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

In Memoriam Bernadette Lafont

In Memoriam Bernadette Lafont 2013

1

On 6 December 2013, a public exhibition dedicated to her memory, Bernadette Lafont l'exposition hommage, was held in Paris. Actors Stéphane Audran, Guillaume Gouix and Alexandra Stewart read some extracts of Bernard Bastide's new biography Bernadette Lafont, une vie de cinéma, including some original letters written by Bernadette. The event was filmed by Gérard Courant and aired as an episode of Carnets filmés, In Memoriam Bernadette Lafont.

2013

Cinéma

Cinéma 1997

1

An ongoing collection of single static shot, mute, showing a view of the cinema facades where Cinematons have been screened.

1997

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

Le Passeur immobile

Le Passeur immobile 2021

1

Le Passeur immobile, which covers the year 1987, is a Booklet filmed stuck between The Days and the Nights (1986) and The Artifice and the Fake (1988). These Notebooks have been punctuating my activity as a filmmaker for about fifteen years. They are like a life parallel to my other films and film series (Cinema, Group Portrait, Read, etc.). They are also like a letter to the spectators.

2021

Amours décolorées

Amours décolorées 1998

1

Amours décolorées is a cinematographic poem to the glory of Mariola San Martin, model, stylist, dancer and Spanish photographer.

1998

Cinématou

Cinématou 1991

1

A series of portraits filmed in one shot between a person and his/her cat(s) person, free to do what they want.

1991

Vie

Vie 2011

1

2011

Cinématon XXXII

Cinématon XXXII 1984

1

Reel 32 of Gérard Courant’s on-going Cinematon series.

1984

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

In Memoriam Daniel Schmid Werner Schroeter

In Memoriam Daniel Schmid Werner Schroeter 2012

1

Swiss filmmaker Daniel Schmid died on August 5, 2006, and German filmmaker Werner Schroeter on April 12, 2010. They were close friends, and along with Jean Eustache, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Philippe Garrel were the most innovative filmmakers of the post-New Wave era.

2012