The films of Jean Painlevé collected in Science Is Fiction are never more than mildly educational, but never less than visually hypnotic. Buy Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painleve on Amazon.com FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders. Science Is Fiction: 2. Films by Jean Painlev. Г© | DVD Review. It is somewhat ironic that we have marginalized the wildlife documentary so mercilessly; after all, film was partially borne out of a desire to better observe and identify natural phenomenon. I do not compute how this title is accurate. The paradox of science being a fiction is either false or a metaphor, therefore irrelevant. Jean Painlevé: Going Beneath the Surface By Scott MacDonald April 20, 2009 Probably no substantial dimension of film history has been so thoroughly. (BFI TOP, Criterion BOTTOM) (aka 'Science Is Fiction/The Sounds Of Science' or 'Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painlevé') Directed by Jean Painlevé. 'The mesmerizing, utterly unclassifiable science films of Jean Painlevé (1902-89) have to be seen to be believed: delightful, surrealist-influenced dream works that. For instance, Muybridge’s 1. Indeed, the transfixing persistence of motion in the visual realm—particularly organic motion, as a pervasive reminder of the mystery of life—has both necessitated and foretold the need for a device to regard and preserve it. Jean Painlev. Г© was arguably one of the first and most prolific of auteurs to seize upon this approach, recognizing that biological reality, if properly transcribed, could be appreciated as art. An occasional French actor and fervent science buff, Painlev. Г© befriended Salvador Dal. Г and Luis Bu. Г±uel in the 1. To illustrate this philosophy he directed over 2. The Criterion Collection, with their Painlev. Г© collection Science Is Fiction, have done a fair job of representing not only the commercial benchmarks in this singular filmmaker’s oeuvre, but the odd digressions most indicative of his ever- probing personality. If one isolates a Painlev. Г© clip showing embryonic sea jellies with an atonal, electronic soundtrack, it could easily be mistaken for Brakhage: Such is the mysterious beauty he managed to capture, mostly by allowing his eye and acute sense of wonderment to lead the camera. And yet his films’ occasional moments of abstract poetry were likely unintentional. Painlev. Г© was not avant- garde: He often left the poetry up to nature, acting as a passive but punctilious receptacle during production. Unsurprisingly, some of Painlev. Г©‘s most obvious triumphs are his single- reel aquatic documentaries, which pick a species and delve into their habits, their habitat, and their procreative process; like Dal. Г, who once very purposefully affixed the sex organs of a prosthetic lobster to the mouthpiece of a sculpted telephone, Painlev. Г© was fascinated with invertebrate reproduction. Both Sea Urchins and How Some Jellyfish are Born feature rather voyeuristic underwater footage of their titular characters spawning—only to end, smirking, with a collection of newborns spelling out the title “Fin.” Painlev. Г© used tongue- in- cheek post- production sparingly, but well. Indeed, the films compiled in Science Is Fiction are hardly clinical; they seem crafted with the intention of promoting an environmental sensuality. Just as Muybridge’s original equine series was not in the name of zoology, but at the behest of a mogul wanting to settle a wager, so Painlev. Г©‘s work, too, understands that the common man’s relationship to nature is often that of the entertained spectator. And so the director’s “popular” documentaries, edited specifically for the public, often contain moments of obvious comic relief. You can feel Painlev. Г©‘s macabre grin when a Duke Ellington performance of Chopin’s “Funeral March” plays in The Vampire, a subversive study on hematophagous bats. And while the words it speaks are authoritative, the raspy, disapproving voice that narrates The Love Life of the Octopus sounds satirically unreliable—creating an engaging friction between the aural and optic content that manages to both transfix and tickle us. In their desire to entertain, the films occasionally fail to tell us much about their animal subjects, favoring instead the novelty of anthropomorphism. For example, Sea Ballerinas is far more interested in marveling at the graceful locomotion of sea stars than it is at offering theories for the evolutionary purpose of that movement. But Painlev. Г©‘s stunning footage transcends his lack of comprehensive research, the fruit of which would have no doubt been lost on the intended audience of these documentaries: the typical moviegoer. With them in mind, Painlev. Г© offers sights that represent the continual drama of organic life unfolding. Expressionistic seahorses explode from their father’s abdomen pouch and frolic across a super- imposed image of actual horses racing at a track—while no doubt influencing Henry Selick’s eye- popping stop- motion creatures for The Life Aquatic. Shots of a vampire bat draining the blood from a guinea pig are juxtaposed with clips of Max Shreck in Nosferatu. A crusty crustacean conducts a full Technicolor sea star ballet with his rigid antennae, like a tide pool version of The Red Shoes. Writing on the purpose of film as an art form, Siegfried Kracauer says, “We cannot hope to embrace reality unless we penetrate its lowest layers.” Painlev. Г© was a fearless diver, and the deeper he traveled the more amused and awestruck he became. Image/Sound. The image quality of Jean Painlev. Г©'s films is a bit of a mixed bag. Clearly the best possible prints have been used, and considering the cleanliness of the 1. Due to the restoration methods used, however, it becomes all too apparent when Painlev. Г© dipped into the stock footage bank: The resolution instantly becomes fuzzy, and in the case of color clips, an overwhelming red washes the unlucky sea creatures on screen. Despite these irritatingly showing seams, however, the content is never unwatchable, and it's a small price to pay to see the Murnau- esque shadows and silhouettes of The Sea Horse with such definition. The audio mixing, while simple, makes adequate use of the mono tracks, especially when featuring Painlev. Г©'s own musique concr. ГЁte. The special features on this three- disc set add depth and clarity to the self- portrait of Painlev. Г© that his popular science films only adumbrate. In addition to the 1. Science Is Fiction collects four physics/mathematics short studies, created by Painlev. Г© for French academics (his illustration of the fourth spatial dimension with a photograph of an elephant might be the director's most avant- garde moment), a claymation retelling of "Bluebeard" strongly reminiscent of George Pal's eerie Euro- folklore works, and two silent "research films"- one of which displays an operation experiment on a sickly dog with dim, and unintentionally haunting, cinematography. Yo La Tengo, manic fans of Painlev. Г©, also contribute their alternative scores to eight short films, viewable back- to- back as a suite entitled "The Sounds of Science"; it's mostly a misfire of a sonic tribute, since the new soundtracks eradicate Painlev. Г©'s gently ironic narration, but the treatment does emphasize the poetry of the images in a bald, unabashed manner. Finally, disc three is devoted entirely to the eight- part TV special "Jean Painlev. Г© Through His Films," a series of highly illuminating interviews with the director about his life, work, and peerless outsider status. Indeed, despite the love of nature Painlev. Г© was instilling within audiences, many marine biologists felt his subtle joking would confuse, rather than delight, impressionable youths: As Painlev. Г© puts it, he was accused on many occasions of being a "fantasist." His critics were wrong. And for setting the record straight, the Criterion Collection has released one of the finest DVD packages of the year so far. The films of Jean Painlev. Г© collected in Science Is Fiction are never more than mildly educational, but never less than visually hypnotic. Films By Jean Painlev. Г© ·. 2. 3 Films By Jean Painlev. Г©. · DVD Review. The A. V. Club. It makes sense that indie- rock band Yo La Tengo would write and perform its own score for the surrealistic nature films of Jean Painlevé. As musicians, the members of Yo La Tengo have always been as interested in texture and drone as they have in melody, and as a documentary filmmaker, Painlevé focused more on the alien imagery of the animal kingdom than he did on educating his viewers. Painlevé was a scientist who scandalized the academy in the ‘2. By the ‘3. 0s, Painlevé drifted into a circle of Parisian artists and activists, and began using his films as subtle political tracts, peppered with visual whimsy. Like Yo La Tengo, Painlevé found patterns in chaos, and used those patterns to propel his point of view. The three- disc Criterion DVD set Science Is Fiction: 2. Films By Jean Painlevé contains a 9. Painlevé footage backed by a Yo La Tengo live performance, along with a three- hour documentary about Painlevé and the 2. It’s those originals that are the set’s real selling- point. The films run the gamut from 1. Liquid Crystals”—six minutes of swirling color set to a free- form orchestral score—to the relatively more straightforward 1. The Love Life Of The Octopus,” which delivers useful- but- creepy information about octopus mating habits. Throughout his career, Painlevé made films for scientific researchers to use, films for the avant- garde crowd, and films for classrooms and general audiences. Science Is Fiction offers samples of each, and while some of the lengthier silent studies from the ‘2. ACERA, or The Witches’ Dance”—which documents the balletic courtship ritual of a small mollusk—are astoundingly beautiful. Even more remarkable than the way Painlevé’s work catches the eye though is how multi- layered it so often is. Science Is Fiction contains one of Painlevé’s most famous films, 1. The Vampire,” which uses bats as a metaphor for Nazism, but the set also features films that emphasize the kinky sexuality and alternative methods of organizing among animals, covertly arguing for a more libertine perspective in human society. Painlevé could blow minds—as in his jaw- dropping “The Fourth Dimension,” which explains dimensional space via juxtapositions and manipulations that Luis Buñuel would envy—but he was just as content to lull an audience with pretty pictures of birds and fish, while subtly changing the way they perceived the world around them. Key features: In addition to all the goodies listed above, the set adds a short interview with Yo La Tengo.
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