New Showbiz

You are here:
Cinématon

Cinématon

1978

TV-PG

Director

Gérard Courant

Runtime

12480 minutes

Average Rating

No ratings yet

Synopsis

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.

Where to Watch

Diversity & Representation

Overall Score

5.6/10

Fair

Category Breakdown

LGBTQ+ Representation

Fair

The non-narrative format avoids traditional romantic tropes and heteronormative plots. While explicit queer storylines are not documented, the focus on individual presence creates a neutral space.

Gender Representation

Fair

By removing traditional plot structures, the film dismantles gender hierarchies. Women like Stéphane Audran and Julie Delpy are presented with the same autonomy and agency as their male counterparts.

Racial & Ethnic Diversity

Good

The film offers a globalized perspective through figures like Nagisa Oshima and Youssef Chahine. This mosaic of international artists avoids a purely Anglo-Saxon centricity.

Religious & Cultural Diversity

Good

The work celebrates radical subjectivity and individual eccentricity over religious or patriotic messaging. It challenges capitalist notions of media consumption through its massive, non-traditional duration.

Disability Representation

Fair

The film's brief, silent vignettes provide insufficient evidence for specific disability narratives. However, its raw focus avoids the sanitized depictions often found in mainstream media.

Strengths

  • Dismantles traditional gender hierarchies by removing plot-driven roles.
  • Features a globalized assembly of international artists and intellectuals.
  • Avoids heteronormative tropes through its non-narrative, portrait-style format.
  • Prioritizes individual agency and radical subjectivity over institutional messaging.

Areas for Improvement

  • Lacks explicit documentation of LGBTQ+ storylines or non-cisnormative identities.
  • Insufficient evidence to determine the presence of disability narratives.
  • Does not actively engage with specific identity politics or representation.

AI Analysis

Cinématon functions as a democratic collection of human fragments rather than a traditional narrative. By deconstructing the cinematic form into thousands of micro-vignettes, the film disrupts conventional power dynamics and the 'hero's journey.' While it does not actively campaign for specific identity politics, its architectural refusal to engage with traditional hierarchies makes it inherently progressive. It replaces structured storytelling with a study of individual presence. The film's strength lies in its internationalism and its ability to present subjects as autonomous entities. However, the lack of narrative structure makes it difficult to assess specific representations of LGBTQ+ identities or disabilities.

How are these scores produced? →

Rate this Movie

No rating selected
Use arrow keys to select a rating from 1 to 5 stars
Optional text review, maximum 2000 characters
Tip: Wrap spoilers with ||double pipes|| to hide them
0/2000 characters
You must be signed in to submit a rating

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts on this movie!

Use the rating form above to leave a star rating and optional review.