Programs introduced by Marina McDougall."You alone stand as a competitor to Our Lady of Lourdes, as far as miracles are concerned..."-Sergei Eisenstein in a letter to PainlevéOne of the first to plunge underwater with a camera to bring the subaquatic world to the screen, maverick scientific documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé (1902-1989) captured the throes of a male sea horse giving birth, the geometric choreography of crystal formation, and the mating habits of hermaphrodite mollusks. In a lifetime spanning nearly the history of cinema itself, Painlevé made over 200 films, including The Sea Horse, The Vampire, and The Love Life of the Octopus. His lyrical and instructive animal behavior films set to avant-garde scores were much admired by contemporaries such as Antonin Artaud, Luis Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, and Jean Vigo.The programs in Science Is Fiction: Jean Painleve & Company include Painlevé's "top hits" as well as films by his contemporaries. The series draws its inspiration from a festival Painlevé first presented in Paris in 1946 through an organization that he founded called the International Association of Science Films. Organized with collaborators Georges Franju and John Madison (and receiving a rave review from French film critic André Bazin), those eclectic festival screenings are inspirational in the way in which they defined, and redefine for us today, the neglected potential of the science and nature film genre.Marina McDougallMarina McDougall is co-editor with Andy Masaki Bellows of the first English-language book on Painlevé, Science Is Fiction (MIT Press, 2000). There will be a booksigning of Science Is Fiction on Tuesday, July 18. The book will be sold at all of the screenings and is also available at the BAM/PFA Museum Store.Organized by Brigitte Berg, Director, Les Documents Cinématographiques in Paris; Marina McDougall, co-editor, Science Is Fiction, and Art and Design Curator, CCAC; Joshua Siegel, Assistant Curator, Department of Film and Video, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. We gratefully acknowledge the participation and assistance of Emmanuel Delloye and the French Cultural Service of the Consulate General of France in San Francisco; Bryony Dixon and the National Film and Television Archive, London; Véronique Godard and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York; Christine Whitehouse and the British Film Institute. Notes are taken from MoMA Magazine. Prints are from Les Documents Cinématographiques, British Film Institute Distribution, Museum of Modern Art Circulating Collection and Archive, National Film and Television Archive, Pacific Film Archive, Film Studies Program, and the artists. Prints are 35mm unless indicated otherwise. Tuesday July 18, 2000
