Cinématon

Cinématon 1978

4.30

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.

1978

Le Passeur immobile

Le Passeur immobile 2021

1

Le Passeur immobile, which covers the year 1987, is a Booklet filmed stuck between The Days and the Nights (1986) and The Artifice and the Fake (1988). These Notebooks have been punctuating my activity as a filmmaker for about fifteen years. They are like a life parallel to my other films and film series (Cinema, Group Portrait, Read, etc.). They are also like a letter to the spectators.

2021

In Memoriam Bernadette Lafont

In Memoriam Bernadette Lafont 2016

1

On 6 December 2013, a public exhibition dedicated to her memory, Bernadette Lafont l'exposition hommage, was held in Paris. Actors Stéphane Audran, Guillaume Gouix and Alexandra Stewart read some extracts of Bernard Bastide's new biography Bernadette Lafont, une vie de cinéma, including some original letters written by Bernadette. The event was filmed by Gérard Courant and aired as an episode of Carnets filmés, In Memoriam Bernadette Lafont.

2016

Couple

Couple 1986

1

Couple is a cinematic series of portrait films, which show two persons, who free to do what they wish, in a fixed camera shot of 3:20 minutes.

1986

Amours décolorées

Amours décolorées 1998

1

Amours décolorées is a cinematographic poem to the glory of Mariola San Martin, model, stylist, dancer and Spanish photographer.

1998

Les Jours et les Nuits

Les Jours et les Nuits 2021

1

I give a methodical account of my film work: the creation of new series (Lire, Trio, Avec Mariola), the shooting of a new feature film (Amours décolorées which will take ten years to edit) with Mariola San Martin.

2021

L'Artifice et le factice

L'Artifice et le factice 2012

1

"L'Artifice et le factice" is the episode that covers the period from January 1, 1988 to December 31, 1988 of my filmed Notebooks.

2012

Vie

Vie 2011

1

2011

Portrait de groupe

Portrait de groupe 1986

1

Portrait de groupe is a film series of filmed portraits that shows all kinds of groups gathered under family pretexts, friendly or professional, in a single fixed, wide shot (style: family photo) and silent of 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

1986

Zanzibar à Saint-Sulpice

Zanzibar à Saint-Sulpice 1999

1

30 years after their artistic revolution, members of the Zanzibar group meet in 1999 in Saint-Sulpice Square in Paris (France) in front of Gérard Courant's camera.

1999