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CULTURAL/EVENTS AGENDA
DECEMBER 2008/JANUARY 2009
This agenda presents a selection of French or French-related events in the Midwest.
For a complete calendar of events for the French and French-speaking associations
in your area, please visit their respective web sites.
Agenda culturel pour la région de Chicago / Cultural Agenda for the Chicago area: "LIAISON" |
| NOT TO BE MISSED THIS MONTH... |
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THE 12th ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF NEW FRENCH CINEMA
DECEMBER 5-14, 2008 at Facets Multimedia.
Co-presented by Facets Multimedia
and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy |
The only festival in the country dedicated to emerging French filmmakers.
A unique opportunity to discover the next generation of film writers, directors and actors from France!
Be the first to discover new films by emerging French filmmakers at the annual Festival of New French Cinema at Facets, and be sure not to miss Q&A's with visiting filmmakers Yamina Benguigui and Vincent Dietschy on December 6th and 7th. Information.
2008 Featured movies
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December 6 - 2-4 PM: Documentary Film Excerpts and Roundtable
Northwestern University
The history and experience of a population segregated in the north Paris suburb of Seine Saint-Denis. Yamina Benguigui, the French filmmaker and novelist and Deputy Mayor of Paris for Human Rights and Exclusion Issues, is joined by Jean-Louis Cohen, New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and Northwestern professors Jack Doppelt, Hamid Naficy, Nasrin Qader and David Van Zanten to discuss the public housing crisis in Paris. FREE. Complete information. |
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Through April 19, 2009: The "Writing" of Modern Life: The Etching Revival in France, Britain, and the U.S., 1850–1940
The Smart Museum - University of Chicago
This exhibition examines the intertwined arts of etching and writing, from the polemical beginnings of the Etching Revival in the 1850s to its twentieth-century afterlife. During this period, etching was reinvented as an original art form that—like writing—was uniquely fitted to expressions of an artist’s individual personality and the experience of modernity. Printmakers and critics redefined the medium, creating a new critical language that was entwined with literary discourse. They emphasized the signature qualities of the etched line, encouraging the idea that each print bore the touch of the artist, and rediscovered an expressive medium suitable for gritty modern subjects as well as classical pastoral themes. Showcasing etchings by European and American artists like Haden, Meryon, and Whistler, the exhibition offers a new interdisciplinary perspective on the Etching Revival. The forty-five works on view are drawn in large part from a recent gift to the Smart Museum. |
January 30 through April 5, 2009: Expo Jean Luc Mylayne
Krannert Art Museum
Jean Luc Mylayne and his wife and co-collaborator, Mylène, have spent six months of each year since 2004 traveling throughout the Fort Davis, Texas area. A rugged and wild place nestled in the landscape of the Davis Mountains, it is a way station on the migration routes of animals and birds—specifically Eastern, Western, and Mountain Bluebirds. |
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Although Mylayne’s artistic practice involves capturing images of these birds, he is not by any means a conventional wildlife photographer: his art goes far beyond the simple documentation of various species and habitats. Rather, his work embodies a philosophical meditation on the nature of being in the world. More a conceptual artist than a traditional photographer, Mylayne favors his current medium because he can meld formal elements of color and composition with the notion of a frozen moment in time.
This exhibition presents a ground-breaking look at the process of visual perception. Each of the images on display required several years of painstaking preparation to create and open a window into the interaction between the birds of Fort Davis and the nature that encompasses them. Mylayne meticulously composed each work by deliberately pinpointing a location, the ideal subject, and the appropriate scale. As a result, viewers enter environments that seem familiar yet are outside of the traditional nature of photography.
Complete information. |
MORE EVENTS
Agenda cuturel pour la région de Chicago / Cultural Agenga for the Chicago area: LIAISON
Evénements économiques / Economic Events: ECONOMIE/BUSINESS |
A Girl Cut in Two (2008) Directed by Claude Chabrol
Fri, Dec. 12, 6:30 pm & 9:30 pm -
Sat., Dec. 13, at 6:30 pm & 9:30 pm
Browning Cinema - University of Notre Dame |
| The French master of suspense Claude Chabrol returns with the razor-sharp, darkly seductive, A Girl Cut in Two. Gabrielle Deneige is an independent, ambitious TV weather girl torn between her love of a distinguished author several decades her senior , and the attentions of a headstrong, potentially unstable young suitor . An unspoken past between the two men heightens tensions, and though she's initially certain of her love for one them, the see-saw demands and whims of both men keep confusing - and darkening - matters. Before long she's encountering emotional and societal forces well beyond her control, inexorably leading to a shocking clash of violence and passion. Inspired by the sensational Gilded Age murder of Madison Square Garden architect Stanford White, A Girl Cut in Two is trademark Chabrol: fiendishly entertaining and impossible to shake. French language with English subtitles. |
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Through January 4, 2009: Yan Pei-Ming : Life Souvenir
The Des Moines Art Center will present the first one-person museum exhibition in the United States for the Chinese artist Yan Pei-Ming, who divides his time among studios in Shanghai as well as Paris and Dijon, France. Yan is considered one of the foremost Chinese artists working today, creating large, vibrant, expressionistic paintings and watercolors. His subject matter often includes self-portraits and portraits of family members or political figures, such as Mao and American presidents. Yan's work merges traditional Chinese visual traditions with contemporary Western formal approaches, such as Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.
This exhibition is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue and organized by Jeff Fleming, director.
Complete information. |
December 5-11: A Girl Cut in Two (2008) Directed by Claude Chabrol
Salina Art Center
The French master of suspense Claude Chabrol returns with the razor-sharp, darkly seductive, A Girl Cut in Two. Gabrielle Deneige is an independent, ambitious TV weather girl torn between her love of a distinguished author several decades her senior , and the attentions of a headstrong, potentially unstable young suitor. |
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| An unspoken past between the two men heightens tensions, and though she's initially certain of her love for one them, the see-saw demands and whims of both men keep confusing - and darkening - matters. Before long she's encountering emotional and societal forces well beyond her control, inexorably leading to a shocking clash of violence and passion. Inspired by the sensational Gilded Age murder of Madison Square Garden architect Stanford White, A Girl Cut in Two is trademark Chabrol: fiendishly entertaining and impossible to shake. French language with English subtitles. |
Through January 3, 2009: The Infinite Landscape: Master Photographers from the UMMA Collection
University of Michigan Museum of Art
In anticipation of UMMA's reopening in early 2009, this exhibition will present some of the most compelling landscape images from the Museum's own renowned collection. Since the dawn of photography, practitioners have used the medium as a tool to make sense of our surroundings and create meaning within the larger world. From a selection of classic views by such artists as Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, and William Henry Fox Talbot to the contemporary sublime of Michael Kenna, these images reflect 19th- and 20th-century European and American artists responding to the natural environment. Among the other photographers included are Eugene Atget, Walker Evans, William Jackson, Andre Kertesz, Josef Sudek, and Minor White. The exhibition will also showcase several new acquisitions on view for the first time by Edward Curtis, Peter Henry Emerson, Karl Struss, and Edward Steichen. |
Until January 18, 2009: Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art
Detroit Institute of Art. |
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From landscapes evoking the calm countryside to the robust energy of urban life, this exhibition shows the creative experimentation and new directions that would characterize the world of modern art.
75 paintings and sculptures by the most celebrated masters of modern art. From the dynamic brushstrokes of Van Gogh to the hazy delicacy of Monet, from Picasso's inventiveness to Dali's demented dreamscapes, these artists profoundly changed the course of modern art and created spectacular works you'll never forget! |
| Photo: Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920. Portrait of a Woman, C.1917-18. Oil on canvas; 65 x 48.3 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund 1951-359 © The Cleveland Museum of Art. |
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January 16 - January 24, 2009 : LOLA MONTES directed by Max Ophüls
In 1954, Max Ophüls, the director of such classics as La Ronde (1950) and The Earrings of Madame de… (1953), embarked on the final chapter of his brilliant career. |
| For his first film in color and widescreen, Ophüls chose a fascinating, romantic and suitably tragic subject; an epic, lyrical portrait of Elizabeth Rosanna Gilbert, better known as Lola Montès, the Irish-born dancer, courtesan, and mistress of kings, whose ascension to heights of fame across the European continent in the mid-19th century was followed by a heartbreaking fall from grace. Ophüls’ masterpiece, the biggest-budgeted French film production to date, was brutally cut by its distributor before general release, a blow which undoubtedly contributed to the director’s death in the weeks that followed. Now, a half-century later, thanks to a meticulous, painstaking digital restoration, Lola Montès has been fully restored to its original glory. With Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbroook and Oskar Werner. In French, German and English with English subtitles. (115 min.). Information. |
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Until January 11, 2009: Toulouse-Lautrec and La Vie Parisienne
Grand Rapids Art Museum
Paris at the turn of the 20th century was a uniquely modern city. The French capital was a vibrant center for modern entertainment and fashion, with new forms of dance, theater, sport, and contemporary clothing embraced by the burgeoning middle-classes. Artists drew inspiration from all aspects of Parisian life, and portrayed a vivid cast of characters. Artists found etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts to be an ideal means to depict the scene around them. As original works of art created in multiples that could be sold much more cheaply than paintings, prints were particularly conducive to artistic experimentation and new subject matter. Artists were pleased to create prints that appeared as posters on public streets as well as smaller prints collected by connoisseurs.
Drawn entirely from the permanent collection of the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the exhibition includes works by Edgar Degas and Félix Vallotton, along with recently acquired works by Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, and Théophile Steinlen on view for the first time. |
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
French, 1864-1901
La Troupe de Mademoiselle Églantine, 1896
Color lithograph on paper
Museum purchase, Peter M. Wege
Image courtesy Grand Rapids Art Museum |
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Until February 8, 2009: Spared from the Storm : Masterworks from the New Orleans Museum of Art
The Kalamazoo Institute of Art presents 89 treasures of American and European art from one of the finest art museums in the U.S. Spanning more than 300 years, you'll see works by Mary Cassatt, John Singleton Copley, Edgar Degas, Paul Gaugin, Alberto Giacometti, Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró, Claude Monet, Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Marie-Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (the official painter to Marie Antoinette) and more!
Organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art to benefit its Katrina Recovery. |
Until August 2009 : "The French in North America / Les Français en Amérique du Nord - An Enduring Presence"
A series of symposia, lectures, and other public programs to be held in 2008-2009 at Western Michigan University. |
The French have left an enduring legacy in North America, beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing through today. The purpose of this series of events is to examine the motivations, conditions, and effects of French activities, policies, and practices in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean. Perspectives will be drawn from multiple disciplines in order to frame a fuller understanding of the French place in contemporary economic, political, social, and cultural relations.
Co-sponsored by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy - Chicago - Complete information.
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Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 8 p.m.: Concert Les Yeux Noirs
Northern Michigan University - Great Lakes Rooms, Don H. Bottum University Center
Les Yeux Noirs, French for "The Black Eyes," takes its name from the title of a Russian gypsy tune made famous by Django Reinhardt in the '30s. It's the perfect name for a French sextet that plays its own variety and melding of gypsy and Yiddish music, with a nod to Manouche (or French gypsy) jazz. |
| Violinists Eric and Olivier Slabiak founded Les Yeux Noirs ten years ago. France, and much of Europe, are following in the footsteps of the recent American Yiddish revival, and this is the origin of Les Yeux Noirs. The classically trained Jewish brothers stumbled across the music of the Diaspora and could not get enough. They frequented small clubs and met many musicians. These new friendships led to the creation of the band, which combines violins, violoncello, accordion, electric guitar, cimbalom and electronic samples in innovative, highly complementary ways.
"Led by a pair of virtuosic, violin-playing brothers, Eric and Olivier Slabiak, the group's presentation lured the audience into all-join-in musical participation, a colorful coda to an immensely entertaining weekend." —Los Angeles Times - Complete inforomation.
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December 6 at 6-9pm: Lecture by French oenologist Alexandre Martin : Traditional Wine Making in France
Lecture in English at the Cloverleaf Cave by the invitation of the French Institute of Michigan
This lecture, built around Jean Lenoir’s concept of discovering the 54 aromas of wine through box tasting, as outlined in his work, "The Scents of Wine", will reveal the secrets of French wine making and the wines’ aromatic variations. In 2001 Alexandre Martin started his career at the Paris Wine Museum, before he traveled to Central Europe and the Caucasus, where he has been studying the transformations of local vineyards in the context of privatization. Based on his expertise, he has been invited to Russia several times. He was first hired in Moscow, where he was appointed Head sommelier at Fauchon’s first gourmet store and cellar in Russia; then to Saint-Petersburg where he promoted French wines. Complete information. |
January 20, 2009 - 7:30 p.m: Concert M83 with the Killers
Eastern Michigan University Convention Center.
M83 is an electronic music group consisting of Anthony Gonzalez (and formerly Nicolas Fromageau), and was formed in Antibes, France in 2001. The musical style owes something to the shoegazing genre in its extensive use of reverb effects and lyrics spoken softly over loud instrumentals, though M83's songs employ considerably less guitar than most shoegazing bands such as My Bloody Valentine. For the third album released by M83, Before the Dawn Heals Us, Gonzalez decided to part from Fromageau (after an emotionally distressing tour for Dead Cities) and record mainly on his own, with the help of a few other musicians.
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December 13, 2008- April 5, 2009: Expo Expanding the Boundaries: Selected Drawings from the Yvonne and Gabriel P. Weisberg Collection
Cargill Gallery 103 - Minneapolis Institute of Arts |
Minneapolis collectors Gabe and Yvonne Weisberg have collected drawings for more than 30 years. This exhibition will include nearly 50 drawings, watercolors, and pastels from their collection. The collection focuses on realist and naturalist artists working in France and Belgium in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of these artists are unknown to present-day museum visitors; thus, the exhibition will introduce them to the excellent work of Adolphe Appian, François Bonvin, Jules Breton, Edgar Chahine, Louis Weldon Hawkins, Auguste Lepère, Léon Lhermitte, Charles Milcendeau, and Thèodule Ribot. FREE
Henri Gervex, Study for “The Civil Marriage,” 1881
, black and white chalk on tan wove paper, collection of Yvonne and Gabriel P. Weisberg |
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December 20, 2008 - June 14, 2009: Expo From Rembrandt to Matisse: Selected Works on Paper
Galleries 315 and 316 -
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
This exhibition presents more than sixty outstanding European and American prints and drawings, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, featuring works by Rembrandt van Rijn, Francisco de Goya, Camille Pissarro, Maurice Denis, and Henri Matisse. Drawn primarily from the MIA’s permanent collection, the selection will highlight recent acquisitions and some important loans. - FREE |
January 24, 27, 29, 31 and February 1, 2009: Opera Faust by Charles Gounod
The Minnesota Opera
The aging Dr. Faust makes a deal with the devil to regain his youth and win the young Marguerite. Based on the Goethe classic, this tale of good and evil brims with Gounod's unforgettable melodies and opera's favorite villain. This new Doug Varone production is the first Minnesota Opera staging of Faust in a decade.
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December 9th at 9pm: Concert ElodieO
400 Bar - Minneapolis
This New York-based French singer and composer performs a sultry mixture of pop, electronics and dance music.
More information. |
December 5-9: SIX IN PARIS - Directors: Chabrol, Godard, Rohmer, Rouch, Douchet & Pollet
Oak Street Cinema
Paris of the late Sixties, as seen by six acclaimed French New Wave directors, is recalled in this long unavailable, newly struck 35mm omnibus film, each depicting a different Parisian neighborhood. |
Contributors to the range of vignettes in this anthology of cinematic forms and amusing anecdotes are top “Nouvelle Vague” names like Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jean Rouch and the ubiquitous Jean Luc-Godard. Godard was inspired to employ pioneer American cinema-verite and had documentary filmmaker Al Maysles to shoot his story in doc fashion about two deceived lovers (titled Montparnasse et Levallois, the arts and working class neighborhoods, respectively at opposite ends of Paris).
The lesser-known Jean Douchet (a writer for the influential New Wave journal Cahiers du Cinema) and scriptwriter Jean –Daniel Pollet round out the sextet. The anthology form, in vogue in the Sixties and Seventies, is usually seen as a mixed bag of segments, but in this case full of the charm of the auteurist movement of the mid-60s and a look at Paris 50 years ago. Produced in l965 and originally shot in 16mm, black and white by Barbet Schroeder, who also stars in Rouch’s Gare du Nord; set in the famous railroad station about a woman who meets a handsome stranger who announces he is going to kill himself. |
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January 19, 2009 - 7:30 p.m: Concert M83 with the Killers
M83 is an electronic music group consisting of Anthony Gonzalez (and formerly Nicolas Fromageau), and was formed in Antibes, France in 2001. The musical style owes something to the shoegazing genre in its extensive use of reverb effects and lyrics spoken softly over loud instrumentals, though M83's songs employ considerably less guitar than most shoegazing bands such as My Bloody Valentine. For the third album released by M83, Before the Dawn Heals Us, Gonzalez decided to part from Fromageau (after an emotionally distressing tour for Dead Cities) and record mainly on his own, with the help of a few other musicians.
Northrop - University of Minnesota |
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December 12-16: Fear(s) of the Dark Director(s): Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pi
Ragtime Cinema
This French animation anthology shares a quality familiar to readers of French comics: a combination of sophistication, ennui, and dread that has little to do with the American idea of a horror movie. Drawing from their makers' dark fever dreams, these shorts pivot from phobias to nightmares; without the need to shock, they plunge the depths of adult anxiety rather than pure terror. Legendary cartoonist Charles Burns's segment concerns a shy student unfortunately drawn equally to insects and women; Richard McGuire offers up a wordless short about a man who takes shelter in a dark house. |
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Sunday, December 7: (w/ live accompaniment) : Films Luis Buñuel Films
L'Age d'Or and Un Chien Andalou with live musical accompaniment by the Free Collective.
Experience surrealist film and avant-garde jazz. All proceeds go to SaveDarfur.
For showtimes go to Ragtimes's website or call (573) 443-4359. |
December 9th: Concert Gojira with In Flames & All that Remains
The pageant Theater – Saint Louis
GOJIRA is one of the most successful band that the French metal stage has ever known. |
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| December 10-21: Expo Claire Fontaine at the Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis |
| Named after a common brand of French stationary, Claire Fontaine is a “ready-made artist,” exemplifying an empty, standardized identity produced by contemporary capitalism. Her works include neon signs, sculptures, videos, light-boxes, and texts, and while her message is often militant and radical, she more closely resembles subjectivity-on-strike, compromising our ability to define it and institutionalize it. The title of her exhibition in The Front Room is “They Hate Us for Our Freedom” and includes a new sculpture, a wall text made with the burnt remains of lit matches, and a poster of Jackson and Dave, Dick Cheney’s two dogs. “They hate us for our freedom” is a seminal sentence of George Bush’s speech after September 11 and states an ideological and economical distance with the eastern world supposed to justify the wars to come. Claire Fontaine’s exhibition raises the question of the meaning of freedom in liberal societies, and discretely shows the violence and the lack of independence that comes from the simple fact of being governed. |
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Starting december 19th: Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël) by Arnaud Desplechin
The Vuillard's shared history of physical and mental illness, estrangement, self harm, and loss doesn't lead itself to the idea of a cheerful holiday season. But can a Christmastime reunion, a scheme concocted by three of the youngest family members, finally bring peace their clan?
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Starting January 2009: I’ve loved you for so long by Philippe Claudel
This powerful story of familial struggles and redemption follows a shell-shocked Juliette (Scott-Thomas), who returns to live with her young sister Lea (Zylberstein) after being banished from the family for 15 years. An enormous critical and box office success in France, Scott-Thomas' phenomenal performance has already been singled out by critics for end-of-year award consideration. |
Through January 18, 2009: "Art in the Age of Steam: Europe, America and the Railway, 1830-1960"
No industrial development has had such a sudden and transforming effect as the steam railroad. Within a few years of trains' first use ca. 1830, their speed increased to at least three times that of road coaches, and the volume of passenger and freight traffic far surpassed any other form of transport.
This exhibition shows how artists responded to the railroad, especially in Europe and the United States. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, artists concentrated on feats of railroad engineering, the railroad as a focus for human drama, as a setting to explore light and atmosphere and as a symbol of reflective states of mind. Not until after the First World War did artists begin to celebrate the railroad as a mechanical marvel.
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art - Bloch Building, Galleries L13 and L14 - Complete information. |
Live broadcast : Thais by Massenet
Live: Saturday, December 20, 11am -
Encore: Wednesday, January 7, 2009 5:30pm
Film Streams in collaboration with Opera Omaha
Renée Fleming plays the Egyptian courtesan in search of spiritual sustenance and Thomas Hampson is the monk who falls from grace. Massenet’s sensual score is presented in a new production by John Cox with Jesús López-Cobos conducting. (Information)
A preview talk with Opera Omaha Artistic Advisor and Principal Stage Director Garnett Bruce will begin at 10 a.m. on the day of the live broadcast (Saturday, December 20).
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December 19 - January 1, 2009A Christmas Tale by Arnaud Desplechin
Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) are the parents of three grown children: Elizabeth, a melancholic playwright with a mathematician husband and a tortured teenage son; Henri (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY's Mathiue Amalric), the self-destructive black sheep; youngest Ivan, the peacemaker, husband, and father to two eccentric little boys; while a fourth, Joseph, died from leukemia as a boy. When the disease reappears again in the family, everyone returns home for a long Christmas weekend together. Crowded again under the same roof, solidarity quickly -- and hilariously -- devolves into feuding, drunkenness, and bed-hopping, as everyone struggles to make sense of the mysteries of family, life, and what lies ahead. Information. |
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December 3rd – January 4th : Cleveland Museum of Art : Messiaen Centenary
December 2008 marks 100 years since the birth of the great French composer Olivier Messiaen, whose large body of work is music of enormous power and spirit, worthy of consideration in its multifaceted splendor. |
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| The Cleveland Museum of Art joins the world in a centenary celebration of this musical titan, whose catalog both built on the traditions of Western composition and expanded them. Mystic, visionary, lover of birdsong, deeply religious, and attuned to non-Western musics - all of these interests formed the man whose sound is immediately distinctive. Several programs highlight the different aspects of the music of Messiaen, whom noted critic Paul Griffiths called "The first great composer whose works exist entirely after, and to a large degree apart from, the great Western tradition." |
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Included in the five concerts during the month of December, The Cleveland Museum of Art presents members of the Cleveland Orchestra performing the haunting "Quatuor Pour la Fin du Temps" ("Quartet for the End of Time"); virtuoso pianist Christopher Taylor performing the massive "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus"; the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by Tim Weiss, performing "Des Canyons aux Etoiles"; and organist Karel Paukert performing "La Nativité du Seigneur." In addition, the CMA will screen Olivier Mille's documentary "La Liturgie de Cristal." |
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Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait by Douglas Gordon, Philippe Parreno
Friday, December 5, at 7:30 pm &
Saturday, December 6, at 9:20 pm
Soccer great Zinédine Zidane is the focus of this new movie that is more art installation than sports documentary. Celebrated gallery artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno employed 17 cameras to capture the French star from multiple perspectives during one whole game between Real Madrid and Villarreal on April 23, 2005. A dreamy score by the Scottish band Mogwai provides the aural icing to the cake. Cleveland premiere. Some subtitles. 35mm. 91 min. |
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The Romance of Astrea and Celadon by Eric Rohmer
Thursday, December 18, at 8:45 pm & Saturday, December 20, at 7:25 pm
88-year-old French master Eric Rohmer (My Night at Maud’s, Claire’s Knee) has suggested that his latest movie might be his last. Let’s hope it’s not, but if it is, he’s going out with a winner. Like so many of his earlier films, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon is a talky, airy account of sexy, self-absorbed young people grappling with love and fidelity. But here the young lovers are a shepherd and a shepherdess living in pagan, pastoral 5th-century Gaul, where they become embroiled in a tragicomic tale of misunderstanding, attempted suicide, and cross-dressing involving forest nymphs and Druid priests. A 2007 New York Film Festival selection. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. 35mm. 109 min. |
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Vivre sa vie by Jean Luc Godard, 1962
Fri, Dec 12 - Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 7:00PM
"One of the most extraordinary, beautiful, and original works of art that I know of."—Susan Sontag
See this famed icon of the French new wave, one of Jean Luc Godard’s most deeply felt films, in a breathtaking new print from Janus Films. Anna Karina, then Godard’s wife, plays Nana Kleinfrankenheim, a young Parisienne who turns to prostitution when faced with a failed relationship, a dead-end job, and potential homelessness. Godard tells the story in a series of 12 almost Brechtian vignettes, connected by Karina's astonishing lead performance and cinematographer Raoul Coutard's gorgeous Paris streetscapes. (85 mins., 35mm). Complete information. |
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Azur and Asmar by Michel Ocelot
Sat, Jan 10 - Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 2:00PM
Sat, Jan 10 - Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 4:00PM |
| Once upon a time there were two children nursed by same woman. Azur, a blonde, blue-eyed son of a noblewoman and Asmar, the dark skinned and dark-eyed child of the nurse. As kids, they fought and loved each other as brothers do. As grown ups, they mercilessly become rivals in the quest years later, when Azur is being haunted by memories of the legendary Djinn-fairy, and takes it upon himself to journey all the way to Asmar's homeland to seek it out. Now reunited, he finds that she has since become a successful merchant, while Asmar is now a member of the royal guard. However, Asmar also longs to find the Djinn-fairy, and only one of the two youths can be successful in their quest. Complete information. |
Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 7:00PM: Ice People by Anne Aghion -
Introduced by the director and Adam Lewis
"An intriguing slice-of-life that observes the area's staggeringly beautiful and imposing landscapes and the unique challenges experienced by those who work there."—Variety
Emmy-winning documentarian Ann Aghion’s Ice People chronicles four months on the ice with modern day polar explorers in Antarctica.
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The film brilliantly depicts the dedication of researchers committed to the pursuit of science despite brutally harsh conditions and captures an important recent discovery about climate change. Dr. Adam Lewis, who joins Aghion to introduce the film, is an assistant professor of geology at North Dakota State University and a former Byrd Fellow at Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center. (77 mins., video). Complete information. |
Fri, Jan 23 - Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 7:00PM: Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine by Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach, 2008)
A rare inside look at artist Louise Bourgeois's life and imagination, this film draws on over a decade of direct access, as well as extensive archival materials. The wide-ranging portrait that results offers an exceptionally sensitive and nuanced assessment of a remarkable artist's still-evolving creative achievement. |
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| Born in 1911 and a highly respected icon of modern art, Bourgeois was the first woman to be honored with a retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art. In the decades since that 1982 show, she’s continued to show her inimitable gifts in major exhibitions at the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, and the Guggenheim. Her work has been exhibited in one of the Wexner Center's first exhibitions (Art in Europe and America: The 1960s and 1970s) in 1990, in Part Object, Part Sculpture in 2006, and when she received the Wexner Prize in 1999. (99 mins., video). Complete information. |
January 22, 2009: Concert Les Yeux Noirs
The Ohio State University Fawcett Center
Les Yeux Noirs, French for "The Black Eyes," takes its name from the title of a Russian gypsy tune made famous by Django Reinhardt in the '30s. It's the perfect name for a French sextet that plays its own variety and melding of gypsy and Yiddish music, with a nod to Manouche (or French gypsy) jazz. |
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Violinists Eric and Olivier Slabiak founded Les Yeux Noirs ten years ago. France, and much of Europe, are following in the footsteps of the recent American Yiddish revival, and this is the origin of Les Yeux Noirs. The classically trained Jewish brothers stumbled across the music of the Diaspora and could not get enough. They frequented small clubs and met many musicians. These new friendships led to the creation of the band, which combines violins, violoncello, accordion, electric guitar, cimbalom and electronic samples in innovative, highly complementary ways.
"Led by a pair of virtuosic, violin-playing brothers, Eric and Olivier Slabiak, the group's presentation lured the audience into all-join-in musical participation, a colorful coda to an immensely entertaining weekend." —Los Angeles Times |
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Until December 23, 2008: Aux Barricades! French Protest Posters from May '68
Allen Memorial Art Museum
Art incited riots when in May 1968 student and worker uprisings calling for social and economic reform led to pitched street battles and caused a general strike that paralyzed France. Innovative posters with snappy
slogans and stark layouts created by the demonstrators were put up around Paris and the provinces. The AMAM is pleased to be able to exhibit twenty-four works, loaned by the Naples Museum of Art (Naples, Florida), in conjunction with the 40th anniversary commemorative events being planned by Oberlin College's department of French and Italian. Complete information. |
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December 10th: Concert Gojira with In Flames & All that Remains
The Rave Eagles Club
GOJIRA is one of the most successful band that the French metal stage has ever known.
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