Format VOD
Original format 16mm, DV
Year 1951
Language(s) French
Artist(s) Maurice Lemaître
Sous-titres French, English
Running time 62 min
Films
LE FILM EST DÉJÀ COMMENCÉ ? (1951) 62'
Description
"Heir to the Surrealists, Dadaists and abstract filmmakers of the 1920s, Lemaître successfully combined aesthetics and politics without one overshadowing the other—no small achievement, and one that fully justifies the current reassessment of his work."
— Gérard Courant, Libération
A major work of Lettrist cinema, Le film est déja commencé ? was a true event when it was first screened in Paris in 1951. Despite critical disdain, the film's explicit and implicit influence 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 auditorium (staged scuffles, loud dialogues, confetti throwing, gunshots fired at the screen...). It is no longer a simple film projection, but a true cinema session rendered as a complete work of art—a style of which Maurice Lemaître is the creator."
— Maurice Lemaître