Sunday | August 12, 2007 7:00 pm

Daydreams / Drifters

Live Piano Accompaniment by Yakov Gubanov
Screening on Film

Often credited with creating the first animated film (Fantasmagori), Émile Cohl produced over two hundred films in the silent era. Although his work is often associated with French Surrealism, Cohl was an adherent of the philosophy of "les arts incohérents" which believed that the irrational provided the inspiration for artistic creation. This collection of animated shorts demonstrates his interest in hallucinations and nightmares. Produced in pre-Lenin Russia, Evgeni Bauer’s Daydreams follows a man’s Vertigo-like obsession with a woman who resembles his deceased wife. John Grierson’s documentary portrait of North Sea herring fishermen returns to reality and remains one of the crowning achievements of nonfiction film. Crafted as an ode to industrialism, Drifters also contemplates the relationship between nature and modernity.

Preceded by eleven of Emile Cohl's animated short films.

PROGRAM

Daydreams (Gryozy)

Directed by Evgeni Bauer.
With Aleksander Vyrubov, N Chernobaeva, Viktor Arens.
Russia, 1915, 35mm, black & white, silent, 45 min.

Drifters

Directed by John Grierson.
UK, 1929, 16mm, black & white, silent, 40 min.

Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche

Directed by Marcel Carné and Michel Sanvoisin.
France, 1929, 16mm, black & white, silent, 20 min.
With music track

In Marcel Carné's directorial debut, Parisians escape the city and flock to the "El Dorado" resort town of Nogent, located on the banks of the Marne, where they enjoy a day of swimming, fishing and dancing.