“[HFA Director] Haden Guest and I were talking at dinner about how when a film is fully manifest its content and form are in a union of sublime narrative. When this magic occurs, cinema itself goes beyond a vehicle for textual communication and becomes a sculptural rightness which can mirror and transform the psyche. I can say enthusiastically that the three rarely screened films we have selected meet these criteria. The Marcel Carné is a story film whose very elements, moment to moment, are expressed by the visual possibilities of cinema and montage. The two most excellent films by Jean Grémillon, a filmmaker who began making his own personal experimental films with his own camera, demonstrate his passage into narrative form and his sense of the poignancy that occurs at the tableau-like moment of the cut. This program is meant for those of you with a hunger for the unbeatable pleasure of seeing three Academy-ratio, black and white films created with an exquisite craftsmanship that has lingered in my memory since I first saw them ten years ago.” – ND