French Literature Reviews - 2026
Visual Arts and Cinema
Art and Visual Culture
CinémAction no. 122, January 2007:
“Visual Arts and Cinema”
edited by Sébastien Denis
The Book:
The relationship between the visual arts and cinema represents a vast field of study that has enjoyed growing success in recent years. While frequently analyzed, these complex connections remain entirely open-ended, allowing for a profound interrogation of filmmaking practice itself. The approach chosen here moves beyond the mere representation of the artistic gesture to return to the gesture itself, addressing the most vital dimensions of the visual arts: movement, the relationship to time, history, and the contemporary world, and perpetual experimentation, all of which lie at the heart of the creative act. Consequently, the links between the visual arts and cinema are examined in the present tense, through the reactivation of radical artistic gestures that gave rise to the “visual arts” understood in their transcendence of the fine arts.
The Editor:
An *agrégé* in visual arts and holder of a PhD in film history, Sébastien Denis is a senior lecturer at Aix-Marseille University 1 (SATIS department).
Table of Contents:
Foreword: “The Field of Possibilities,” by Sébastien Denis
I – Histories
“The Landscape of Italian Cinema: Strong Postmodern Objects, Weak Modern Subjects,” by Angela Dalle Vacche
“Socialist Realism: Creation Method, Aesthetics, and Doctrine Common to All the Arts?”, by Pauline Gallinari
“From Film Art to the Art of Film: *Les statues meurent aussi* by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais (1953),” by Martine Beugnet
“Visual Arts and Cinema: Territories of Belonging or Kurdish Activism,” by Stéphanie Michaud
“Testimonies Despite Everything? Paintings and Drawings in Three Historical Documentaries,” by Martin Goutte
“Migrations of the Image: From the Black Screen... to the *Œuvre au Noir*,” by Frédérique Calcagno-Tristant
II – Avant-Gardes
“Rupture as Aesthetics: The Example of Avant-Garde Cinema as a Short Cut of an Evolving Plastic Anarchy,” by Isabelle Marinone
“Film as a ‘Moving Visual Art’ in Early French Film Theories,” by Laurent Guido
“Avant-Garde Artists of the 1920s and Cinema: Looking Back at a Decisive Encounter,” by Claire Chatelet
“Firing on the Audience: The Cinematographic Ballistics of the Avant-Garde in France,” by Jennifer Wild
“A Postmodern Triangle of Artists and Meaning: Duchamp, Godard, Morris,” by Sally Shafto
“The Plasticity of the Interval,” by Vincent Deville
III – Confluences
“The Colors of Kairos in Animated Cinema,” by Guy Lecerf
“Toward a Sonological Approach to Figures and Soundscapes in Cinema,” by Rémi Garnier
“The Filmic Put to the Test of Fixity: Sequential Photography in the 1960s and 1970s,” by Perin Emel Yavuz
“History of the Confluences Between Cinema and Visual Arts in Asia: A Few Introductory Examples,” by Antoine Coppola
“Approaches to Architectural Temporality Through Cinema,” by Clotilde Simond
“The Cinematic Image as a Medium for Quotation,” by Géraldine Sfez
IV – Technologies
“Synesthesias and Misunderstandings: From the Objects of My Affection to the Montage of Attractions,” by Sylvie Dallet
“From One *Mostra* to Another: Su Mei-Tse, Between Anechoic Room and Camera Obscura,” by Raymond Delambre
“Sharing the Image: Interactive Art and Actionable Cinema,” by Jean-Paul Fourmentraux
“Electronic Scenography of the Image,” by Franck Ancel
“Video Recording (*Magnétoscopage*)”, by Nicolas Thély
V – Borderless
“English Rose: Young British Art and Cinema,” by Charlotte Gould
“Cinema as an Operational Model,” by Stéphane Sauzedde
“Visual Arts and Documentary Cinema,” a dialogue between Clarisse Hahn and Florence Lazar
“Changing the Image – Changing Image,” by Diane Watteau
“The Aesthetics of the Archive,” by Sébastien Denis
“*Tren de sombras*. The Specter of Le Thuit: Traveling Back in Time to the Origins of Cinema,” by Marie-Thérèse Journot
Selective Bibliography
The volume edited by Sébastien Denis brings together multiple contributions examining the ongoing connections between the visual arts and cinema. As outlined in the text, the collection explores how these fields intersect through movement, the relationship to time, history, and the contemporary world, and perpetual experimentation. Rather than focusing solely on the representation of the artistic gesture, the selected essays address the gesture itself, engaging with the creative act in the present tense and considering the reactivation of radical artistic gestures associated with the visual arts.
Organized into thematic sections covering histories, avant-gardes, confluences, technologies, and borderless practices, the book presents diverse perspectives from scholars and researchers in film history and visual studies. Readers interested in film theory, media history, and the intersections of artistic disciplines may find this collection a relevant addition to their studies. The volume includes a table of contents detailing individual contributions and concludes with a selective bibliography to support further inquiry into the subject.