LETTRISME ET CINEMA de la lettre au photogramme

Lettrisme, a neo-avant-garde movement that unfolded its activities immediately after the Second World War in France, quickly and intensely invested the cinema. Between 1950 and 1952, Isidore Isou, Maurice Lemaître, Guy Debord, Gil J. Wolman and their comrades manhandled and reconfigured film in its aesthetics, in its technical equipment, to the point of denying and going beyond the context of the dark room: dissociation between sound and image, direct intervention on the film, transformation of the screen and introduction of performative elements in the cinema session constitute some of their contributions.
This study aims to highlight the repercussions of their filmic approaches, which are not without affinities with the subsequent practices of happening, expanded cinema, conceptual art and free language games.

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François Bovier is a lecturer and researcher at the History and Aesthetics of Cinema Section at the University of Lausanne and a research fellow at ECAL/Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne. Co-founder of the film magazine Décadrages, he has published numerous studies on avant-garde and experimental cinema, video art and artists' films, militant cinema and the relationship of film to poetry, the arts visuals and performance.

François Bovier wrote the final text which summarizes the contributions of lettrism to cinema, performance and happening. Text against which any future study will have to be confronted.
-Christian Lebrat