From: James Cahill (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Apr 02 2009 - 19:21:14 PDT
Cool project. Please share your finalized list -- I'd be particularly interested to see how you deal with Painlevé!
He's probably an impossibility, but I wonder if André Sauvage might be an interesting figure to look into, having made travelogue and mountain climbing films (in the Alps and Greece) and then the fascinating "Études sur Paris" (which has appeared from time to time at the Images du Réel fest). I'm not sure if these have made it onto media beyond film yet, but worth looking into, as along with Painlevé and Vigo, he's one of the great documentarians of the interwar period.
Ideologically very, very different, but still perhaps relevant depending on what you are up to would be a consideration of the war genre as landscape film: I'm thinking particularly of such WWI "front" films Abel Gance's "J'Accuse" and Léon Poirier's "Verdun" (both are on dvd), as that's all about landscape, place, and the deep relationship to it.
I'm sure he came up by Jean Rouch offers a very rich set of possibilities for his work in France and the Franco-phone Africa.
Ditto for Agnès Varda: perhaps "The Beaches of Agnès" is too new, but the videos made for her installations at the Fondation Cartier (L'Ilse et Elle) back in 2006 might be available.
Best of luck,
James
----- Original Message -----
From: Scott Ross <email suppressed>
Date: Thursday, April 2, 2009 4:58 pm
Subject: French films: place, nature and landscape (suggestions?)
To: email suppressed
> Hello,
> I'm doing research on French (and francophone) films that depict
> landscapes, the natural world, or a strong "sense of place" in
> interesting ways. For example, I'm looking at "JLG/JLG autoportrait en
> décembre" for Godard's use of the Lausanne countryside, short
> documentaries by Jean Painlevé, and Michael Snow's "La Région
> central." Does anyone have any suggestions for films or scholarly
> criticism on the subject? I'm not restricting myself solely to
> experimental works. I'm looking in particular for films available
> online, on VHS, or on DVD, since I don't have access to projectors at
> my school. Thanks!
> Scott
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.