Mapping a Unidentified Filmic Object
Introducing
Sensation at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival, JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM is a feature film with a unique form. In introduction of the online screening of Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream (Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle) followed by a talk with its director Frank Beauvais this Friday 8pm. here are a few points of reference to map the UFO JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM.
Introducing
Sensation at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival, JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM is a feature film with a unique form. In introduction of the online screening of Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream (Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle) followed by a talk with its director Frank Beauvais this Friday 8pm. here are a few points of reference to map the UFO JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM.
Sensation at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival, JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM is a feature film with a unique form: an editing by Thomas Marchand of shots from over 400 unidentified films, led by the first-person uninterrupted voiceover of the director Frank Beauvais, festival programmer, huge cinephile and author of 9 short films. This first feature film is at the crossroads of many cinematographic subgenres : here are a few points of reference to map the UFO JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM !
1) Found footage film
Frank Beauvais speaks of the film as a “found footage”. This genre, popularised in the 2000s with horror fictions such as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, was born out of the artistic avant-gardes and experimental cinema of the 1950s. This process, characterised by the use of supposedly found footage, was notably used by Peter Watkins in THE WAR GAME (1965) or PUNISHMENT PARK (1971), but as Frank Beauvais, it is sometimes real footage that is used either for philosophical purposes in Guy Debord’s THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE, or more aesthetically, or even archaeologically: Bill Morisson’s DECASIA (2002).
However, many critics felt that JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM could belong to another sub-genre, a more cinephile relative of found footage :
2) The Mash-up Film
This term, borrowed from Djing, applies to cinema when images from various films are used to create a new film, like in Jean-Luc Godard’s HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA (1988) series, or SUNLESS by Chris Marker and Guy Magen. In more narrative registers, there is Michel Hazavicius’ LA CLASSE AMERICAINE, who wrote a comedy by re-dubbing extracts from the Warner classics catalogue, and in more experimental registers Christian Marclay’s THE CLOCK, a 24-hour video installation that features clocks or timepieces in films.
But to achieve addressing the viewer and not being in an “autistic” experience, Frank Beauvais chooses to bind the editing work by narrating several months of his life through a first person voice-over.
3) The filmed Diary
The filmed diary was popularised by the American/Lithuanian director Jonas Mekas. David Perlov, Alain Cavalier or Joseph Morder are also representatives of this genre.
However, Frank Beauvais’ voice-over focuses on the intimacy of the diary, bringing him closer to Chantal Akerman in her latest documentaries, such as NO HOME MOVIE (2015), in which she discusses her relationship with her mother, or to Vincent Dieutre, who uses this contrast between voice over and image in his first film ROME DESOLEE (1995), or opens up the intimacy of his feelings on his current love relationship while filming the Jaurès metro station in his eponymous documentary.
Discover the UFO Friday 16.04 at 20:00, followed by a Q&A with Frank Beauvais!
