A propos de Nice (Jean Vigo, 1929-1930)
Aubervilliers (Eli Lotar, 1945)
La Vie est à nous (Jean Renoir, et al, 1936)

Vigo's A propos de Nice (23 mins, Silent, B&W) is a “kino-eye” document (shot by Boris Kaufman, Dziga Vertov's brother and cameraman) of Nice at carnival time-a town “living a game: the great hotels, the tourists, the roulette, the paupers. Everything is doomed to die” (Vigo). Vigo was called the cinema's Rimbaud, in part for his directness of language: a woman sitting in the sun who suddenly finds herself naked; shoeless feet being polished. Aubervilliers (24 mins, B&W), by Eli Lotar, cameraman on Buñuel's Land Without Bread, is the portrait of a slum where children are the first victims. Jacques Prévert wrote the commentary. Jean Renoir supervised the collective film La Vie est à nous (66 mins, B&W, with the collaboration of Jacques Becker, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jacques Brunius and others), which was commissioned by the Communist Party for the 1936 elections and banned by the censor. This film might be said to be Le Crime de Monsieur Lange in macrocosm-a film about all the M. Langes and the spirit of the Popular Front. Among the sketches is a “portrait” of the 200 families said to rule France, and the fascist Colonel de la Rocque performing an idiotic dance to the barking sounds of Hitler, thanks to ingenious editing.