Raymond Bellour and Philippe Venault

Biography

A major contributor to contemporary French critical thought, French critic and author Raymond Bellour has advanced the theoretical application of semiotics, psychoanalysis and post-structuralism to the understanding of literary and cinematic texts. From his work on the 19th-century literature of Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne and the Brontës, this discourse has continued with his influentual textual analysis of the apparatus of the classic American cinema, most notably the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Bellour has also written extensively on contemporary video art and curated several major exhibitions. The first volume of his collected essays on film and video, l'Entre-Image, Photo Cinema, Video, was published in 1990; the second volume, l'Entre-Images 2, Mots, Images, was published in 1999.

Bellour received a B.A. and M.A. from the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines in Lyon before founding and directing Artsept cinema journal in 1963. In 1964, he entered the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in psychology and philosophy. At the Institut d'Esthétique et des Sciences de l'Art, he researched both the history and theory of cinema, and French and English literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Bellour received his doctorate from the University of Paris I in 1979. Professor at the Centre Universitaire Américan de Cinéma in Paris from 1973 to the present, he has also been a visiting professor at New York University and the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently director of research at CNRS. Bellour is also the co-editor of the cinema journal Trafic. Bellour lives in Paris.

Filmmaker Philippe Venault has directed and authored feature films, radio productions and television programs that adapt his ongoing research in the history and literature of France. A graduate of the Sorbonne, Venault was an editorial member of Magazine Litéraire from 1969 to 1979, and as a writer and editor of publications on French history and literature. Since 1976, he has collaborated with Raymond Bellour as author and producer of radio productions concerned with French historical and cultural discourse. Venault lives in Paris.