Alain Cavalier Collection - 2-DVD Set ( Le filmeur (Homem-Filme) / La rencontre / Ce répondeur ne prend pas de messages ) ( Filmman (Film man) / Encounter / This Machine Does Not Accept Messages (This Answering Service Takes No Messages) )

Alain Cavalier Collection - 2-DVD Set (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Le filmeur (Homem-Filme) / La rencontre / Ce répondeur ne prend pas de messages
Alternate Title: Filmman (Film man) / Encounter / This Machine Does Not Accept Messages (This Answering Service Takes No Messages)
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Cannes Film Festival

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
France ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
278 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
2-DVD Set
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Booklet

Movie filmed in 1979 - 2005 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
Alain Cavalier

Written By:
Alain Cavalier

Actors:
Christian Boltanski ..... Himself
Danielle Bouilhet ..... Herself
Camille de Casabianca ..... Herself (archive footage)
Alain Cavalier ..... Himself
Bernard Crombey ..... Himself
Philippe Daveney ..... Himself
Caroline Laval ..... Herself
Thérèse Martin ..... Herself
Alexandre Widhoff ..... Himself
Françoise Widhoff ..... Herself
Alain Cavalier
Xavier Saint-Macary ..... L'homme

Synopsis:

Filmman (2005)
Over ten years of the director's life (from 1994 to 2005) condensed into just minutes of screen time. Using his own filmed diaries as a basis, Alain Cavalier filmed and edited 'Le filmeur'. He continues his formal radicalisation towards an ever more purified aesthetic.

Encounter (1996)
A man decides to film the first year of his relationship with a new woman. Within this idea of a video diary, filmmaker Alain Cavalier concentrates on objects, parts of bodies, hand and feet as they enter the frame. The camera rarely moves, and people rarely make an appearance. It is the voice-over dialogue, his voice and hers, that invests these images and objects with meaning. Fish is described as being very expensive, a shot of a wallet carries memories of a dead father. Slowly objects are given associations and we begin to fill in the personal history of the two lovers. Then the outer world starts to make an appearance - Bastille Day celebrations, subway bombs. From the strictly personal we move to the socially specific. Sounds of nature -- rain, birds - punctuate the soundtrack.

This Machine Does Not Accept Messages (1979)
Following the death of his wife in a car accident, a grieving, injured man whose head is wrapped in bandages returns to their apartment, smashes the furniture, and begins painting everything in sight black, including the windows, all the while raving about his past life and his dead wife. The story seems to parallel certain aspects of director Alain Cavalier's own life: his wife (actress Irene Tunc) died not long before in a car accident.

The first shots in this film were made in 1994, at which time I started preferring a camera to a pen as a means to keeping a diary. The most recent shots were made in 2005. More than ten years of a life mine have been condensed into one hundred minutes of screen-time. All in all, a mass of tape was recorded, much of it unusable, unshowable or incomprehensible. The difficulty was choosing and ordering the material in such a way as to identify and give meaning to what was unsayable. When a camera is used as a live action tool, there is no commentary. The aim is not to make meaning, but to live your life with a camera. Perhaps, one day, I shall re-edit this material to generate a different story perhaps a better one, who knows?.
The material is digital. It was taken to a laboratory and transformed into chemical images, in order that it might be projected on 35mm, in movie theatres. There is something odd about this process, as if I had been living in the future and chosen to return to the past. But the result is pleasing as transition periods, with all their uncertainty, often are. As one would expect with a film diary of this sort, I made these images alone. What could be more satisfying to a director who became a film-maker before ever holding a camera? Now I can be alone with the person who stands alone in my viewfinder. My relationship with those I choose to film, and with those who choose to appear before my camera, is much richer than it ever was. Yet I have rarely worked on any other type of subject. The first of my autobiographical films was made in 1978. It was called, "This Machine Does Not Accept Messages". In it, I was seen with a tapes around my head. The second such film, entitled "Encounter", was shot in 1996. It featured my hands, my voice but not my face. This time, in "Filmman", I am revealed. There are reasons why my head must appear.

A trilogy of the three autobiographical films of the french director Alain Cavalier: LE FILMEUR, LA RENCONTRE and CE REPONDEUR NE PREND PAS DE MESSAGES.

This product was added to our catalog on Monday 10 January, 2011.