Some stuff about S/J Fossiléa
Christian Coppin dressed as Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, he is also a composer, worked on a short film called L’egout (1983) and a short documentary called L'épaisseur des murs (2012)
First found out about the film from this website (it has other frev films btw all of which I wanna see)
Saint-Just dans les films
Anyway, they offer a review of sorts, of the film (TW for a suicide mention)
French:
Ce long métrage de fin d'études, encouragé par la Nouvelle vague, inspiré par le travail de Godard et joué par des acteurs non professionnels, représente un des maillons de la réflexion historique et philosophique du cinéma des années 1970. Symbolique et structural, il en exprime l’angoisse révolutionnaire, mais aussi la soif de la restructuration et les idées de contestation.
Les beaux textes de Saint-Just, Sade et Lautréamont, posés sur les images significatives, sont habités par une logique intérieure qui donne à l'Homme (Saint-Just) le pouvoir de dompter la Nature et le Temps: «Le coeur humain marche de la nature à la violence, et de la violence à la morale». A travers les dialogues des personnages du passé et des acteurs contemporains, le film réclame une liberté et une morale qui tirent leur origine de la Révolution française, mais dont l’aboutissement serait une révolution socialiste mondiale à venir. Mulders, à travers la voix d’un St-Just en costume d'époque élégant, en suggère la transition. Toutefois, nous n’en saurons jamais plus sur les intentions véritables du réalisateur: Jean Mulders s’est suicidé un an après le tournage.
English:
This graduation feature film, encouraged by the New Wave, inspired by Godard's work and played by non-professional actors, represents one of the links in the historical and philosophical reflection of 1970s cinema. Symbolic and structural, it expresses revolutionary anguish, but also the thirst for restructuring and ideas of protest.
The beautiful texts of Saint-Just, Sade and Lautréamont, placed on the significant images, are inhabited by an inner logic that gives Man (Saint-Just) the power to tame Nature and Time: "The human heart walks from nature to violence, and from violence to morality". Through the dialogues of characters of the past and contemporary actors, the film demands a freedom and morality that originates from the French Revolution, but whose culmination would be a future global socialist revolution. Mulders, through the voice of a St-Just in elegant period costume, suggests the transition. However, we will never know more about the true intentions of the director: Jean Mulders committed suicide a year after the shooting.
S/J Fossiléa was briefly mentioned in the book “The Cinema of the Low Countries” by: Ernest Mathijs (2004)
As for the film itself, and what I know of it
Saint-Just, Sade & Comte De Lautréamont (Or Maldoror?) are our main characters (maybe?) it’s an interesting choice of people. They are all.......French, and Men, and um.......well, took me a while to connect the dots, Sade and Lautréamont are well known for writing erm, adult content, but Antoine isn’t reall well known fo-
Oh right he wrote L’Organt, so uhhhhh ya.
Justine is in fact a character, and Sade does have a book called Justine, as such, same goes for Maldoror.
By this point, I can only speculate, as to what this film is like. I don’t want to build any expectations for the film however, as I don’t want to disappoint myself, or get the wrong idea. Nonetheless I’m too fascinated at the very idea of this film, to just ignore it.
Update I guess
1st of all thanks @saintjustitude 4 emailing the films production company (Université Catholique De Louvain (UCL) - Institut des Arts de Diffusion IAD/MEDIADIFFUSION)
Apparently their film stock only goes back to 1972, whilst S/J Fossiléa came out a year earlier in 1971. It’s still possible they have the film but it’s a gamble as 2 how well preserved it is.
