Art between the wars · 1909–1921

Speed, noise and spectacle

Poets who shouted, puppets that danced instead of dancers, orchestras of noise machines, and a city run like a theatre. Six units on the art of the Futurists, on the far right and the far left, and on Gabriele D'Annunzio's Fiume.

Reading comprehension
Grammar
Vocabulary
Writing
Pronunciation
Oral presenting

The six units

1The manifesto is a performanceMarinetti, Russolo and the Russian Futurists. Write your own manifesto and perform it.Open
2Fiume as theatreThe balcony, the crowd’s answers, Toscanini’s “Orphic Legion” and a constitution with music in it. Write a scene and read it aloud, voicing every part.Open
3Dance in wordsMarinetti’s machine dances, Saint-Point’s veiled Métachorie, Depero’s wooden puppets and Meyerhold’s biomechanics. Write a dance score and present it.Open
4Noise and sound poetryRussolo’s noise machines, Marinetti’s Zang Tumb Tumb, Kruchenykh’s zaum and Hugo Ball’s Karawane. Write and perform the sound of your city waking up.Open
5Left and rightVictory over the Sun, Mayakovsky’s “Left March”, Zagreb’s magazine Zenit, and how the same tools served opposite sides. Write and present a compare-and-contrast paragraph.Open
6The film: Fiume o morte!How Igor Bezinović’s Fiume o morte! was made and what critics said. Turn a 1919 photograph into a scene and pitch a film of your own.Open

The film

Fiume o morte! ("Fiume or death!") is a 2025 film by Igor Bezinović, who grew up in Rijeka, the city the Italians called Fiume. Instead of hiring actors, he asked hundreds of people from Rijeka to act out the sixteen months when D'Annunzio ruled their city, copying old photographs scene by scene in the same streets.

The film won the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2025, and Best Documentary at the European Film Awards. Watch the trailer now. In Unit 6 you will read how the film was made.

Fiume o morte! (2025) · dir. Igor Bezinović · Croatia, Italy, Slovenia · 112 min · in Croatian and Italian

Who is who

Luigi Russolo, Carlo Carrà, F. T. Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini, Paris, 1912. Public domain.