18. Cinématon: The Shortest Films for the Longest Film – A Dialogue

Abstract

Since the mid-1970s, Gérard Courant has been one of those pioneers who seeks to test cinema’s limits from within and without, from the center of the medium to its peripheries. He continues his quest, never ceasing to accumulate a considerable number of films and, in particular, one film or series of films, which continues to grow, the Cinématon(s), which form the heart of this dialogue between Gérard Courant, Dominique Chateau and José Moure. Courant’s work, which comprises numerous filmed portraits of personalities as well as filmed street inventories, is of considerable extension. It is in this very principle of infinite proliferation of films of varying lengths that we find a kind of Mnemosyne cinema challenging the “de-definition” (Harold Rosenberg) of cinema which transforms it into post-art.