23 April 2005
Zidane, a Twenty-First-Century Portrait, 90m
championship match  Real Madrid v. Villarreal
17 cameras ( first commercial use of two Panavision HD cameras with specially modified zoom,  courtesy of the US Department of Defence)
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno

saltwatercat:

In Douglas Gordon’s and Philippe Parreno’s “Zidane, A 21st century portrait”
realism and fiction are bridged
by following a regular La lega match
which frames Zinedine Zidane in cinematography.

While Zidane performs his game over the entire 91minute realtime movie, a radical scene cut is quasi nonexistent and a set of cameras continuously glimpse all the subtlety which a fan’s aerial perspective at home might lack. 

In retrospect,
Zidane’s persona addresses the screen in a silent commentary of well paced subtitles and thus,
opens up a solitude by screening a portrayal in a manner that is very particular to cinema.

This very intimate frame seems to transpose the director’s own approach, 
where moments of assimilation happen in postproduction and the event itself,
in Zidane’s own words on football,
is not “experienced or remembered in ‘Realtime’”
but rather, in a re-play through a distant lens.

-Aidan Celeste, 2012