Icarus Films has a newly restored edition of the 1965 film anthology titled Six in Paris, which will be issued on DVD this coming Jan. 19.
Six filmmakers associated with the French New Wave joined forces with Les Filmes du Cyprès and Les Films du Losange in 1965 to deliver six short films, one each from the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, Jean Douchet, Jean Rouch and Jean-Daniel Pollet, with the subject being the city of Paris. The collection opened at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1965 and eventually made its way to these shores in 1969 for a limited arthouse run.
Included in the mix are Jean-Luc Godard’s Montparnasse-Levallois, a story of mixed-up letters — one a “dear john” and the other of ever-lasting-love — but which one did Monica (Joanna Shimkus — The Virgin and the Gypsy) send to Roger (Philippe Hiquilly) and which one did she send to Ivan (Serge Davri — as Plyne in Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player)? Oh my!! Oh mon!!
From Claude Chabrol we have La Muette, a jarring little film in which Chabrol and his then wife, Stéphane Audran (Les Bonnes Femmes, Bluebeard, Le Boucher, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, etc.) play husband and wife, who are always bickering about this or that. Their son (Gilles Chusseau) grows weary of it and shoves wax in his ears … tragically something happens, but he cannot hear the cries for help.
Éric Rohmer’s contribution was the clever short film titled Place de l'Etoile, which features a haberdasher named Jean-Marc (Jean-Michel Rouzière — One Step to Eternity, Captain Blood), who believes that he may have accidently killed a man (Marcel Gallon) and goes into hiding … waiting, waiting, waiting … waiting for his crime to be discovered. He may be waiting for a while.
Rounding out the collection are Jean Douchet’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Jean-Daniel Pollet’s Rue Saint-Denis and Jean Rouch’s Gare du Nord, which might well be the best of the group as Odile (Nadine Ballot) and Jean-Pierre (Barbet Schroeder, Oscar-nominated for his direction of Reversal of Fortune) begin an argument in their apartment, take it to the streets and it finishes at a fateful encounter with a complete stranger (Gilles Quéant) at a bridge.
Six in Paris is presented in French with English subtitles.
Also heading to market on Jan. 19 from Icarus Films is documentary filmmaker Stuart A. Staples’ Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F Percy Smith, a tribute to silent filmmaker and naturalist F. Percy Smith. It will be available as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings.
From the early days of silent films, Smith began making “Urban Sciences” short films about things he found in nature. This was interrupted during World War I, where he served as a Royal Navy photographer, using his film skills to generate animated maps (likely a first) … his prolific film work continued into the early 1940s.
F. Percy Smith is also credited as being one of the earliest filmmakers to experiment with time-lapse filming. Staples has collected a number of his works and presents them here, not so much as short silent films, but as art … the art of filming in nature. It is very effect. Staples has created a score to go with the nearly 60-minutes worth of restored footage.
Bonus features, which are limited to the Blu-ray release, include four of F. Percy Smith’s short films.
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