Off-Screen Cinema

One of the most important avant-garde movements of postwar Paris was Lettrism, which crucially built an interest in the relationship between writing and image into projects in poetry, painting, and especially cinema. Offering a full portrait of the avant-garde scene of 1950s Paris, this book focuses on the film works of key Lettrist figures like Gil J. Wolman, Maurice Lemaitre, Francois Dufrene, and especially the movement's founder, Isidore Isou, a Romanian immigrant whose 'discrepant editing' deliberately uncoupled image and sound.