Nocturne by Aurélien Froment

An Interview with Aurélien Froment, the 2019 winner of our Research and Creation Support Program , and Matthieu Orléan, a French filmmaker and artistic collaborator with the French Film Archive  Thursday, November 25, at 7 p. m.

The Installation Optical Theater – Photo by Zucca aurélien Froment’s exhibition brings together for the first time Pierre Zucca’s diverse visual practices: set photography, filmmaking, and his collaboration with the writer Pierre Klossowski. It is this apparent heterogeneity that lies at the heart of the exhibition. Loosely inspired by an unrealized project by Max Berto, Jean-André Fieschi, and Sylvie Zucca ( The Path to Pleasure , 2000),  Optical Theater invites us on a journey through various spaces of representation, from movie posters to books, from the set to the screen. Comprising a large number of previously unpublished photographs, the exhibition explores “the dual nature of the image,” which is both evidence and a work of the imagination. It is a story told through its margins, where one takes “the risk of betraying for a chance not to betray” (Pierre Zucca).

The discussion proposed by Matthieu Orlean is based on the photographs that Pierre Zucca took on the set of Out 1 by Jacques Rivette in 1971. Rivette’s film exists in two versions (same footage and same film stock but arranged differently): a twelve-hour “serial” version initially conceived for television (during the ORTF era) that is titled Track 1: Noli Me Tangere  ; a shortened version lasting nearly five hours titled Out 1: Spectre . 
In the first version, Zucca's photos open each episode (set to music), serving as a visual recap of the previous episode. 
In the second, Zucca’s photographs insert themselves into the fragmented narrative, serving as (poetic) transitions, multiplying the points of view, and contributing to a surprising overall montage made up of coincidences, missteps, and collisions. According to Matthieu Orléan, this is a particularly original and irreverent use of photography in cinema, in this free-form, experimental film that draws on the works of Aeschylus, Louis Feuillade, Peter Brook, Andy Warhol, René Clair, Jonas Mekas, Erich von Stroheim, Shirley Clarke, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Honoré de Balzac.

In short, join Aurélien Froment and Matthieu Orléan for this unexpected encounter between documentary and fantasy.

+ starting at 6 p. m.: Musical "Carte Blanche" featuring Aguacate (live) + Donov (DJ set) (no reservation required)