Pack 2 DVD Maurice Lemaître

One of the founding works of letterist cine- ma, Le Film est déjà commencé? (Has the Feature Started Yet?) became a major event during its first screenings in Paris in 1951. Despite the critics’ lack of consideration, this film’s undeniable influence — direct or hidden — on the New Wave as much as on today’s cinema makes it a landmark in film history.

« This film must be projected under special conditions: on a screen of new shapes and material and with spectacular goings-on in the cinema lobby and theatre (disrup- tions, forced jostling, dialogues spoken aloud, confetti and gunshots aimed at the screen...). This is not just a projection, but a true film show, the style of which Maurice Lemaître is the creator. »
-Maurice Lemaître 1951

Lemaître invented interactive cinema, then pushed it to its limits by distributing instruction manuals as the audience entered the theater, inviting them to take an active part in the screening; and projecting the film directly onto their bodies. The whole operation became a veritable installation, with multiple screens, projections, and performances; Lemaître used his own body and voice, as well as those of his collaborators, as part of the experience. Between 1974 and 1985, he cre- ated a series of Films Imaginaires (Imaginary Films), which consisted of printed cards inviting spectators to create their own film by following the minimal instruc- tions typed onto the cards; the resulting film(s) would become an homage to the written word which, trans- formed by projection, would take on a whole “other dimension.”
-CÉCILE GIRAUD

Films Imaginaires (Imaginary Films) consists of texts from a range of works that had already been published here and there, and that were included in the revised edition of my collected Cinematic Works. I filmed these texts and converted them into inter-titles for projection. The conversion of these texts to frames of film, and their subsequent projection, transforms these “films” into an even more progressive type of cinematic creation.
-MAURICE LEMAÎTRE