Maurice Lemaître
Le Film est déjà commencé ?
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Add rightsFormat Blu-ray,DVD Interzone
Original format 16mm, DV
Year 1951
Language(s) French
Artist(s) Maurice Lemaître, Pip Chodorov
Author(s) Raphaël Bassan, Marc Plas
Subtitles French, English
Booklet 60 pages (French, English)
Running time 77 min
Films
LE FILM EST DÉJÀ COMMENCÉ ? (1951) 62'
PORTRAIT OF MAURICE LEMAÎTRE by Pip Chodorov (2004) 15'
Description
"Heir to the surrealists, dadaists and abstract filmmakers of the 1920s, Lemaître was able to combine aesthetics and politics without one taking precedence over the other, which is no small feat and fully justifies the ongoing reevaluation of his work."
— Gérard Courant, Libération
A major work of Lettrist cinema, Le film est déja commencé ? was a veritable event during its first screenings in Paris in 1951. Despite the critics' scorn, the explicit and implicit influence of this film on the Nouvelle Vague as well as on contemporary filmmaking makes it an important milestone in cinema history.
"This film must be projected under special conditions: on a screen of new material and forms and with spectacular interventions in the cinema lobby and in the auditorium (staged jostling, loud dialogues, confetti throwing, gunshots fired at the screen...). It is no longer simply a film projection, but a true cinema screening transformed into a total work of art, a style of which Maurice Lemaître is the creator."
— Maurice Lemaître