Venom and Eternity (Traité de bave et d'éternité) May 23, 2007

Runtime: 77 mins
Wed, May 23 ONLY!

For the first time in almost a decade, Bay Area audiences have the chance to see the insane masterpiece that started a revolution!
The Film on Film Foundation (www.filmonfilm.org), an organization dedicated to encouraging the exhibition of celluloid motion picture film in the manner it was meant to be screened, presents Venom & Eternity. This screening is the first in its projected on-going series "Radical Strategies."

In 1951, Jean-Isadore Isou released his first film, Venom and Eternity. Isou, who made his name as a poet, painter, and economic theorist, was founder of "Lettrism," the most radical art movement in history, committed to a complete remaking of aesthetics from the ground up. Venom and Eternity features Isou himself, playing a young film aesthete who rewrites all conventions of filmmaking, morality, and propriety before our very eyes. Venom and Eternity’s premiere at Cannes was greeted by riots quelled only by the use of firehoses. Jean Cocteau, who appears in the film, nevertheless prevailed upon the authorities to invent a prize for a work so groundbreaking, the "Prix spectateurs d'avant garde 1951". Chaos ensued as Venom made its way around the world, including a riot at its San Francisco premiere! Isou's activities spurred not only the aesthetic innovation of American filmmaker Stan Brakhage and the French New Wave (and hence the whole modern visual world), but the social and political radicalism of the international youth rebellion movement, and the pranksterism of the Situationist International, directly inspiring the fury spilling onto streets around the world starting in May '68!

Just added, immediately following Venom and Eternity, Christopher Maclaine's The End!

Dir: Isidore Isou, Cast: Marcel Achard & Jean-Louis Barrault. 1950, France, In French with English subtitles, B&W, 16mm, 77 min.
7:00 & 9:15. Admission: $7.00

Official Website: http://www.roxie.com/events/details.cfm?eventID=7D92B63F-F1F6-5CD4-132508C7CCD33975