Le Studio d’Orphée
Opening December 4, 2019
Fondazione Prada presents Le Studio d’Orphée by Jean-Luc Godard in Milan from December 4, 2019. Le Studio d’Orphée (Orpheus’ studio) is an atelier, a recording and editing studio, a living and working place that is relocated on the first floor of the Sud gallery in Fondazione Prada’s premises. The director decided to transfer the technical material, used in his latest films’ shooting from 2010, as well as furniture, books, paintings and other personal items from his studio-house in Rolle in Switzerland.
The word “atelier”—used by Godard to define this space, evokes the handcrafted dimension that characterizes his practice as a filmmaker, combining his own movie production to the theatre and visual arts fields. Within Le Studio d’Orphée the feature film Le Livre d’image (The Image Book), 2018 and nine short movies by the director—On s’est tous défilés, 1988; Je vous salue Sarajevo, 1993; Les enfants jouent à la Russie, 1993; The Old Place, 1998; De l’origine du XXIème siècle, 2000; Liberté et Patrie, 2002; Une bonne à tout faire, 2006; Vrai faux passeport, 2006; Une Catastrophe, 2008—will be screened on a television monitor usually employed by Godard as a working tool.
Visitors will have the unique opportunity to attend the screening of Le Livre d’image in the physical place where the film was conceived and realized, in the editing, the sound mixing, the production and post-production phases. For the first time it will be possible to closely observe the creative process at the origin of a cinematographic work. The elements featured in Le Studio d’Orphée creates a geography within which visitors will be invited to live an experience of exploration, without imposed ideas or an univocal interpretation.
For Fondazione Prada’s Milan premises Jean-Luc Godard also conceived Accent-sœur, a sound installation inside Torre’s lift. Visitors will be able to listen to the soundtrack of Histoire(s) du cinéma, an 8-part video work realized from 1988 to 1998 by the director, who used excerpts from films, news, philosophy writings, novels, poems, music and artworks to narrate the complex and multifaceted history of the seventh art.
Information for the public
Le Studio d’Orphée is open to the public from Wednesday to Monday from 1 to 7pm. Booking is required to visit the space and can be made by all visitors holding an admission ticket at Fondazione Prada’s desk, upon availability. From 1 to 5pm, the short films are screened for groups of 10 visitors every 30 minutes. From 5 to 7pm the film Le Livre d’image is presented and the entrance is allowed to maximum 5 viewers.
