Swinging heads is a montage of extracts from musicals* from the 1930s. A reference to slapsticks has been added through animations drawn on the original images. They literally serve as a red thread, giving added pleasure when re-watching the video to discover the winks left by the artist.
These musicals, traditionally populated by the false smiles of the dancers, are this time performed by those watching them. A camera films the faces of the spectators live, and inlays them in real time into the sequences projected onto the big screen. In this way, they become the embodiment of the caricatures depicted in the cinema of that era, when racism, the exploitation of child stars and women, and mockery of the marginalized reigned supreme. All of which regularly turned, if not knocked, many heads.
Yes, the faces replaced by the viewers were originally smiling, because entertainment is king and there's no question of showing the slightest sign of pain. The question now is whether spectators, by appropriating the faces of these performers, will be able to feel what these minorities have gone through in performing their act.
* The video is made up of sequences taken from these films:
The dancing pirate
Glorifying the American Girl
Killer Diller
Reet petite and gone Rock’n’roll revue
Zis boom
Original soundtrack: Sing sing sing by Luis Prima
