Mar­cel Duchamp (1887–1968) made some heady art. His whole goal was to “put art back in the ser­vice of the mind,” or to cre­ate what Jasper Johns once called the “field where lan­guage, thought and vision act on one anoth­er.” And that’s pre­cise­ly what Ducham­p’s 1926 avant-garde film Anémic Ciné­ma deliv­ers. You can watch a restored ver­sion above.

Draw­ing on his inher­i­tance, Duchamp shot Anémic Ciné­ma (almost a palin­drome) in Man Ray’s stu­dio with the help of cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Marc Allé­gret. The Dada-inspired film fea­tures nine whirling opti­cal illu­sions, known as Rotore­liefs, alter­nat­ing with spi­ral­ing puns and com­plex word play. Vision acts on lan­guage and thought, indeed.

Anémic Ciné­ma appears in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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