Les mutations du cinéma d'action américain
Action! If there’s one word associated with cinema, the tension of movie sets, and the focus of attention, it’s this one. Action is very often at the heart of popular cinema: Harold Lloyd hanging from the clock hands in Safety Last! (1923), Cary Grant threatened and strafed by a plane in North by Northwest (1959), Franka Potente gasping for air in Run Lola Run (1998)... Westerns, swashbuckler films, martial arts or adventure flicks, thrillers, all these genres rely on action—sometimes frenetic, sometimes meticulously measured.
From movies by Sergei Eisenstein to Gilles Carle, from John Ford to John Boorman and Werner Herzog, via Paul Verhoeven, Kathryn Bigelow, Park Chan-wook, Érik Canuel, and Nicolas Winding Refn, this series will take you through the full range of emotions, from laughter to thrills, from fear to satisfaction.
Conference by Victor Norek (Le CinématoGrapheur)
From Rambo to John Wick, and the Reagan era to the post-9/11 world, how has American action cinema mutated from a formal and thematic point of view? This conference will answer this question by exploring how filmmaking styles and socio-political contexts evolved, as well as the impacts of these transformations: from the changing physique of 1990s heroes to the rise of digital cinema, not to mention the major influence of European and Asian traditions.
Duration: 90 min.
Victor Norek created the YouTube channel Le CinématoGrapheur to analyze and dissect blockbusters, with the aim of restoring popcorn cinema to its former glory. He is the author of the book Steven Spielberg: L'art du blockbuster and writes for Rockyrama magazine in France. He has been based in Montreal since 2021.
This discussion will take place in French.
A must-see screening!
Jan de Bont's film Speed, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, will be screened immediately after the conference, at 8:15 p.m. The film will be screened in its original English version with French subtitles.
