D’Annunzio’s Cave

Heinz Emigholz on his two films D’ANNUNZIOS CAVE and GOFF IN THE DESERT

Unlike GOFF IN THE DESERT, D’ANNUNZIO’S CAVE not only depicts its object, but also places it in the context of political monologues about lifestyle as an effort to police taste. The reason why the two films have such different forms is the difference between the phenomena shown. Bruce Goff’s architecture is clearly related to a recognizable use and a graspable logic of the material, which can be ‘read’ in the executed work without translation. His designing relates to the individual and promotes a free, human spirit. His buildings do not live from being impressing; they impress precisely with freedom. To allow them to be experienced, one merely has to present them as precisely as possible in their compositions and their relationships to their surroundings. The world erected by Gabriele D’Annunzio, in contrast, consists primarily of nothing but projections and backdrops that, if no interpretations are provided, reveal their existence as hodgepodge. He designed a sequence of rooms to which he allotted feelings and activities by fiat. Interior architecture measures attempt to create the ideal surroundings for a writer. The concentration of ‘writing’ is thereby supposed to be objectified in a collection of books, objects, cult objects, and fetishes. Like little shocks, these objects are supposed to keep awake the constant flow of memories and the timeliness of culture. They become the plenipotentiaries of authorship. This representation of the human spirit is not conceived as ‘private’, but stands for a political offensive into the world of those who are to be enlightened. D’Annunzio’s ‘private sphere’ becomes a political space and a vehicle of propaganda for a particular way of being. This way of being is derived from a sphere of political power – an unambiguous interpretation of reality born of and becoming violence.