The Seashell and The Clergyman
When Antonin Artaud wrote the original scenario for ‘The Seashell and the Clergyman’ his concept was for a Surrealist film which would engage with the passionate, furious fantasies of a priest (to be played by himself). What feminist film-maker Germaine Dulac actually produced in this stream of “pure” cinema is still Surrealist in form. But the film has become a damning exploration of male sexuality as embodied in a highly pathetic priest. A victim of the female stereotypes which his own gender has created, the priest is terrified both of the object of his desire (which he nonetheless narcissistically wishes to become) and of a ludicrous rival carrying a sword (phallus). Artaud was not amused. During the film's first-ever screening the complexity and strength of Dulac's images reduced him to screaming that she was “a cow” ...
The script is very beautiful; filled with eroticism and fury, it could have been a film in the same class as Bunuel's ‘L'Age d'Or’ but Germaine Dulac betrayed the spirit of Artaud and made a FEMININE film.
– Ado Kyrou
Description source: Circles Catalogue (circa 1983). Compiled by Helen MacKintosh and Margaret Gillan. Edited by Felicity Sparrow.
