Rose Hobart
USA, 1936. Director Joseph Cornell. 19min.American artist Joseph Cornell created delicate, whimsical, sometimes disturbing box collages in which he gathered everyday objects – toys, glasses, marbles, bits of wood – in dreamlike arrangements that evoke scenarios of desire and memory. In this collage film he performs a similar alchemy on a Hollywood melodrama, paying tribute to Rose Hobart, an almost forgotten diva of 1930s cinema. Cornell recut the 1929 film East of Borneo, eliminated all dialogue, overdubbed shots with irrelevant music, destroyed narrative logic, projected it through a blue filter, and added footage from scientific films, thereby transforming Hollywood schlock into a surrealist reverie. Cornell treats images of Hollywood glamor as if they were styles from the past that he re-cuts for a more contemporary look.
With Rose Hobart.
Past screenings
Wearing Time: Returns, Recalls, Renewals – Miami
Sunday 31 January 2016, 16:00 | Bal Harbour Shops
Screened alongside Irma Vep: The Last Breath (2014), with introduction by Tom Gunning.
Wearing Time: Past, Present, Future, Dream – London
Saturday 11 March 2017, 18:30 | The Horse Hospital
Screened alongside Irma Vep: The Last Breath (2014) and Unfolding the Aryan Papers (2009), with introduction by Tom Gunning.
Wearing Time: Past, Present, Future, Dream – New York
Saturday 7 April 2018, 13:30 | Museum of the Moving Image
Screened alongside Lady in the Dark (1944), with introduction by Tom Gunning.
