America the Strange
(L’Amérique insolite)
Screening on Film
Directed by François Reichenbach.
France, 1958, 35mm, color, 100 min.
French with English subtitles.
France, 1958, 35mm, color, 100 min.
French with English subtitles.
The documentaries of François Reichenbach are renowned for their sharp insights into the more eccentric aspects of American life. After a varied career that included writing songs for Edith Piaf, Reichenbach took up filmmaking in the 1950s and became one of the central figures, along with Jean Rouch and Chris Marker, of the emergent and highly influential French cinéma vérité. With Marker as his scenarist, he surveys a range of fairs, parades, and pageantry in America the Strange, revealing the uniquely carnivalesque experience of the country from an outsider’s perspective.
