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Ricciotto Canudo was born in Gioia del Colle (Bari) in 1877. After studies in Florence and Rome (which included oriental languages). Canudo came to Paris in 1 902. This "Barisien très Parisien," as he was nicknamed by his friend Apollinaire, threw himself into the world of the arts. In a manifesto of 1905, co-authored by A. Tudesq, Canudo called for a profound renewal of the arts and society. Canudo was involved in many movements and confined to none; with seemingly boundless energy he wrote poetry, published novels (inventing a style stressing inter-personal psychology, which he called sinestismo). created open air theatre in southern France. As an art critic, he discovered Chagall and organized a Chagall show in 1914. In that same year, together with Blaise Cendrars, he wrote an appeal for foreigners living in France to volunteer for the French army. Canudo was one of the 80,000 foreigners who enlisted.
Canudos most significant role was that of journalist and editor. In 1913 he founded Montjoie. a rallying point at the time of the "battle" of the Rites of Spring. Started as a journal of "French cultural imperialism." intended to give direction to the artistic elite, it became the spokesman for "cerebralist art" (and Canudo wrote the "Cerebralist Manifesto" in February 1914). In 1922 Canudo founded the Gazette des Sept Arts. This review, together with the Club of Friends of the Seventh Art, was meant to bring poets, painters, architects, and musicians together with the filmmakers.
Canudo may be considered the first aesthetician of the cinema, and it is therefore appropriate that his "Manifesto" be made available to an Englishspeaking audience. Many of Canudo's ideas were shared by two of the major early French experimenters in film - Jean Epstein and Abel Gance. In his book Le Cinématographe vu de l'Etna (Paris: Les Ecrivains Réunis. 1926. p. 45), filmmaker and critic Jean Epstein wrote of Canudo and the "Manifesto":
Already in 1911, Canudo published an essay on cinema which one can't reread today without being overwhelmed by so much foresight. In 191 1, while for years to come, both in fact and in theory, film was not more than a distraction for the outings of high-school students, a place sufficiently dark for a rendezvous, or a...