settima

France

Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie [The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie] (Luis Buñuel, 1972)

Feb

16

No One Eats Alone Day

Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972)

The diners at a long table. DP: Edmond Richard.

People eat dinner together on No One Eats Alone Day*

“My God. What am I doing in this place?”

– Henri Sénéchal

The bourgeoisie meet for dinner in various settings, but never consume.

 

* this event takes place on the Friday of the second full week in February, which makes the 2025 date February 14.

Adieu Philippine [Farewell, Philippine] (Jacques Rozier, 1962)

Feb

11

friendship

Adieu Philippine (1962)

Juliette and Liliane (Stefania Sabatini and Yveline Céry) walk along a promenade in a beautiful, vérité tracking shot. DP: René Mathelin.

A film about friendship for Jennifer Anniston's birthday (1969).

 

1960. Michel is due to leave for Algeria to serve in the Algerian War. Juliette and Liliane are best friends as inseparable as “Filipino almonds”(?). When they meet, the girls decide to join Michel on his final vacation, on Corsica.

La notte [The Night] (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961)

Feb

7

Falò delle vanità – 1497

La notte (1961)

Author Giovanni Pontano (Marcello Mastroianni) pondering next to a full bookcase. DP: Gianni Di Venanzo.

Books, or art, in commemoration of Savonarola's 1497 Florentine falò delle vanità (bonfire of the vanities).

“I used to spend afternoons reading in bed. Tommaso would call and find me there. He could have kissed me. I wouldn't have resisted, out of boredom. But he was satisfied to watch me as I read. All those purposeless books.”

– Lidia

A lavish #CocktailParty in celebration of the launch of a novel is bookended by tragedy, in the loss of a befriended writer and the unraveling of another writer and his wife's marriage.

L'udienza [The Audience] (Marco Ferreri, 1972)

Feb

2

L'udienza (1972)

Aiche (Claudia Cardinale) washing Principe Donati's (Vittorio Gassman) feet. DP: Mario Vulpiani.

Beaubourg, centre d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou [Beaubourg] (Roberto Rossellini, 1977)

Jan

31

1977

Beaubourg, centre d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou (1977)

Rossellini on site. DPs: Néstor Almendros, Jean Chiabaut & Emmanuel Machuel.

Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992)

Jan

24

Billy Zane's birthday

Orlando (1992)

Orlando (Tilda Swinton) and Shelmerdine (Billy Zane) in intimate embrace. DPs: Aleksey Rodionov & Andrew Speller.

A [favourite] Billy Zane film for his birthday (1966).

“This future of yours Shelmerdine, when it's gonna begin? Today? Or, is it always tomorrow?”

– Orlando

As ordered by Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp), nobleman Orlando remains young and traverses exotic scenery, civilisations, time, and gender.

La baie des anges [Bay of Angels] (Jacques Demy, 1963)

Jan

9

Wheel of Fortune

La baie des anges (1963)

Jean (Claude Mann) and Jackie (Jeanne Moreau) at a casino table. The tension is palpable. DP: Jean Rabier.

Good, or bad, fortune on the day Wheel of Fortune premiered in 1975.

– How much did you win?

– 500,000 in less than an hour. It's immoral, but no more than anything else. No more than poverty or ugliness.

Mauvais sang [Bad Blood / The Night Is Young] (Leos Carax, 1986)

Jan

8

David Bowie – 1947

Mauvais sang (1986)

(Alex) Denis Lavant in a scene set to David Bowie's Modern Love. DP: Jean-Yves Escoffier.

A [favourite] scene featuring a Bowie song for David Bowie's birthday (1947).

“They pulled in just behind the fridge He lays her down, he frowns “Gee, my life's a funny thing Am I still too young?” He kissed her then and there She took his ring, took his babies It took him minutes, took her nowhere Heaven knows, she'd have taken anything”

– David Bowie, Modern Love (from Let's Dance, 1983)

Escrime [Fencing] (Étienne-Jules Marey, 1890)

Jan

4

revolvers

Escrime (1890)
Escrime (1890)

Footage of Marey at work. Note the mobility of his invention. (via).

A revolver to commemorate Samuel Colt's sale of 1 000 revolvers to butcher Captain Samuel Walker in 1847.

“Art and science encounter each other when they seek exactitude.”

– Étienne-Jules Marey

However, where there is bloodshed, there can be art. Scientist Étienne-Jules Marey studied movement, and further adapted an existing revolver-style camera gun invented by astronomer Jules Janssen in 1874. The revolution in Marey's invention was not in the least in its mobility. Unlike Muybridge, whose locomotion experiments required a huge, cumbersome setup, Marey could strap on his “gun”, and shoot moving footage while following his target around. His chronophotograph Escrime can be considered Marey's first successfully captured moving footage.

À propos de Nice – point de vue documenté [À propos de Nice] (Boris Kaufman + Jean Vigo, 1930)

Jan

1

New Year's Day

À propos de Nice - point de vue documenté (1930)

Exuberant prostitutes, Jean Vigo (5th from the left), and some who appear to be men in drag, dance on a landing with confetti all around them. In the moving footage they can be seen high-kicking with increased vulgarity, the camera posed below them. DP: Boris Kaufman.

Confetti for New Year's Day.

“In this film, by showing certain basic aspects of a city, a way of life is put on trial… the last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you and makes you sympathetic to a revolutionary solution.”

– Jean Vigo in his manifesto Vers un cinéma social