Movie spotlight
Cinématon
Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.
Insights
Plot Summary
Cinématon is an ongoing, ever-expanding film project where director Gérard Courant films brief portraits of filmmakers, artists, and personalities, each lasting approximately one minute. These short films are not traditional narratives but rather direct encounters, capturing individuals in their own spaces or in simple studio settings. The project began in 1978 and continues to this day, creating a vast, unique archive of cultural figures.
Critical Reception
Cinématon is a unique and ongoing ethnographic film project that has garnered significant attention within experimental and documentary cinema circles. It is recognized for its ambitious scope and its singular focus on capturing fleeting moments with a wide array of cultural figures. While not typically reviewed in mainstream outlets, it is highly regarded by cinephiles and critics of avant-garde film.
What Reviewers Say
A remarkable and evolving cinematic archive.
Offers intimate, albeit brief, glimpses into the lives of artists and filmmakers.
Celebrated for its conceptual rigor and its dedication to documenting cultural figures.
Google audience: As Cinématon is an experimental and ongoing project not typically reviewed by general audiences on platforms like Google, specific summaries of user opinions are not readily available. Its recognition is primarily within academic and specialized film communities.
Awards & Accolades
Screened at various film festivals and retrospectives focusing on experimental cinema. Recognized for its longevity and its unique contribution to film archives.
Fun Fact
As of its 40th anniversary in 2018, Cinématon had accumulated over 3,000 individual portraits, with new ones still being added regularly.
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