Cinema and Counter-Power / 3

Film critic, writer and teacher Jean-Michel Frodon was editor of Les Cahiers du Cinéma and runs “Projection publique,” the cinema blog of Slate. Philosopher, emeritus director of research at the CNRS, Marie-José Mondzain’s interests include images and their power, which is the theme of several of her books.

In what sense can images embody an alternative power source?
Images were long despised or even condemned by those who controlled thought. They can manifest their contestatory, contradictory turbulence in relation to all forms of power. This threat is inseparable from what it is that can make any image a figure of desire and an offer of resistance and liberty. The power of images is bound to interest any dominant agency, which will seek to confiscate this energy for its own advantage.

Why the particular interest in cinema?
Because its particular way of articulating the real and fiction places it in a strategic position when it comes to questioning the possibilities of transforming our world. We want to provide viewers with critical resources to deal with what is overwhelmingly presented to them in terms of pleasure, sensation or highly dubious compassion.

What themes will be discussed in the seminar?
We have identified four modalities capable of activating counter-power – not an exhaustive selection, obviously: laughter, childhood and minorities, and public space and the environment. To these four angles of approach can be added a session with Avi Mograbi, an artist who has been invited to Jeu de Paume at the same time, and whose work mobilises numerous forms of counter-power. Each meeting will be preceded by the screening of a film directly related to the theme of the day.
Marie-José Mondzain et Jean-Michel Frodon

THE POWER OF DISPLACEMENT. A DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT
Friday 13 March

At 4:30 pm, screening of
Leviathan by Lucien Castaing and Verena Paravel (France/UK/USA, 2012, 87’)
The filmmakers went to sea on a trawler to make a portrait of one of the oldest human activities. The stunning sequence of images that results bears witness to the struggle between man, nature and machine. Shot with a dozen digital cameras lashed to the fishermen’s bodies and to rigging, shaken by the wind and buffeted by the waves, these images are utterly disorienting. Sea and sky merge. They warn of the dangers of intensive fishing but also reveal the dazzling beauty of the ocean depths.

At 6.30 pm: presentations by Marie-José Mondzain, Jean-Michel Frodon, Ruedi Baur, designer and Gilles Clément, landscape architect.

Admission: 3 euros, or free to members or holders of a ticket for the day. Information: infoauditorium@jeudepaume.org