Bois-Charbons

As a student with negligible funds, and as a flaneur in love with the merveilleux quotidien of the pre-ravalissage Paris streets, I used my little cine-camera to record stuff that caught my eye. To keep within my means, most of shots were only a second or two long. In retrospect, a still camera would have been more sensible. But I was in love also with film and with the possibilities of fast cutting. So what you get here is a stream of images from my walks: torn posters, shop signs, cinema hoardings , window displays, flea market merchandise. I appreciated the torn posters more in spirit of Leo Malet’s collages than Rotella’s contemporary nouveau réalisme . Some years later, the Events of May 1968 broke out, covering the walls of Paris with posters of protest. Recording them seemed a good way to end my film – just as they announced the start of a new cultural epoch.