On Venom and Eternity

Traité de bave et d'éternité

On Venom and Eternity was the first Lettrist film manifesto. Isou brought it uninvited to the Cannes Film Festival (1951) where it won the audience prize for the avant-garde. Jean Cocteau’s poster promoted the 1952 release on the Champs-Elysées. The film is Isou’s “revolt against cinema”: the sound and the picture are purposefully unrelated, and the images are destroyed by bleach and scratched. The film is a landmark work that prefigured the letterist and situationist cinema to come and influenced many experimental filmmakers.

Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Isidore Isou

Script: Isidore Isou

Cinematography: Nat Saufer

Editing: Suzanne Cabon

Sound: Jacques Boutiron, Marcel Ormancey

Music: Daniel Guarrigue

Producers: Marc’o, Léon Vickman

Format: DCP

Color: B&W

Production Country: France

Production Year: 1951

Duration: 124'

Contact: Re:Voir

Awards/Distinctions: Award of the Avant-Garde Spectators – Cannes FF 1951

Isidore Isou

Filmography

1951 On Venom and Eternity