‘Patrice Énard was a French filmmaker, born on September 17, 1945 in Bordeaux, and deceased on June 1, 2008 in Paris. He was also a researcher/iconographer, theorist and film critic.
‘An avid patron of Henri Langlois’ Cinémathèque Française, Énard developed a particular appreciation for Russian cinema — especially the work of Dziga Vertov — the Lumière school and the French New Wave. Those influences led him to conceive of an activist, subversive and deeply political form of cinema. Following studies at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français, he directed some industrial films and news reports on motocross. He completed his military service with the Cinéma des Armées in Baden-Baden.
‘Énard made his first short films in the mid-1960s. From the outset, his provocative style, stripped of all psychology, attests to the fact that he was part of the generation that launched the French protests of May ‘68. Invested in the dialectic of disobedience, his films constantly question their immersion in the ideological context of the time, in order to better escape it. It was as if the genetic codes of that artistic movement were programming the concept of a permanent on-screen revolution.
‘The filmmaker’s work was widely distributed within those circles, as well as in traditional movie theaters that were more open to innovation at the time. The numerous film festivals that had sprung up across Europe and North America also welcomed his films. In 1972, Patrice Énard was honored by the city of Belfort, and Joris Ivens presented him with the Grand Prize at the Hyères International Festival of Young Cinema in 1982.
‘Like all pioneers, Énard often traveled with his films to discuss them with audiences. He encouraged viewers to rely on their own strength and to take power by way of the movie camera. He liked to say, “There are no more filmmakers than films. That’s why the cinema exists.” (“Why Do You Make Films?” Liberation, special edition, 1987).
‘His name is sometimes associated with collectives like Ciné-Golem (with Philipe Bordier), which programmed a radically different form of cinema in the early years of the Sigma Festival in Bordeaux; Cinéma Différent (with Marcel Mazé); and the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative in Paris (with Patrice Kirchhofer). Yet, his career as a filmmaker advanced in opposition to all of those cliques. He rejected the systems and labels of all the trends and artistic movements he rubbed shoulders with — the counterculture, young filmmakers, avant-garde, experimental, etc. In fact, he was all of those things — simultaneously or in turn — but as someone who treasured freedom above all things, he preferred autonomy and continued to produce his films himself.
‘Énard’s cinematic expression evolved toward a fundamentally analytical and experimental form of cinema. Driven by his increasingly personal reflections, he developed his own language and perfected it through the prism of an atypical, radical esthetic. His discoveries and inventiveness were often a source of formal inspiration for commercials and music videos. His later films could be described as a form of cinema-poetry. He raised the bar higher and higher.
‘His deepest desire was always to incite curiosity, to elicit knowledge by way of the big picture. But as time went by, his field of action extended beyond the silver screen, devoting himself to the creation of a network of cinema bookstores (in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Montpellier). One notable example is the legendary bookstore Cinédoc, in Paris’ 9th arrondissement, which Énard crammed full of movie posters, photographs, magazines and books for its opening, to the great delight of cinephiles everywhere and his two bearded partners.
‘Beginning as a researcher/iconographer and special film consultant for Ciné Choc, Fascination, Polar, Cinématographe and Star System, from March 1975 on, Énard served as journalist and editor on several film magazines, including Sex Stars System, Star System, Ciné Eros Star, Ciné Girl, Star Ciné Vidéo, Ciné-Films, Erostory Film. His work as a journalist also testifies to his predilection for the most extreme cinematic forms, from 1970 to ‘80. For example, he applauded the rise of eroticism and the birth of pornography and gore. He shed light on those genres in magazines such as Sex Stars System and Ciné Eros Stars. Interviews by Jacques Rig, one of his pseudonyms, became famous. His critical approach would lead those popular rags, pummeled by censorship, to become cult favorites.’ — Collectif Jeune Cinema
___
Stills
_____
Further
Patrice Énard @ IMDb
Association Patrice Enard
Patrice Énard @ Collectif Jeune Cinema
‘Cinq films de Patrice Énard’
Association Patrice Énard Presents …
‘Le Pornographe’
Buy Patrice Énard’s complete works on DVD here
__________________
HOMMAGE A PATRICE ÉNARD
__________________
____________________
The cinema of Patrice Enard
from Association Démocraties Nouvelles
Master of education, Patrice could drive a car very quickly. He anticipated curves, turns, slowdowns and had a very elaborate mental setup, which, on circuits enthusiast, led him to surpass his competitors despite a smaller car. He was not at the service of a “bandwidth”, he built the best trajectories in the imposed sequence of each circuit. 12 08 14 09
What he imagined was not just a reproduction of the configurations of the track. The hazard of a latecomer could thus be integrated without causing discomfort, at most an event complementary to this construction of trajectories. This reveals Guy Debord’s cosmographic strolling as a practice insufficient to transform the old habitus: this ethic of film-editing, which was initiated by Jean-Luc Godard, noting the nihilistic outcome of the “situationist drift”. is clearly proposed, with Patrice, to bring the theory of drift to the critical elaboration of the derived meaning.
It is the phenofilm which inscribes us in the awaited continuation of the current plan and we remain ” in plan ” as for the enjoyment of the imaged events of the genofilm. Indeed, to obey the “logical” sequence of the visible crushes the swarming of the observable in favor of what we recognize, that is to say what we think we know, victims of the familyist empathy of food concessions, clan blackmail, class submissions.
Party of the deconstruction, in particular, of the impression of reality, Patrice Enard, like the great poet Paul Celan, works on the awaited continuation, it is to say that it questions the series and thereby wakes us on the contretype, mimetic plagiarism, of which Lacan, reopening the contribution of Jean Piaget and, periming the Catholic conception of the lie as sin, meant that to make it “pretend”, besides it is a fact of “the inscription of the subject in the chain of signifiers “, is not confused with the fact of performing or taking the other than its” spectacular “. The scene of the very long kiss, in Differences and Repetitions I (1970), implied us to see, by the subtle variations of clothing of the so pregnant Michele, that the furious pleasure of embracing, lived by the greatest number, can be to stereotype in “sad passion” and how much this “armored” emotion, covering all other perceptions like a small mental tsunami, can rob us of the multilateral knowledge of the plans of this surinvested scene. This overinvestment, a petty merchant capture of an affective commerce, also becomes a lie and thus a privation of a greater freedom, which would be that of integrating the social determinants to our reduced love affair, a little ridiculous – which is ready to smile – measured against the clashes of our species.
The intrigance is, in Krishnamurti’s way concerning the disabling psychological fear at every moment, made of “conditioning” which reduces our vital field to banal and impoverished repetitions. Patrice Enard, filming the human dependence – which deprives us to deepen our life and that of the other protagonists of the film of life – by its discrete and persuasive demonstration and not by a sterile denotation – this “denunciation” which directs the superego by his On the moralist side, according to the Nietzschean expression, we restore a psychic and sociological capacity for resistance, which is more sympathetic than the learned demonstrations of man. 12 08 14 07
Patrice shows us the everyday gestures we make without savoring the chance we have to be able to execute them fully, for we are small-imperialists even in this sufficient contempt. 13 11 03 11
Were gestures of speech, so daily trivialized, shown just as well as in The Word in Two (1973), to the point of making clear that acting out in our lives is more often empirical than practical that is to say, enlightened by scientific theorizations: if the people were revolutionary without having to practice the revolutionary theory, it would be noticed day by day; instead, a populism covering the consumer addictions of the people insinuates itself into the councilist conventions that had been embryoed to overcome the capitalist lifestyle. It is therefore necessary to break the fantasmatic knots of the conceptions of the people which remove these addicts and those ignorant from the Marxist theory, updated by the distributive or communal polyhumanist ethics. 14 01 04 08
If the passer-by seems to represent the positions and the trajectories, his ethic remains connotatively disposed to fatalism: “everything passes all broken all tired”. And when handing over corporate powers
_________________
8 of Patrice Énard’s 13 films
_______________
Parcours (1968, 10 minutes)
‘La folie du protagoniste capte l’œil de la caméra et l’entraîne dans son sillage. Ivre de liberté, celui-ci dessine une trajectoire inédite : la sienne. Elle n’est autre que le reflet de son scénario intérieur, à mi-chemin entre fantasme et réalité.’ — democraties-nouvelles.org
Excerpt
_________________
Différences et répétitions I (1970, 20 minutes)
‘Le film interroge le spectateur sur sa dépendance au cinéma dominant. Il l’invite à démonter les mécanismes du système pour accéder à une compréhension à la fois différente et infinie des images et des sons.’ — cjcinema.org
Excerpt
________________
Différences et répétitions II (1971, 17 minutes)
‘Le son est entré en rébellion avec l’image. Il y a de l’infilmable dans ce qui est montré. Le film soulève une série d’interrogations sur des questions cinématographiques fondamentales – comment, pour qui, pour quoi filmer, qu’est-ce que le cinéma?’ — CJC
Excerpt
___________________
Différences et Répétitions III (1971, 17 minutes)
‘Patrice Enard a mis un pluriel au titre de Gilles Deleuze. Car seul le cinéma pouvait réaliser – au sens de rendre réel – ce lien si étroit qui lie le même à l’autre. Le film est un fleuve d’images avec une bande-son de bruits d’eau. Emportées par les flots, les trajectoires se croisent et se décroisent, échappant à tout scénario. Les protagonistes pourraient être remplacés par d’autres puisqu’ils ne sont que les singuliers figurants de situations répétitives.’ — Le Nouveau Latina
Excerpt
____________________
Le Cinéma en Deux, (1972, 7 minutes)
‘Claude Chabrol, très ouvert et intrigué par ce curieux gauchiste, chevelu en catogan et tout de noir vêtu, défie Patrice Enard : comment va-t-il pouvoir tirer parti du tournage de son « Docteur Popaul » ? Invité à porter sa caméra 16 de cinéaste différent sur le film, Patrice Énard, tout en jouant les figurants dans les scènes de cimetière, regarde autrement « l’autre » cinéma en train de se faire. Et il le défait. C’est sans doute là le premier making off, avec deux f, de l’histoire du cinéma!’ — Le Nouveau Latina
Excerpt
___________________
La Parole en Deux, (1972, 12 minutes)
‘La mise en scène de la parole à l’écran est le sujet du film. Seul le premier plan est synchrone. Tout ce qui suit est une exploration systématique de la production d’un discours à l’écran. Pour unifier cela et pointer les questions de la prise de parole, il fallait un message politique fort, militant. L’un des deux groupes maoïstes de Bordeaux, celui des théoriciens non rattachés au Parti Communiste, se prête avec talent à ce difficile exercice de style.’ — Le Nouveau Latina
Excerpt
___________________
La Vie en Deux, (1980, 15 minutes)
‘Erica Blanc, ou Erica White, ou encore Erica Bianchi possède déjà une filmographie européenne lorsqu’elle rencontre Patrice Énard. C’est l’une des reines de la série B. Elle rédige le texte du film où elle rejoue avec distance et humour sa fameuse « carrière », sa « vie de pellicule ». Au besoin, elle n’hésite pas à réendosser les costumes de ses rôles les plus déshabillés ! Ces scènes sont émaillées de photographies de films dont elle fut l’héroïne.’ — Le Nouveau Latina
Excerpt
_________________
POURVOIR (1981, 90 minutes)
‘Le tournage a duré dix ans. Une fois dissipée la fumée des barricades, la libération sexuelle émerge – en particulier celle des femmes – et le discours freudo-marxiste prend le relais. Le bas du T-shirt de ces dames devient pour le spectateur un jeu de ligne obsessionnel qui à la fois montre et cache. Le style de Patrice Énard se radicalise en une sorte de poésie visuelle, répétitive. Cette musique pour les yeux met en valeur autant de charmantes différences qu’il y a de femmes pour se prêter à cet étrange divertissement en vert et blanc… couleur chair.’ — Le Nouveau Latina
Excerpt
*
p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hi. I did start to begin to understand the interesting nature of perfumes whilst organising that shebang. Yeah, the cancelled photo was on the galley of the book before his son nixed it. No, the son had ownership of the photo we wanted so we found a photo of PC that was owned by someone else who didn’t care what it adorned. Before the book was published, the son heard about it and that it featured his dad, and he wrote me a semi-threatening email, but he was mostly concerned that I would portray his dad as gay, and when I told him I hadn’t done that, he backed off. Mario just managed to defeat a boss that was a giant, evil scotch tape dispenser, and now he’s in a place called Shangri-Spa run by Buddhist-y Toads where he is currently trying to cure Bowser’s son who was turned into origami by a evil force and, presumably, once he does, he will get a reward that is as yet unspecified. How was the exhibition, and how did you know it was great before you visited it? ** _Black_Acrylic, Does it actually smell like black pepper? I could almost seeing spritzing some of that on my whatever if so. Thanks a bunch for the link to the free download. You’re a hero. ** Misanthrope, Weirdly, even if I knew how to make a ton of money, I wouldn’t do it, and yet I want a ton of money. Schizo. Ride that grid like a snake into the lake, the sacred lake. ** Steeqhen, Ha, I wondered about Union-J. I had never heard of them before. I figured they were a UK-only briefly lived phenom. If someone opened a perfume shop specialising in pop star branded perfumes and if each one had a tester, I would definitely make a beeline for it. Now you’ve got me wondering what a Death Grips perfume would smell like. There goes my day. Thanks for the link. I’ll read it when I’m done here and have a clear head. Everyone, Do you want to read a poem by Steeqhen? I think you do, right? Go here. Being the amusement park fanatic that I am, I do know about Emerald Park, but not its back story, so thank you! It looks very family oriented. I think the giant potato man would be main reason I would go. But I would go, don’t get me wrong. ** Tyler Ookami, So you’re a sniffer, eh? Sniffing is really big amongst the slave crowd these days. There’s a whole fart sniffing thing going on recently. Maybe you can explain it? Early Nicki Minaj was fun, yeah. I never got Kanya, even the early stuff. I always thought he was a blowhard. There’s a new werewolf film? I’d go see that. Well, if encouraged by something about it. Report back, iow. You’re a contrarian. It’s true: that’s more interesting than falling in line. But, in Dumont’s case, I have to say I think the narrative is right. ** PL, Well, hey there! Amazing to see you! Maybe the Cloudflare monster really is dead. I’m really bad and slow with email. I’ll go look for yours. I could’ve easily missed it. ‘Silver Gods’ does sound quite exciting. I want to see it. I do know ‘Who Killed Teddy Bear?’ It’s been ages since I saw it, but I remember my delight. Astrology? Hm, on the one hand, I don’t really believe in it. On the other hand, every time I’ve read a description of what a Capricorn (my sign) is like, it’s exactly like me. Like, exactly. So, I don’t know. What’s your take on Astrology? Again, lovely get to talk with you again. ** James, So, you prioritise Japanese anuses, that’s interesting. Because of their diet? We can play frisbee with a custard donut, sure. Granted, I’ve only watched her concert film, but I have yet to be convinced that Taylor Swift has written even one half-way memorable song. Your Xmas sounds Xmas-y enough. ‘My Fair Lady’? My mom was obsessed with ‘My Fair Lady’. She owned, like, fourteen different soundtrack recordings of it. Time is still extant and creeping along, at least in Paris. ** David Porter, A 10! I can’t remember the last time I ate a 10. Nice. I can never remember whether boxing day refers to putting things in boxes or about the sport boxing. Happy approaching New Year. ** HaRpEr, Agreed. ‘Legendary’ is massively over-applied too. People have started to do that with me. The legendary Dennis Cooper. Like how? The legendary Aerosmith, the legendary Bon Jovi. It’s a boring combination of lazy and insane. You already know that I’m totally uninterested in identity politics. Generalising is the enemy. The guy who plays the son in Zac’s and my new film, arguably the main character, is trans. We and he have no interest in making that an issue. We want people to watch the film and think son = boy, and that’s it. Not that we’re hiding it. Only a couple of people who’ve seen the film have asked if the actor is trans, and we said yes, of course. But we’ve been advised repeatedly that if we made a big deal about the actor being trans it would make the film more marketable because trans is ‘trendy’ and having a trans performer not portray a trans character is still very rare. But we just don’t want to do it. Why? The guy identifies as a boy, and he’s playing a boy, and that’s the only thing that matters. I would probably prioritise being in people’s wills if I were you, yeah. There’s wisdom for you. ** Steve, Yeah, I’m like you. I seem to have missed Jeremy Fragrance. He didn’t come up in my searching, which I guess says something. People have threatened to give me the Sade perfume, but no one has pulled the trigger. I think I missed the limited Paris run of the ‘Eno’ doc, but, actually I will check to make sure. ** Matt N., Hi, Matt! Wow, that long ago? How are you, how have you been? My year was up and down, mostly down, or, well, ultimately up. Long story. Gosh, I read so many new novels, and I like so many of them, it’s hard to pick. If you look back through the blog a few days, I posted my favorite novels of this year last weekend. Maybe that would be a start? I haven’t communicated with BlaB in a million years. Maybe even a billion years. He sure does get out and about, that Bruce. This year? Zac’s and my new film finally gets born in early spring, and I’ll probably be doing a lot around that. And writing the next film and getting a producer and starting the fundraising to make it. I want to go to Japan. I’m going to go to my favorite amusement park, Efteling, in Holland, for/around my birthday. What is your year looking like, best case scenario? ** Corey, Hi! Does Windex still exist? They don’t have it in France. Paris is pretty quiet at the moment, yes. Everyone is still off on their Xmas getaways. Weekend? Uh, see movies and art mostly, I think? That risograph machine and output looks cool. Very Xerox machine, yeah. I have read Roberto Bolaño, yes. He’s very good. The hype is not unwarranted. This is the Buche we chose and ate. It was very good. Still is, or at least the white chocolate fireplace is still good since that’s all that’s left. I’d like one of those Hanukkah donuts. Is one in your stomach, or was it at one point? ** Okay. Today I give you the opportunity to begin to get to know the work of another very unique and interesting filmmaker whom I gather not many among you are familiar with. See you tomorrow.