Directing

Jean-Michel Bouhours

Born August 9, 1956 · Brou, France (age 70)

Master in cinema, University of Paris VIII-Vincennes. Co-founder of Paris Films Coop in 1976. Member of the board of Light Cone between 2008 and 2016. In charge of film programs then first curator for the film, head of cinema department between 1992 and 2003 at Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou. Director of Nouveau musée national de Monaco 2003-2008. Curator in chief, head of Modern co…

Known For

Lux LuzLux Luz · 2021
Lux Luz
2021
Movie
Autonomous part of the film UNDER THE SIGN OF THE LION, corresponding to the letter L. Camera obscura experience. Capture the light ray, place it in a frame, which itself has a second internal frame. Visual effects of flickers and "counterflickers," as in music we speak of on- and off-beats.
ChantillyChantilly · 1976
Chantilly
1976
Movie
To construct a film in an atomic way, starting from simple elements which combined with each other will produce a whole. Taking the dot as an elementary unit is not a coincidence if we think that the notion of pixels with video images began to occupy people's minds in the 70’s, decades before the arrival of giant led screens. [...] 9, and then 16 screens within one same screen allow an impressive process of simultaneous abstract sequences. The film partition shows a combinatorial process between monochrome colours in the background and pointillist compositions in the foreground. As many sequences as screens; each one is a reflection on abstract images: pointillism, geometrism, "nuagisme" or informal abstraction , are all nods to the history of abstraction in painting: Vassili Kandinsky, Paul Klee, or Augusto Giacometti seem to have been called together within a mondrianesque grid. JMB
CinématonCinématon · 1978
Cinématon
4.91978
MovieDocumentary
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.
Portraits / MirrorsPortraits / Mirrors · 1984
Portraits / Mirrors
1984
Movie
A single-screen version of the Portraits / Mirrors multi-projection. Featuring portraits of: Aloual, Gaël Badaud, Raphaël Bassan, Yann Beauvais, Jean-Michel Bouhours, Gérard Courant, Berndt Deprez, Bertrand Gadenne, Mythia Kolésar, Christian Lebrat, Stéphane Marti, Pascal Martin, Michel Nedjar, Dominique Noguez, Vivian Ostrovsky, Bernard Roué, Martine Rousset, Alain Sayag, Unglee, and Catherine Zbinden.
INYAKINYAK
INYAK
Movie
ChronographiesChronographies · 1982
Chronographies
1982
Movie
Experimental, 16mm
Ay Carmela!Ay Carmela! · 2020
Ay Carmela!
9.02020
Movie
Found footage film, on the theme of the Spanish Civil War and the popular song "Ay, Carmela !" (or "El Paso del Ebro"), a song composed in 1808 during the liberation war against the Napoleonic invader and which was taken up by the Republican Army and the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.
ChronomaChronoma · 1977
Chronoma
1977
Movie
"Chronoma was conceived as a follow-up to Rythmes 76: its composition is still inspired by the repetitive processes of Steve Reich's music, with their gradual progression. This time, we have a sequence of photographs taken with a motorized camera (a proto movie camera) in a circular movement around a high-voltage electric tower in northern Paris. The initial image is in itself a drawing of lines intersecting to form angles." -JMB

Filmography

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ChantillyChantilly · 1976
Chantilly
1976
Movie
To construct a film in an atomic way, starting from simple elements which combined with each other will produce a whole. Taking the dot as an elementary unit is not a coincidence if we think that the notion of pixels with video images began to occupy people's minds in the 70’s, decades before the arrival of giant led screens. [...] 9, and then 16 screens within one same screen allow an impressive process of simultaneous abstract sequences. The film partition shows a combinatorial process between monochrome colours in the background and pointillist compositions in the foreground. As many sequences as screens; each one is a reflection on abstract images: pointillism, geometrism, "nuagisme" or informal abstraction , are all nods to the history of abstraction in painting: Vassili Kandinsky, Paul Klee, or Augusto Giacometti seem to have been called together within a mondrianesque grid. JMB

Director

CinématonCinématon · 1978
Cinématon
4.91978
MovieDocumentary
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.

N°145

9898 · 1975
98
1975
Movie
It is an attempt to put in representation of my own universe, my "I" being defined through friends filmed in familiar sets. This film precedes the serial movies that will follow. Nevertheless, the repetition is already very present for this film inspired by the music: that of John Cale, emblematic of my own passage from the rock aesthetics (Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, ...) to the minimal American music of La Monte Young, Philip Glass and Steve Reich whose composition processes will orchestrate upcoming films. Filmed with a Pathé Webo DS 8mm camera, the reel was shot several times in the camera in a series of layers of images overprint shot in Paris, Nanterre, La Défense and in the Perche. The filmic matter is apprehended in its thickness; I was very impressed by the film HYNNINGEN by Werner Nekes and Dore O.

Director