Pierre Schoendoerffer: La peine des hommes

Directed by Laurent Roth

In 1986, Laurent Roth was able to finish his first longer work: Les yeux brûlés, a documentary about war photographers and cinematographers that honoured some of France’s then still-living greats, while also fathoming the complex relationship between film and armed combat since the inception of the cinematic art.When Roth returned to the material of Les yeux brûlés for a portrait of Schoendoerffer, only the audio still existed – the images were lost. Roth took this in his stride and came up with a stunning solution: he used the complete audio, unedited, and severely slowed down the few existing shots of Schoendoerffer (and his interviewer, actress Mireille Perrier) to fit the sound, length-wise.