
Europe after the Rain (1978) by Mick Gold
Thursday, April 22, 1982, 8:00 pm
Europe After the Rain
A comprehensive survey of Dada and Surrealism
Directed and written by Mick Gold (Great Britain, 1978, 88 m.)
Just as Europe was never to be the same after the Great War, so it was with art after Dada and Surrealism. In the words of Max Ernst, “Dada was like a bomb.”
Europe after the Rain is a comprehensive survey of Dada and Surrealism, two major art movements of the twentieth century. The film takes us to Dada’s birthplace, Zurich, where Dada was born in disgust.
Marcel Duchamp reacts violently against painting as a source of pleasure, and comes up with ready-mades (found the objects) and mobiles. But it is Andre Breton who leads the Surrealists in their rejection of institutionalized Dada: “True Dadists are against Dada.” Along with Arp, Tzara, Duchamp, and Breton, the film follows the careers of Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miro, Antonin Artaud, René Magritte and other Surrealists.