Introduced by Irina Leimbacher. Scripted by Antonin Artaud and sometimes called the first Surrealist film, The Seashell and the Clergyman plays out a complex dance of desire, fantasy, and frustration. With abstract shorts Thèmes et variations, Étude cinégraphique sur une arabesque, and Disque 957, examples of Dulac's "integral cinema."
Neil Brand on Piano. Introduced by Christophe Wall-Romana. A beautifully restored and tinted print of Dulac's 1920 drama of an actress and the havoc she wreaks on a lover's family, explored with Dulac's "emphatic and empathetic portrayal of women's perspectives."-Irina Leimbacher
Introduced by Irina Leimbacher. Judith Rosenberg on Piano. Desire, ever fleeting, and the pleasures of its cinematic rendering are central to these three works: The Smiling Madame Beudet, considered by many to be Dulac's masterpiece, using special effects to evoke the frustrations and fantasies of a young wife; a surviving fragment of La Fête espagnole; and L'Invitation au voyage, based on a Baudelaire poem.
Introduced by Irina Leimbacher. Joel Adlen on Piano. France's first modern studio spectacular explores the off-stage passions of a famous actress.
Introduced by Irina Leimbacher. Joel Adlen on Piano. In 1922, Dulac employed sophisticated technical effects and unusual allegorical imagery for this story of a young woman doctor's fight against TB. Part social-issue film, part feminist melodrama whose real conflict is "between an oppressive reality and a liberating imagination."-Irina Leimbacher