colloquium, Meetings, Master Class

Painting (or plastic arts in general) is undoubtedly the art that has the most accompanied, enriched, even influenced the other arts, mainly the so-called “performance” arts.
In poetry, did not Paul Verlaine draw inspiration from Watteau’s painting to create his book of poems “Les fêtes galantes”? The painting was also the source of inspiration for novels (film The picture of Dorian Gray by d’Albert Lewin, 1891) and for the theater (mostly classical theater). It is not surprising therefore that painting lends a valuable help to the cinema, whose main component is the image. Since the impressionism of an Auguste Renoir, a Claude Monet or an Edouard Manet, painting has become a source of
inspiration and visions for cinema, through a whole system of pictorial registers that are, thus, introduced into the film according to a kind of «setting-in-film of the painting».
These registers range from the composition of the shots to the choice of colors and the rhythm of the sequences. This proves, unquestionably, that the interlaces between painting and cinema are innumerable and complex: the two arts influence and nourish each other.
For its part, cinema, the synthesis of all the arts, has always remained permeable to the artistic, literary and philosophical movements that preceded it or that are contemporary to it. In this regard, the decompartmentalization between plastic art and cinema has made it possible, and still does, to «come and go» between the two arts. Light, framing and movement remain the main elements that cinema subtly borrows from painting.
The narrative is also an essential component of the filmic image and the pictorial image.
Although storytelling in painting might seem impossible because the pictorial image is fundamentally motionless, a painting can genuinely tell a story: Pompei, Iphigenia’s Sacrifice byTimanthe de Cythonos; Altarpiece of Saint John the Baptist by Giovanni del Biondo; The last supper, Milan, S. Maria delle Grazie by Leonardo da Vinci; The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons by Jacques-Louis David.
Several filmmakers sometimes compose their shots as a painting drawing from the plastic arts all the subtleties of the pictorial image from impressionism to expressionism via cubism and surrealism, breaking new grounds at technical and aesthetic levels.
In the cinema, there is a presence of painting in various forms and uses either as subjects of films, or as elements of decoration (paintings hanging on walls), or, also, as a technique, even as an essential component of the dramaturgy.
There are even filmmakers-painters like Friz Lang, John Huston, Peter Greenaway, Akira Kurosawa, Julian Schnabel or Derek Jarman who compose the film image as they are composing their paintings, creating a synergy between the film-making and the pictorial. Colloquium 116 Cinema, for its part, has been, and still is, an art in which painters have drawn from techniques such as off-field (or off-frame) for example, (Morning sun, painting by Edward Hopper 1952; This problem that concerns us all – Norman Rockwell – 1964; Georges de La Tour’s fortune teller – 1630, oil on canvas; The call of the crowns- René Magritte 1942, etc.). Filmmakers and painters, such as Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, collaborated together in works such as The Andalusian Dog and The Golden Age. Dozens of films drew plenty of inspirations from plastic arts to build their plots or to tell the life of the painters: Moulin Rouge, by John Huston (1952), Les amants de Montparnasse 19 by Jacques Becker (1958), Andreï Rubliev by Andrei Tarkovsky (1966), Altamira by Hugh Hudson 2016, The danish girl by Tom Hooper (2016) and many others. The participants in the colloquium “Cinema and painting” will have the difficult task to address the issues related to the relationship between the two arts, whose essential component is the image, mobile.

• Why does this topic continue to be debated and studied?
• To what extent could cinema be considered as the synthetic art of all arts ?
• Is there a confrontation between cinema and the plastic arts, or is it rather complicity
  and porosity?
• At what levels do the mutual contributions between the two arts appear?
• How the transition between painting and cinema, and vice versa, is conducted?

It has now been almost two years since the Covid-19 pandemic has ravaged the world population without the great powers succeeding in defeating it. This health crisis, unprecedented in human history, has had dramatic consequences on all sectors, no exception. However, cinema and culture in general seem to be, more than others, the scapegoats for this crisis.

Indeed, since March 2020, the film sector has been hit hard by decrees stipulating the closure of cinemas and the suspension or indefinite postponement of film events. Distraught, the various professionals, mainly the festival organizers, found themselves forced to make often painful choices that risked jeopardizing the future of their events. Faced with these gloomy prospects and weary of waiting for sunny days to come, they decide to react quickly to save the cinema industry and to preserve the link with their audiences.

However, several questions torment their minds: How could we re-retain an audience that has become accustomed, during quarantine, to watching the films streaming? Are the partners and sponsors of their events still available to grant them the usual subsidies at a time when most sectors (public and private) are suffering from stifling financial deficits? Why are cinemas among the places that have been closed the longest? These worries become even more stressful for organizers when they don’t know what tomorrow will bring. “I don’t think we’re going to go back to the status quo ante. Not in the next two to five years “(1), worries Jean-Michel Tobelem, specialist in cultural management at the Sorbonne.

It is in these gloomy prospects that the organizers of national festivals, worried about the disastrous consequences that cancellations could have on the future of their events, have tried, each in their own right, to adapt to this crisis situation and to find the necessary solutions. So, instead of giving up on their plans, they decide to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the virtual world.

In these circumstances, and while waiting for a quick return to a face-to-face festival (2022), the Mediterranean film festival of Tetouan, aware of the challenges that await it, decides to innovate by organizing its 26th edition in digital from June 4th to June 10th. The Festival will offer its audience direct access to films scheduled for the 2021 edition. These films will be available on the FESTIVAL SCOPE platform.

(1) Le Monde, Sunday 10th, Monday 11th of may 2020