Traité de bave et d’éternité

Cannes jury member Jean Cocteau proclaimed in 1951 that perhaps in 50 years’ time, the radical aesthetics of this film might feel more acceptable. Poet, film critic and visual artist Isou’s first and only stab at filmmaking caused a major scandal. After five minutes of Letterist poetry in the pitch dark, the film kicks off by rejecting any appreciation of the audience.
A certain Daniel embodies all that Isou loves and hates about the cinema. Wandering around the streets of Paris like a proto-beatnik, he argues for a film that hurts our eyes. But his aim is also to ‘sculpt flowers on the film stock’.
Isou inspired many to rethink the parameters of cinema, to exploit the discrepancy between sound and image or to treat the film material as exactly that: substance to be manipulated in every possible way. Ironically, the film that wanted to destroy cinema has itself undergone restoration now and the pompous manifesto has become part of the canon.

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