Surrealist artist turned film experimentalist, Joseph Cornell is perhaps most recognised for his assemblage art pieces, or simply, boxes. Cornell was widely celebrated for his innate ability to transform the ordinary and mundane in to something fantastical. Like a skilled puppeteer who can transform lifeless pieces of wood and cloth in to a young boy that can sing and dance, Cornell could transform plastic ice cubes in to rare jewells, balls in to planets, and small wooden boxes in to exubriant microcosms. It is from this platform that I began to speculate, and attempt to decipher, Cornell's first effort at translating his art form to the silver screen in Rose Hobart.
Given that Cornell's artworks required him to have a particular penchant for recycling discarded objects, it comes as no surprise that his efforts at film-making see him use a similar technique. The footage used in Rose Hobart is taken almost entirely from the 1931 B-grade jungle flick East of Borneo. Jeremy Heilman notes that Cornell's radical reappropriation of this film requires its viewers to "reassess the complexity of the images they see when they watch even the simplest of mainstream films." Indeed, this is exactly what Rose Hobart achieves, as it transfigures an easily digestible piece of cinematic pulp in to something far more existential and intellectually stimulating.
Through the process of removing all dialogue from the film, cutting virtually every scene that does not feature the all-but-faded Hollywood starlet, and coating the entire film in a dream-like blue wash; Rose Hobart becomes almost entirely seperate from East of Borneo, and thus completely submits itself to Cornell's control. In Cornell's manifestation of the film, Hobart's every movement, every glance, every breath seems to be subject to the puppet master's desire, and the result is highly rewarding. As one watches on, they are stripped of the choice to transfix their attention on anything else but Ms. Hobart, with the occassional exception of an errupting volcano, a slowly expanding ripple in the water, or a mesmerising solar eclipse. However, the wonder of Cornell's work is that these fleeting images do not divert any attention away from Rose Hobart, but rather, they intensify it, as she seems to be connected to, or even responsible for each of these natural wonders.
Such is the effect of Cornell's film that we the audience, like him, become utterly obsessed with this woman, as she is made to move, to smile, and even to breathe in a way that excites and entices us in our induced dream-like state. Hence, Cornell becomes the ultimate puppet master as he not only controls the movements, the reactions, and the emotions of his title subject, but by doing so, he manages to control the audience as well.
Cornell's ability to completely transform a series of images from another film into an entirely different piece of work, independent from its predecessor, is admirable. I, like you, was completely transfixed by the woman on screen, the blue tinge and exotic music making the viewing all the more mystical and enthralling.
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