Vivement le Cinéma

Picture in Motion

by Jérôme Prieur

France - 2011

Saturday, June 1st • 4PM
At Bophana Center

Documentary – 52mn

Color

French with English subtitles

CinematographyMathieu Giombini

Music Marc Olivier Dupin

Format35 mm – Dolby

GenreDocumentary

ProductionMelisande Films

SynopsisThis film endeavours to show how the invention of cinema was in no way inevitable, and how it may well have been a mere accident. To pinpoint the start, it all began in the heart of Paris, in the depths of darkened room, on 28 March 1798, when Etienne-Gaspard Robertson gave one of his first screenings of his “Fantasmagoria” - making ghosts and spectres dance. But how did we move from perfecting the magic lantern to the cinematography of the Lumière brothers?

AboutThe invention was born throughout the 19th century, out of the unpredictable crossing of two parallel research paths - that of philosophical toys and the photography of movement. Originally-named optical devices - such as the kinesigraph, the zoetrope, the praxinoscope and the phenakistoscope, without forgetting the photographic revolver or gun - associated the realm of toys with the realm of thought, reflecting both a fascination for the magical effects produced by animation and speed, and a desire to understand human anatomy, and analyse the phenomenon of vision. All these pre-cinema optical devices literally stemmed from a desire for spectacle and the will to acquire knowledge.

Selected filmography of Jérôme Prieur
(born in 1951)

1999 – Marcel Proust’s time regained

1999 – Paddy

1997 – Corpus Christie

With The Courtesy ofMelisande Films