLY. SILENCE. HE WITHDRAWS HIS HAND AND TAKES IN AIR, QUICKLY PUSHES HIS HAND INTO THE BLACK COVERED BOX. SHE PUTS A CUP INTO HIS HAND (AS IT APPEARS AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BOX) POURS WATER FROM THE BOTTLE INTO THE CUP UNTIL IT OVERFLOWS. SHE TAKES CUP AND TIPS IT UPSIDE DOWN ON THE TABLE, THEN DRAGS TABLE AWAY. HE SMOOTHLY WITHDRAWS HIS HAND FROM THE BOX.

She:	Harshly to him, AT HIM.
	We go into things. Violently. Daylight flows over him.
	From head to foot. She does not.

HE HAS WITHDRAWN, COWERING BEHIND THE LARGE BLACK TABLE.

She:	TO AUDIENCE.
	The first man looked up at the second man at the foot of the bed. He spoke with some satisfaction. "Well." He holds up a pair of men’s shoes covered in blood.

THE LARGE BLACK TABLE MOVES TOWARDS HER. SHE BACKS TO OTHER TABLE. TABLE STOPS. SHE PUTS NEWSPAPER ON THE FLOOR WITH A PAIR OF MEN’S SHOES ON TOP. SHE PUTS THE HAT NEXT TO THEM. HE CRAWLS OUT FROM TABLE AND RESTS HIS HEAD ON THE SHOES AND ONE HAND ON THE HAT. SHE SMOOTHS THE TABLE. SHE MOVES THE LIGHT GLOBE INTO PLACE AND PUTS HIM INTO THE CHAIR WITH AN ATTITUDE OF UNAVOIDANCE. SHE GETS HOOD AND BOARD FROM TABLE. WITH HER BACK TO THE AUDIENCE AND HIDING HIM SHE PLACES A BLACK HOOD OVER HIS HEAD AND THE BOARD ON HIS LAP. SHE GOES AND TURNS PROJECTION ON. SHE STARTS VIDEO TAPE. HE SMASHES THE GLOBE WITH THE BOARD.

Projected imagery of her, pregnant, writhing on the floor.
He enters, kneels to touch. She vanishes.
He is left kneeling, gently touching her absence.

He is putting a young child to bed (telling a story) in a room with two single beds. As he leaves the room, he hears a strange sound behind him, he re-enters to see something moving under the covers of the other bed.

Her voice: The prophecy recreated from the Bible is sung by a slave, is upon us: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time."

		© James Clayden and Rouge 2004. Cannot be reprinted without permission of the author and editors of Rouge.