Films with: Elmore, Kate

By Brakhage an anthology /

Twenty-six masterworks by Stan Brakhage.

DVD 1984

Science is fiction 23 films by Jean Painlevé /

Long before Jacques Cousteau and Richard Attenborough, a Frenchman named Jean Painlevé made documentaries that captured the natural world in a unique manner. "Science Is Fiction" collects 23 of these short films. Painlevé (1902-89) spent his life straddling the arts and the sciences, studying biology at the Sorbonne, but also hanging out with Man Ray and Luis Buñuel. Long fascinated by marine life, Painlevé helped develop the underwater camera, one of the first handheld cameras, and high-magnification lenses that allowed him to observe creatures like sea urchins, jellyfish, and mollusks in their natural habitats. Though relatively obscure in the United States, Jean Painlevé's films embrace genre, combining documentary, educational film, and avant-garde experimentalism to create an aesthetic that captures the fantastic by means of the purely factual.

DVD 10071

Zazie dans le métro

Zazie is an energetic, saucy little girl from the suburbs who comes to Paris with her mother Jeanne for the weekend. Jeanne has an urgent appointment with her lover, so Uncle Gabby will be looking after Zazie. Zazie particularly wants to ride the Metro--the subway--but the train staff is on strike. So after the obligatory sightseeing trip to the Eiffel Tower, Zazie loses her uncle and embarks on a series of madcap, rather Rabelaisian adventures. While visually borrowing from silent films and cartoons, there is quite a lot of humor, social satire, cultural and linguistic commentary (drawn directly from the novel) that is incomprehensible without a thorough knowledge of French history and culture in the post-war period. To the average American viewer, it is best approached as a surrealistic, farcical slice of French life and enjoyed accordingly.

DVD 8565