Laurent Guido (Université Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle)
A “poor little word that we use so often, too often”: this is how Louis Delluc, in one of his last texts, described the term “rhythm” in 1923, pointing out its constant use among his contemporaries, whether filmmaker-theoreticians such as Germaine Dulac and Jean Epstein or critics such as Léon Moussinac and Émile Vuillermoz. This intervention will aim to evaluate the way in which this concept allows the author to intervene in the theoretical debates of the period (photogénie, the tension between narrative ideals and avant-garde claims, etc.). His definition of rhythm oscillates between a meticulous perception of the complex interaction of internal elements within the frame (interpretation, sets, camera movements) and the highlighting of a general principle of organization of works through editing. The critic’s work is therefore based on revealing the structural patterns and progressive movements that underlie a film (tension-release, repetitions and variations), captured using polyrhythmic composition models borrowed from music and dance.
Beyond aesthetics, this rhythmic quality is articulated with a particular conception of the relationship between cinema and its audience, considered as a “people” on a now planetary scale. This relationship translates into effects of instantaneity, unanimity and simultaneity where crowds experience, in front of the screens, the technological remediation of traditional mythical forms. Gesture occupies a central place in this respect, as it contains an ideal of stylized expressiveness (a “nudity”), between neo-antique and sporting modernity. These concerns are found in Delluc’s cinematographic work, from his method of filming with music to the way in which he was able to represent the dancing body.
CV:
Laurent Guido is a professor of history, cinema and media at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris). He studies the links between cinema, the body and music, as well as theories of the spectacular in the context of mass culture. He is notably the author of L’Âge du rythme (Payot, 2007, re-edited L’Âge d’Homme, 2014); Mythologies du film musical (Presses du réel, 2016, with M. Chabrol); From Wagner to cinema (Mimesis, 2019); and Cinema, myth and ideology (Hermann, 2020). He is preparing an essay on the place given to the relationship between technology and corporeality in the early years of cinema.