DVD OF THE WEEK: Science is Fiction

Science is Fiction
23 Films directed by Jean Painlevé
1925-1982, 315 minutes, In French with English subtitles
Criterion

"Do you really believe that just because I cut an eye open in a film that I like this sort of thing? Operations horrify me. I can't stand the sight of blood."
- Luis Buñuel, to Jean Painlevé's request that Un Chien Andalou's most notorious image be real surgery footage.

Jean Painlevé (1902 - 1989) associated and collaborated with the Surrealists in Paris during the '20s, but like the title of Criterion's astonishing new three-DVD set, a 2001 critical evaluation and collection of his writings, as well as the doctrine he worked under, Painlevé first and foremost believed in the realism of science to create what could be mistaken for avant-garde fantasies. A fascinating multi-hyphenate, Painlevé was a scientist-theorist-filmmaker-educator-actor and more, the son of mathematician and two-time Prime Minister of the French Third Republic, Paul Painlevé. Why is Painlevé the younger so unknown with such an illustrious background? Perhaps it's because most of the 200-plus films (many co-credited to his life and work partner, Geneviève "Ginette" Hamon) he produced were technically of that classroom-chore variety, the scientific nature film. Long before Cousteau, he was one of the first to film marine life, developed his own underwater cameras to do so, and attempted to arouse widespread interest in his subjects through poetic filters: uncannily juxtaposed electronic drones and jazz soundtracks, tongue-in-cheek narration, artful winky-winks (Near the conclusion of a film about sea horses, an inserted matte background features racehorses circling a track), and microscopic zooms, with footage sped-up or slowed-down to illustrate life or mating cycles. His use of color is particularly rich, and while I personally prefer his films discovering vibrant hues where cameras hadn't gone before, some of his early black-and-white shorts are compelling because the limitation works abstractly.

Most of Painlevé's films focus on a single organism, and his matter-of-fact titles would definitely get the Frederick Wiseman seal of approval, such as the aforementioned The Sea Horse, or Sea Urchins, How Some Jellyfish Are Born, The Love Life of the Octopus (my personal favorite—so perversely gooey and wonderful!), and Liquid Crystals. What's especially interesting about the subjects he found most compelling is they're typically misfits of the sea, whose everyday rituals could be construed as alternative lifestyles. As noted by Scott McDonald's accompanying essay, the films even seem to investigate "progressive gender politics" when canvassing hermaphroditic starfish, self-fertilizing jellyfish, and again, the sea horse—a species whose males are the incubators of the females' fertilized eggs. Painlevé used the cinema as a world explorer, but as an opinionated intellectual, he even incorporated his strong political beliefs. In perhaps his best known film, 1945's The Vampire, a rare venture above sea level into the realm of the South American vampire bat, he references not only Murnau's Nosferatu, and less explicitly, the real-life vampires sucking Europe dry at that time: the Nazis.

Perhaps his films were more lyrical than informative as he tried to adhere to his "Ten Commandments" of filmmaking, but how could any junior high school student fall asleep while an octopus devoured a crab before impregnating some hot piece of tentacle? (I was never much of an academic nerd, but I would've eaten up The Fourth Dimension as a youngster, his partly-animated explanation of the titular concept, which is pretty smart and uncomplicated, considering that—even with an expert for a father—Painlevé wasn't particularly skilled at mathematics). Maybe the key is to bring in the indie-rock: Yo La Tengo's "The Sounds of Science," an experimental, instrumental, eight-film song cycle that they've been performing since commissioned in 2001, is included in its entirety on the first disc, along with an interview with the band. Want to spice up your curriculum and keep the kids awake, Teach? Get your hands wet with this weird and wonderful new DVD release.

Posted by ahillis at April 21, 2009 3:49 PM