Antonin Artaud and the “Theatre of Cruelty”
The second, better known example is the “Theatre of Cruelty”, which was developed partly in parallel with the “Grand-Guignol” and the Surrealist movement. Antonin Artaud started testing the realisation of his theories in the “Théâtre Alfred Jarry”, which was managed by him and Roger Vitrac. After separating from Vitrac he founded the “Theatre of Cruelty” in 1935, in which terror and pain were integrated as vital parts of the concept. Cruelty, to Artaud the most important part of every play, meant in this relation the strain of the audience during the performance, which should be aesthetically shocked with the cooperation of different parts like light and details on the stage:

„Artaud’s lesson is of the cruelty and tyranny of unpredictable, unfathomable forces that transcend the reasoned limits of reality as humanity understands them. The methods used to deliver this brutal lesson are based on a theory of generating a series of shocks, effected by the collision of images, sounds, and savage acts conveyed in a primarily non-verbal, synaesthetic language as Sergei Eisenstein discovered in the film, and which Artaud hoped to establish in the theater” (Rockett 1988: 57f).

Artaud points to a significant work of art, which demanded from the audience sensibility and readiness for exertions on a very high level. It is a theatre of suggestion and corporality, which should lead to a mysterious, affect-charged spectacle. Artauds attempt is therefore not only deeply related to the horror films of his time – he was also important for the further development of the whole genre towards a “Cinema of Cruelty”:

„The term ‘Cinema of Cruelty’ aptly reflects [...] [the] cinematic application of Artaud’s philosophical and theatrical principles. For these films try one, test one, push one through terror of the supernatural or supranatural to emotional and mental limits in which one is reduced to the most primitive of human spiritual levels, fearful wonder and astonishment at the inexplicable. To achieve this, these films work upon the most primitive level of human consciousness, for they require their audience to construct a coherent universe and a narrative meaning from a chaos of a series of shots, uttered in the synaesthetic language of the film. This savage, powerful nonverbal language of shocks and the collision of images appear almost tailormade for provoking terror. The audience instinctively seeks to establish limits upon what is indeterminate, and to classify it; when balked, they are left uncertain and in terror. The terror is underscored by the physical and psychological savagery that the demonic can exact upon humanity, and which is portrayed on the screen. While the transcendent cause of such savagery remains indeterminate and terrifying, its horrible effects are quite concrete and clear, so as to lend credence to the terrible reality of that cause” (Rockett 1988: 88f).

by Thomas Ballhausen