Films with: Clair, René

A nous la liberté

A satire on factory life centering on the activities of a couple of ex-prisoners, one of whom, an ambitious crook, becomes the boss of a large factory while the other, a sentimental old tramp, becomes a worker there. Eventually both discover that happiness and peace of mind cannot be bought with money and revert to their former life as vagabonds. This film inspired Charlie Chaplin's Modern times.

DVD 1627

And then there were none

Ten people, strangers to each other, are invited to a lavish estate on an island. The tension mounts as, one by one, they are murdered.

DVD 1624

Anthology of surreal cinema.

Entŕacte: After a man is killed, his coffin takes on a life of it's own. After a long surrealistic chase, he climbs out of his coffin and makes everyone that was chasing his coffin disappear! -- container. La coquille et le clergyman: Obsessed with a general's wife, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, while struggling against his own eroticism. -- container. Ballet mecanique: An experimental film short from Cubist painter Fernand Léger containing a montage of images and rhythms that create a hallucinatory effect. Features the original soundtrack. -- container. Anemic cinema: An abstract and maybe nihilistic film short containing spiral forms merging into a rotating disc that's labeled with different messages. -- container.

DVD 3731

Bells At 3:25.

The Bells (68 min.). An ambitious innkeeper murders a wealthy traveller to settle his debts and is haunted by a hypnotist in a traveling carnival. His conscience is tormented by an apparition of the dead man seeking a confession of his own. At 3:25 (19 min.). A surreal fantasy in which an eccentric scientist freezes the population of Paris with a mechanical ray of his own invention. The American edition of the French film.

DVD 1625

Forever and a day

An elaborate tale about a grand old London house and the generations who lived in it from 1804 through the German blitzkrieg of World War II.

DVD 212

Million The million /

A musical comedy about a pair of young lovers who lose a lottery ticket worth a million francs and chase it frantically across Paris. Considered one of the very first musical films.

DVD 731

Sous les toits de Paris Under the roofs of Paris /

A slight and sentimental story of the Paris underworld, with boulevard songs integrated into the action. In spite of Clair's misgivings, his first venture into sound is considered a total success.

DVD 1470