Jean-Luc Godard, le typographe à la caméra
Exhibition from January 31th to May 4th, 2025
Opening on thursday 30th, 2025 at 7 p.m.
Curator: Paule Palacios-Dalens
Download the press release here
Since his beginnings as a filmmaker with La Nouvelle Vague, Jean-Luc Godard's both formal audacity and the continuity of his typographic choices have been surprising. More intuitively than scholarly, he uses fonts (Antique Olive, Helvetica, Verdana) designed to respond to the different technological changes and communication challenges of the eras he has lived through.
Designed around the graphic work of Godard, this exhibition tells first and foremost a story of family, influences and filiations. Thus, behind his film buff, we can see his great-uncle Maximilien Vox, an essential figure in French typography and co-founder of the Rencontres de Lure, where the major trends in graphic arts from France gravitate and elsewhere. Both are concerned with finding the writing of their time.
Between these two trends, neighbouring constellations of smugglers emerge: Chris Marker and Marguerite Duras in cinema, Roman Cieslewicz and Peter Knapp in graphic design, Gérard Blanchard in teaching and research, and Jean-Christophe Averty on television . Godard's work on screen layout is not limited to dazzling appearances (cards and credits, framing of signs and newspapers, all forms of writing on screen). For him, film becomes book, like his Histoire(s) du cinéma, of which the visitors will discover the original models in the exhibition, and like Le livre d’image, as the name of his very latest film indicates.
Paule Palacios-Dalens, curator
Paule Palacios-Dalens has a doctorate in aesthetics and history of visual arts. Her research focuses on the link between cinema, books and typography. She is the author of two works entitled VOX JLG, du plomb au film and GODARD AVERTY, Petit et grand écran (Éditions de l'Œil), both available at the museum bookstore.
Since 2014, she has collaborated as an author and graphic designer with 202 editions, which publishes essays on cinema. In 2003, she won the “Agora Scholarship” design prize with a project relating to the design of subtitling for television intended for the deaf and hard of hearing, carried out at the ANRT (National Typographic Research Workshop).
Screenings, meetings, visits and workshops: a program from February to May
From February to May, enjoy a rich program of activities, including film screenings in partnership with several local institutions. Find in particular:
• À bout de souffle
Saturday February 15, 10:30 a.m. – Cinéma Lumière Terreaux
Aboard a stolen car, Michel Poiccard kills a biker then, in Paris, finds Patricia, a young American woman with whom he is in love.
• Histoire(s) du cinéma – Moments choisis
Saturday March 15, 10:30 a.m. – Cinéma Lumière Terreaux
After Histoire(s) du cinéma, Jean-Luc Godard made a film of standard length in 35 mm, a sort of synthesis, putting into perspective, conclusion of the Histoire(s). But this film is not only a new montage of existing images in the Histoire(s), it is a film “full of life” according to the filmmaker’s expression.
• Level Five, Chris Marker
Saturday April 12, 10:30 a.m.– Cinéma Lumière Terreaux
Screening preceded by the indoor test of the Baba is You game
Laura is trying to finish writing a video game dedicated to the Battle of Okinawa. By meeting witnesses via a computer, she realizes the extent of the butchery and becomes aware of the need for remembrance in the face of the lies of History.
• Sauve qui peut (la vie)
Monday April 14 – Cinéma Le Comœdia
The trajectories of a man and two women trapped in an era of violence and despair. With dizzying brutality, Godard lays bare the degrading realities of society, the better to meditate on human and sexual relationships.
• Pierrot le Fou
Tuesday February 18, 6:30 p.m. – Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3
Ferdinand, who has just lost his job, meets Marianne, a former flirt, by chance. They decide to leave together, but she tells him that they must first get rid of a corpse that is in the next room. It's the start of a great journey where arms trafficking, political plots, incongruous encounters, but also bucolic breaks and romantic heartbreaks will mingle...
These events are part of a dynamic of discoveries and exchanges around cinema, typography and their multiple facets.
