Jean Vigo Regained

November 2–23, 2018

This series showcases new restorations of all four of Vigo’s playful and poetic films, plus rushes and outtakes that illuminate his innovative technique.

Read full description

L’Atalante
Zero for Conduct

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Films

L’Atalante
Jean Vigo
France, 1934
4K Digital Restoration
Friday, November 2 7 PM
Vigo’s only full-length feature is a poetic masterpiece on the theme of passionate love, following a young barge captain and his peasant bride in their first days together. “One of the most magical of French masterpieces” (Variety).
View Details
Winter Shooting: L’Atalante—Rushes and Outtakes
Bernard Eisenschitz
France, 2017
Sunday, November 4 7 PM
A montage of outtakes and rushes from Vigo’s masterpiece, compiled and narrated by film critic and historian Bernard Eisenschitz, offers insight into the methods of an inspired filmmaker. With Vigo’s Taris and Swimming.
View Details
Zero for Conduct
Jean Vigo
France, 1933
4K Digital Restoration
Saturday, November 17 3:30 PM
A boarding school becomes a center of rebellion in Vigo’s exuberant antiestablishment classic. Followed by outtakes from the film and Vigo’s witty short À propos de Nice.
View Details
L’Atalante
Jean Vigo
France, 1934
4K Digital Restoration
Friday, November 23 5 PM
Vigo’s only full-length feature is a poetic masterpiece on the theme of passionate love, following a young barge captain and his peasant bride in their first days together. “One of the most magical of French masterpieces” (Variety).
View Details

Jean Vigo Regained

November 2–23, 2018

Jean Vigo was twelve when his father, Miguel Almereyda, a left-wing journalist, died in prison. Inheriting his father’s anarchic spirit, Vigo selected cinema as his means for pointed, poetic social critique. The resourceful, playful, and spontaneous Vigo joined forces with cinematographer Boris Kaufman to realize his innovative vision. Kaufman commented, “He used everything around him: the sun, the moon, snow, night. Instead of fighting unfavorable conditions, he made them play a part.” But Vigo’s exceptional films proved too radical for his time. His first fiction film, Zero for Conduct, was censored and not shown publicly until 1945, and Vigo succumbed to tuberculosis shortly after his exquisite love story L’Atalante was re-edited, retitled, and encumbered with a new soundtrack in an attempt to make it more marketable. The persistence of Vigo’s legacy, despite the suppression and mutilation of his works, is a...

Generations of archivists have attempted to restore L’Atalante to its original state, but the recent discovery of new documentation and a 1934 pre-release print allowed a team led by historian Bernard Eisenschitz to come closer than ever before. New restorations of all four of Vigo’s films, along with rushes and outtakes from Zero for Conduct and L’Atalante, provide the opportunity to understand what Maximilian Le Cain described as Vigo’s “genius for bringing every idiosyncratic, beautiful and sometimes troubling detail . . . to life.”

Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator

Less

Buy tickets for this series

Film series sponsor: Karen and Russell Merritt

Series organized by Associate Film Curator Kate MacKay. Thanks to Brian Belovarac and Ben Crossley-Marra, Janus Films; and Richard Peterson, Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center.

Jean Vigo Regained

Jean Vigo Regained

November 2–23, 2018

Past Films

L’Atalante

Winter Shooting: L’Atalante—Rushes and Outtakes

Zero for Conduct

L’Atalante