alr

Mediterranean / As Long as You Get Drunk / Gala

  • Mediterranean (Méditerranée)

    Directed by Jean-Daniel Pollet.
    France, 1963, DCP, color, 44 min.
    French with English subtitles.
    DCP source: La Traverse

Made from rushes shot by Jean-Daniel Pollet, this film turns out to be a landmark in the process of the modern reinvention of the cinema language. Méditerranée is a subjective journey through the civilization, the places and the lights of the Mediterranean basin, with a text by Philippe Sollers and music by Antoine Duhamel. Godard, who paid Pollet’s work a vibrant tribute, once said, "What do we know of this superb minute when some men [...] felt united with the world, united with the light not sent by the gods but reflected by them, united with the sun, united with the sea...? Jean-Daniel Pollet's film gives us [...] the most important, but also the most fragile keys to this decisive and natural moment."

  • As Long as You Get Drunk... (Pourvu qu’on ait l’ivresse…)

    Directed by Jean-Daniel Pollet.
    France, 1958, DCP, black & white, 20 min.
    No dialogue.
    DCP source: La Traverse

Claude Mauriac spoke of "a Buster Keaton of the Parisian suburbs, vulnerable, melancholic and sublime: Claude Melki.” The young Pollet, having abandoned serious studies to scour the suburban balls, camera in hand, discovered Melki, an awkward dancer and obsessive-but-clumsy womanizer. The one who would become Léon in five of Pollet’s films is, from this first meeting, the character irrevocably "out of place," mobilizing emotion and humor, tenderness and acuity of perception, revealing the deep and moving significance of many situations, even in a "futile" context.

  • Gala

    Directed by Jean-Daniel Pollet.
    France, 1961, DCP, black & white, 20 min.
    French with English subtitles.
    DCP source: La Traverse

We meet again Léon, employed in a nightclub frequented by Black patrons, and appearing as a both burlesque and dramatic figure in an environment then almost totally off the screens, observed here with finesse and nuance.

ORDER TICKETS

Part of film series

Read more

Forgotten Filmmakers of the French New Wave

Current and upcoming film series

Read more
Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

Carol for Another Christmas

Read more

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy