Surrealist Nights

In the framework of the exhibition ‘Paris and the Surrealists', the CCCB presents the Surrealist Nights film cycle.

‘The only absolutely modern mystery is celebrated in film.'André Breton

 

Wednesday 9 March

La coquille et le clergyman, Germaine Dulac, 1927, France, 40', Silent with French intertitles
La coquille et le clergyman , directed by Germaine Dulac and with screenplay by Antonin Artaud, was first presented on 9 February 1928 at the Studio des Ursulines. This mythical projection provoked a famous surrealist scandal, an expedition organised by the group against Germaine Dulac, judged guilty of having betrayed Artaud's screenplay.

Paris qui dort, René Clair, 1923, France, 52', Dubbed into Spanish
Actors: Henri Rollan (Albert), Albert Préjean (the pilot), Martinelli (the scientist), Madeleine Rodrigue (Hesta), Marcel Vallée, Stacquet (the rich man), Myla Seller (the scientist's daughter)
The night watchman of the Eiffel Tower leaves work to find Paris totally empty; as he explores it, he starts to come across people, but they are frozen in their movements. After a while, he meets a group of people, travellers from Marseilles whose plane landed that morning. Together they search in vain for people who are moving...

Wednesday 6 April

Le sang des bêtes, Georges Franju, 1949, France, 21', Catalan subtitles
A documentary about the abattoirs of Vaugirard and La Villette during the post-war years that describes in detail the death and cutting up of the animals. The cold objectivity of the commentary reflects the calm professional conscience of the butchers and sometimes provides humorous relief from the violence of the scenes filmed. In this classic, Franju goes beyond the realism of reportage, introducing a poetic or even fantastic atmosphere.

L'Affaire est dans le sac, Pierre Prévert, 1932, France, 55', Catalan subtitles
Actors: Lora Hays, Ghislaine May, Marise Rey, Lou Bonin
L'affaire est dans le sac is the first full-length feature directed by Pierre Prévert, with screenplay by his brother Jacques Prévert. Le Chapelier and his gang have had enough of stealing hats and selling them in shops: they want to kidnap the son of the ‘king of blotting paper'. This masterwork of the Prévert brothers is a unique example of comic surrealism, a work of militant burlesque.


Wednesday 11 May

Paris n'existe pas, Robert Benayoun, 1968, France, 93', Catalan subtitles
Actors: Danièle Gaubert, Serge Gainsbourg
During an artistic block, a young painter (Richard Leduc) becomes aware of his capacity for time travel by means of thought. Concerned by the dangers that beset him on these journeys, his friends try to rescue him from his ‘hallucinations'. The situation of the artist at the time and in society is the theme of this surrealism-inspired film with its slow compositional rhythm.