Le Joli Mai

Product Description ------------------- A portrait of Paris and Parisians during May 1962-"the first springtime of peace" for France since before World War II-LE JOLI MAI is a film with several thousand actors including a poet, a student, an owl, a housewife, a stockbroker, a competitive dancer, two lovers, General de Gaulle and several cats. It features a musical score by Academy Award-winning composer Michel Legrand, and English commentary by Academy Award-winning actress Simone Signoret. Review ------ "Chris Marker is an artist. He has something to say about the 'other France,' the France we don't see on the Champs-Elysees, and he says it simply and movingly." --Richard Roud, The Guardian "What distinguishes the film most ... is its wit, both verbal and visual, so that it is simultaneously illuminating and funny." --Time Out London "An epic of inquiring photography." --J. Hoberman, The New York Review of Books "What distinguishes the film most ... is its wit, both verbal and visual, so that it is simultaneously illuminating and funny." --Time Out London "An epic of inquiring photography." --J. Hoberman, The New York Review of Books "What distinguishes the film most ... is its wit, both verbal and visual, so that it is simultaneously illuminating and funny." --Time Out London "An epic of inquiring photography." --J. Hoberman, The New York Review of Books P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); About the Director ------------------ Born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve on July 29, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, Chris Marker was a cinematic essayist and audio-visual poet. After the Second World War, Marker began as a writer, publishing his first book in 1949. In the 1950s he turned to documentary filmmaking. Among his classic works from this period are Letter from Siberia, Cuba Si!, Le Joli Mai, and La Jetée. In the '60s and '70s he was actively involved with SLON, a filmmaking collective dedicated to activist production. Marker reemerged to make films under his own name again in 1977 with Le Fond de l'air est rouge (English title: A Grin Without A Cat). Creatively reworking his life as if editing one of his own films, Marker made films on other filmmakers during the '80s and '90s, including the renowned One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich. He also explored video and computer-generated imagery with a continued emphasis on the intersection between personal and political themes in films such as The Case of the Grinning Cat, which was released in English in 2006. A pioneer auteur filmmaker and an original voice in world cinema for over 50 years, Marker passed away on his birthday, July 29, 2012. He is widely accepted to be one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in modern cinema history. Chris MarkerIcarus Films is proud to distribute 10 of Chris Marker's films, plus his Bestiary, a collection of his short animal films, as well as Far From Vietnam and Class of Struggle two collaborative productions that he helped initiate. Icarus Films also distributes two films about Marker s legacy: Dan Geva's Description of a Memory, a film Marker appreciated being shown alongside with his work, which examines the history of Israel through the lens of Marker's own 1960 film Description of a Struggle, and To Chris Marker, An Unsent Letter, a posthumous homage by Emiko Omori. See more ( javascript:void(0) )

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