Chris Marker and Pierrie Lhomme, 1963, 145 min.
A portrait of Paris and Parisians during May 1962, the first springtime of peace after the ceasefire with Algeria and the first time in 23 years that France was not involved in any war. It 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. This restoration of LE JOLI MAI premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2013, 50 years after the film first premiered there. It was created according to the wishes of Marker, supervised by the film’s cinematographer and co-director, Pierre Lhomme (b. 1930).
“Lyrical and argumentative, elegiac and lively! Marker is a dialectician of mood, of place, of history, and of his relationship to others and to himself” —Amy Taubin, Artforum
“Astonishing! One of the most influential movies that you have likely never seen… Levels its critique [with] joie de vivre” —J. Hoberman, ArtInfo
Zoom Q&A with filmmakers Gordon Quinn, Brett Story & Mark Street focused on their films in the series Le Joli Maysles Saturday, May 23rd at 4pm est.
This film is streaming as part of the month long series Le Joli Maysles, celebrating the lovely month of May with repertory and new release documentaries in conversation with the seminal 1963 film Le Joli Mai by Chris Marker. These films approach Marker’s man-on-the-street documentary technique sometimes as a jumping off point for their own process and purposes, and sometimes pushing against the implications of this process.
Due to the nature of this screening we are unable to offer sliding scale ticketing prices. A portion of all ticket sales from Work Songs will go to directly supporting Maysles Cinema and our documentary education programs for young people in Harlem during these uncertain times. We continue to be incredibly grateful for our engaged and resilient community and their support. If you would like to make an additional donation to Maysles Documentary Center you can follow THIS LINK.
