TRAITÉ DE BAVE ET D’ÉTERNITÉ
(VENOM AND ETERNITY)
dir. Isidore Isou, 1951
France. 123 mins.
In French with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 - 5 PM
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 - 7:30 PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 - 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 - 7:30 PM

“Isou turns pictures upside down, scratches on them arbitrarily and does everything he can think of to spit upon and destroy the film image” — Stan Brakhage

To invoke Lettrism is to call on VENOM AND ETERNITY. Also known as SLIME AND ETERNITY, Isidore Isou’s sole feature is a film full of scratches that chisels its way to the beating heart of cinema. “If we can’t get past the photographic screen and reach something deeper, then cinema just doesn’t interest me,” he said. Looking to break away from the regressive sanctification of representation upheld by theorists like André Bazin, Isou’s film revels in its obscene and destructive character, tearing up the traditions of the medium to dream up a new alternative.

After premiering at Cannes Film Festival in 1951 and causing a scandal among festival attendees, VENOM AND ETERNITY was awarded the “Prix des spectateurs d’avant-garde” by Jean Cocteau. The award placed it in the same category as Maya Deren’s similarly lauded MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943), marking it an essential text in the canon of experimental cinema that would have a lasting influence on filmmakers ranging from Jean-Luc Godard to Stan Brakhage. Isou would later remark that Godard and Debord ripped him off.