Radical Cinema (english edition) - Christian Lebrat

In this expanded edition of Cinéma Radical, first published in French in 2008, the artist Christian Lebrat reflects on a cinema that “follows its own rules and questions the very definition of the medium.”

There is a cinema that has developed off the beaten track inventing its own rules.
There is a cinema independent from the commercial world as well as from industry, the art world, and outside of the fashion world.
There is a cinema in which every great film challenges the very definition of cinema.
There is a cinema which constantly renews both the forms and the modalities of its existence.
There is a cinema that forms a solid, inescapable core.

It is this radical cinema that the author endeavors to explore through the analysis of some major works by the following filmmakers: Stan Brakhage, Robert Breer, Germaine Dulac, Hollis Frampton, Ken Jacobs, Peter Kubelka, Fernand Léger, Maurice Lemaître, Man Ray, Jonas Mekas, Paul Sharits, Michael Snow, among many others like: Pierre Rovere, René Vautier, Gérard Fromanger / Jean-Luc Godard, Claudine Eizykman, Guy Fihman, Alain Montesse, Antonio De Bernardi, Jean-Claude Rousseau, Wim Wenders, Raoul Grimoin-Sanson, Georges Franju, René Vautier, Jean Vigo, etc

Written over a period of more than thirty years to accompany retrospectives, publications and exhibitions, the texts gathered in this volume are grouped into five distinct chapters (1. THE POWER OF CINEMA IS NOT LINKED TO NARRATIVE 2. THE ART OF CINEMA IS SELF-SUFFICIENT. 3. SOME BORDERLINES EXPERIMENTS 4. FILM MOVEMENTS 5. FRENCH EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA: THE 1970S)

The book begins with an interview in which the author explains the conditions of existence, of teaching and of the development of experimental cinema.

2nd ed. English translation by Anna Doyle.

author Christian LEBRAT
publisher Scott HAMMEN
contributor Anna DOYLE
city and year of publication Paris, 2021
binding Paperback
pages 187
language English
ISBN 978-2-912539–56-4