At 29 Boulevard Saint-Martin in Paris, a plaque states that "Georges Méliès, creator of the cinematographic spectacle, conjurer, inventor of numerous illusions, was born in this building on 8 December 1861".
The first films were shot in 1888 with a camera constructed by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, but the conjurer Georges Méliès was the first to fully exploit what has since been widely put to one side in "experimental" film, that cinema is essentially a theatrical "spectacle". There are its constitutive elements: the reel of film, the projector, the beam of light, the image on the screen, the dark room, but there is above all us, the audience, we who "suspend disbelief". From the beginning, Méliès' fantasies, Feuillade's crime serials, Nosferatu, Sirk's melodramas and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre have all depended on this collusion.
Working as a projectionist, I understood that a film – the same strip of celluloid passing repeatedly through the same projector in the same auditorium – is never the same twice. When there was only one person in the audience, his or her presence was enough for the "spectacle", the "illusion" to take place, and without whom the film does not exist. We are the principal accomplices in the cinematographic crime. – David Wharry
After studying painting at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London, David Wharry moved to France in 1972, where he became involved in experimental cinema. Since 1978, he has been working on GENERAL PICTURE, an evolving body of work currently comprising some twenty "episodes" that explores the fundamental components of the cinematic spectacle, in particular its theatrical dimension, as well as the notion of projection and the relationship between the projected image and the viewer.
Fantômas
Le Vol du Royal-Palace-Hôtel
Louis Feuillade
1913 / 35mm > DCP / b&w / silent / 8' 10 [extrait]
À plate couture
General Picture - Episode 2
David Wharry
1979 / 16mm > DCP / b&w / silent / 3' 40
Autophobia
Paulo Abreu
2009 / Super 8 > DCP / b&w / sound / 4' 30
Ex-
Jacques Monory
1968 / 16mm / color / sound / 4'
Hold Me While I'm Naked
George Kuchar
1966 / 16mm / color / sound / 17'
Marvo Movie
Jeff Keen
1967 / 16mm > DCP / color / sound / 5'
Anatole Lacoste et l'œil du calamar (Parties 1-5)
General Picture - Episode 13
1986-2023 / 16mm > DCP / b&w / silent / 32' 30 [excerpt]