Palimpseste sur Prison de Robert Lapoujade

This film was Pierre Hébert’s contribution to the Seminar on the Work of Robert Lapoujade (Paris, Sept. 23, 2021), where it was screened for the first time. The visual sequence of “Prison” is shown in its entirety in “Palimpseste,” and its original soundtrack is also heard in full, without any additions. This soundtrack—which is largely out of sync with the image and exists off-screen, sometimes realistic and more often abstract, served as an anchor for Pierre Hébert’s interventions, etched onto film and placed sometimes above, sometimes below the image of the original film. According to Pierre Hébert, this work marked a turning point in his practice of film etching, particularly through the introduction of freeze frames into the etched animation.