Versions :
Original French with English subtitles
Methuselah 1926
The Daphnia 1927
The Octopus 1927
The Hermit Crab 1927
Sea Urchins 1928
Crabs and Shrimps 1929
Skeleton Shrimps and Spider Crabs 1929
The Treatment of an Experimental Hemorrage 1930
The Fourth Dimension 1936
Blue Beard 1938
The Vampire 1939-45
Extras :
The Separation of the Siamese Twins by Dr Doyen 1898
Predatory Mushrooms by Jean Comandon
The Growth of Plants by Jean Comandon
Jean Painlevé : from “The Unknown Woman of the Six-day Race” to “The Vampire”, an interview with Roxane Hamery
Alternative music for « Skeleton Shrimps and Spider Crabs » and « Crabs and Shrimps » by Piero Pépin, accompanied by Pascal Portejoie
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This is the first time we present a selection of films by Jean Painlevé from his beginnings as an actor, then filmmaker until the WW1. In “Methuselah”, an avant-garde play by Ivan Goll, Painlevé is both actor and producer, and to the “film” – five filmed sequences destined to be projected onto a screen during the performance of the play – has been added a soundtrack. This was done in the 80s, after Painlevé discovered Maxime Jacob’s original partition for the play. Originally the music was performed by The Republican Guard Band. Lacking the funds for engaging the famous band, Painlevé chose to have a version for piano recorded.
The first films destined for the general public “The Daphnia”, “Sea Urchins” and “The Octopus” are here presented in their original silent versions as was the case when they were first shown in avant-garde theatres.
“The Hermit Crab”, “Crabs and Shrimps” and “Skeleton Shrimps and Spider Crabs” – as well as “Hyas and Stenorinchus” edited in Jean Painlevé Compilation n° 1 - were all originally silent films. Upon the insistence of Robert Lion, Director of the Salle Pleyel concert hall, who introduced Painlevé to composer Maurice Jaubert, qualifying him as a “man of taste”, the latter arranged and composed music recorded with Painlevé’s own voice and commentaries, however, without removing the intertitles, a leftover from the silent era Painlevé insisted upon.
For over five years now, the Alhambra Cinémarseille, in collaboration with Les Documents Cinématographiques has been proposing screenings where Painlevé films are shown accompanied by music composed by Piero Pépin. The screenings take place both in public theatres and institutions such as schools and hospitals and have been met with enthusiasm.
Music is an indispensable dimension in Painlevé’s world as can be seen from the variety of scores he has chosen for his various films : from Maurice Jaubert and Marcel Delannoy at the dawn of talkies to the contemporary Antarctique composed by François De Roubaix in “Liquid Crystals” (Compilation n° 1), as well as jazz for “The Vampire” and “Fresh Water Assassins”.
Thus, for “The Vampire” whose images were shot in 1939, then left during the war, Painlevé chose Black and Tan and Echoes of the Jungle, giving an drawn out and choking sensation to a film which only lasts 9 minutes….
The format of short films leads us outside of the structure “feature film/extras” ordinarily applied to DVDs. Far from being simple “extras”, the shorts presented here are documents in their own right.
Painlevé’s work is situated on the crossroads of science and film, the two having maintained a fertile relationship since the end of the 19th century.
In parallel to the films carrying the label « popularised”, Jean Painlevé has also shot research films and films labelled “educational”, like “The Treatment of an Experimental Haemorrhage in a Dog” (with Dr Normet who discovered citrated blood serum)
In his activity as a programmer of public screenings Jean Painlevé often presented « The Separation of the Siamese Twins », shot in 1898 by Dr. Doyen, the first to have shot popularised science films on the subject of surgery.
Between 1936 and 1937, Jean Painlevé under assignment from the Palais de la Découverte for the International Exhibition held in Paris in 1937, shot four films. We are here presenting one of them “The Fourth Dimension” . This “specialised” science film was shot with a specific public in mind. Thanks to A.P. Dufour’s special effects – according to Painlevé Dufour was the best France had in special effects – and to Painlevé’s treatment of the subject, the film has kept its playful tone.
Etienne-Jules Marey, major figure in the history of the invention of film, was a constant reference for Painlevé. As early as 1882, Marey, a physiologist, invented and constructed the Chronophotographer, properly speaking the first ever movie camera.
For the animation of the clay dolls created by sculptor René Bertrand between 1935 and 1938 for “Blue Beard”, Painlevé was direcly inspired by Marey’s work analysing movement through film.
§ Homage to Jean Comandon
All through his life, Painlevé collaborated with scientists. Here we are paying tribute to one of them, Dr Jean Comandon who, twenty years before Painlevé, and like Painlevé a young scientist, applied film technique to the study of biology. It is to Dr Comandon we owe the first slow motion films.
« Predatory Mushrooms », shot in 1938 uses the technique of micro-cinematography invented by Marey and taken up by Dr. Comandon. Through the microscope we follow how the tiny worm is strangled by the garrots formed by mushrooms. A genuine horror film! Dr Comandon make plants come to life when filming them at a rate of one image each hour or more as can be seen in “The Growth of Plants”.
In « From the Unknown Woman of the Six-day Race to The Vampire », Roxane Hamery, a young university graduate and now teacher whose doctorate dealt with Jean Painlevé presents the filmmaker from his beginnings until 1939.
