Cinématon

Cinématon 1978

4.30

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

1978

Dubai Winter Diary VI: Light and Reflections

Dubai Winter Diary VI: Light and Reflections 2011

1

Gérard Courant's "Filmed Diary" of December 14, 2011, produced in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Between December 7 and 15, 2011, Gérard Courant was invited by the Dubai International Film Festival, in the United Arab Emirates. It was an opportunity for him to film many "Cinematons" of personalities from the Arab world and to continue his "Film Notebooks" from which he brought back 7 episodes.

2011

Oh! Jour des grâces sans pareilles

Oh! Jour des grâces sans pareilles 2013

1

Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

2013

L'Artifice et le factice

L'Artifice et le factice 2012

1

"L'Artifice et le factice" is the episode that covers the period from January 1, 1988 to December 31, 1988 of my filmed Notebooks.

2012

Dérapages

Dérapages 2020

1

During a shoot with an Eagle K4 camera, a failure caused freeze-ups with abstract shapes.

2020

Couple

Couple 1986

1

Couple is a cinematic series of portrait films, which show two persons, who free to do what they wish, in a fixed camera shot of 3:20 minutes.

1986

Tu vois, mon fils, l'espace ici naît du temps

Tu vois, mon fils, l'espace ici naît du temps 1984

1

Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

1984

Trio

Trio 1987

1

Trio is a cinematic series of filmed portraits that shows, in a single large, fixed and silent shot of 3 minutes and 20 seconds, three people free to do what they want.

1987