SURREALIST CLASSICS
Part 1
Surrealist Science: the world of Jean
Painlevé
Friday, November 14, 2008
8:00 PM at
Eyedrum
Co-sponsored by
the Cultural Services of the French Embassy
The astonishing
underwater films of scientist and Surrealist fellow-traveler Jean
Painlevé, along with a classic by his friend Jean Vigo, and a
selection of very early science and medicine films from 1880s-1920s France.
 |
| Jean Painlevé, 1935 |
Son of a Prime
Minister, Surrealist author, collaborator with Antonin Artaud, and underwater
scientist, Jean Painlevé was above all a filmmaker of extraordinary visual sense
and sly wit. He was as much a part of the Surrealist movement as the scientific
community, and his breathtaking images of sea life – mating octopi, seahorses
giving birth, microscopic detail of sea urchins – have a built-in affinity with
Surrealism.
A selection of Painlevé’s recently rediscovered films will be accompanied by
some of his influences: a remarkable medical film from the 1890s, Etienne-Jules
Marey’s early moving image experiments from the 1880s, and Jean Comandon's 1920s
science films of plants blooming in time-lapse and mushroom cells feeding. Finally, Painlevé’s artistic friendship with the great director Jean
Vigo will be explored with a screening of Vigo’s A Propos de Nice – a
surreal documentary on the French seaside city.
Program:
Etienne Jules-Marey,
early moving image experiments, 1880s, 3 minutes
Dr. Doyen,
La séparation des Sœurs Siamoises (The Separation of Siamese Twins), 1898, 2
minutes
films by Jean Comandon:
Les Champignons Prédateurs (Predatory Mushrooms), excerpt
Le Croissance des végétaux (The Growth of Plants), excerpt
films by Jean Painlevé:
Hyas et Sténorinques (Hyas and Stenorhynchus), 1929, 10 minutes
L'Hippocampe (The Sea Horse), 1934, 14 minutes
Oursins (Sea Urchins), 1954, 10 minutes
Les amours de la pieuvre (The Love Life of the Octopus), 1965, 13 minutes
Acéra ou le bal des sorcières (Acera or the Witches' Dance), 1972, 10 minutes
Jean Vigo,
A Propos de Nice, 1930, 20 minutes screened in 16mm
program subject to
change
 |
 |
| image from Jean Comandon's
The Growth of Plants (1920s) |
image from Jean Painlevé's
Acera or the Witches' Dance (1972) |
 |
 |
| microcinematography of
Jean Comandon |
image from Jean Painlevé's
The Love Life of the Octopus |
Eyedrum
290 Martin Luther King Jr Dr Suite 8, Atlanta, GA, 30312
404.522.0655
www.eyedrum.org
Go to PART 2 of
Surrealist Classics - The Golden Age: the collaborative films of
Luis Buñuel and
Salvador Dalí
SURREALIST
SCIENCE is a Film Love event, programmed and hosted by Andy Ditzler for Frequent
Small Meals. Film Love exists to provide access to great but rarely-screened
films, and to promote awareness of the rich history of experimental and
avant-garde film. Film Love was voted Best Film Series in Atlanta by the critics
of Creative Loafing in 2006.
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