Conference - The sun in the cinematic imagination (FR)
- conference
- cinema
- screen
- exhibition
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Luxembourg
Since the beginnings of cinema, the sun has occupied a central place as a visual and narrative tool. As a primary light source, it structures filmic time, rhythms the narrative, and carries multiple symbolic meanings – sunrise evoking hope and renewal, sunset signaling melancholy or the end of an era.
This conference will explore how filmmakers transform the sun into a complex cinematic language. From Terrence Malick's transcendent golden hour in Days of Heaven (1978) to the cosmic eye witnessing creation in The Tree of Life (2011), and the dying star in Danny Boyle's Sunshine (2007), the sun becomes alternately a spiritual illumination or an existential threat.
The desert sun becomes a dramatic actor in David Lean's *Lawrence of Arabia* (1962), where the blinding heat becomes a physical and psychological ordeal, while George Miller transforms it into a hostile force in *Mad Max: Fury Road* (2015). A metaphor for power in *Apocalypse Now* (1979), where Coppola merges the rising sun and napalm fire into an iconography of madness, it becomes, in Kurosawa's *Rashomon* (1950), a filtered light symbolizing fragmented truth.
Its absence defines film noir, while modern dystopias like Blade Runner 2049 (2017) veil the sun behind the smog of a dying world. From Bergman's pale Nordic sun (The Seventh Seal, 1957) to Tarkovsky's artificial sun overlooking the ocean in Solaris (1972), this lecture will reveal how the sun, between romantic glorification and apocalyptic vision, remains one of the most versatile motifs in the history of cinema.
Good to know
Conference organised as part of the exhibition Here Comes the Sun: Art, energy and natural intelligence and in collaboration with the CNA - Centre national de l'audiovisuel.
Entry is free, but registration is required. Click the pink button now and reserve your spot!
Organizer
Cercle Cité
Where does it take place?
Auditorium Henri Beck
2 Rue Genistre
Ville-Haute Luxembourg
by 
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