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Films

Screening of Beauty Of The Devil (1950)

Enjoy this French classic with English Subtitles


Date & time
Sunday, March 1, 2015
6:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Speaker(s)

Marie-Christine Breault, independant researcher.

Cost

$8, $6 for students and seniors. Tickets available at the door only, in cash.

Contact

Philippe Spurrell
514-738-3456

Where

Visual Arts Building
1395 René Lévesque W.
Room VA-114

Wheel chair accessible

Yes

La beauté du diable (Beauty Of The Devil) by René Clair
(1950, France / Italy, 96 min., French with English subtitles. 16mm)

An aging scholar makes a pact with the devil to recapture his youth. For this adaptation of the famous Faustian myth, René Clair applies a magical theatricality filled with visual inventiveness and special effects. His approach to Faust is resolutely poetic and romantic, bringing a comedic satire to Goethe’s work.

Filmed at Rome's Cinecitta studios, it offers grandiose and stylised sets by Léon Barsacq who also collaborated with other French greats such as Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné. But the film is above all, a formidable duel between actors Gérard Philipe (Fanfan La Tulipe, La Ronde) and the great Michel Simon (l’Atalante, Boudu Sauvé des Eaux, Le Quai des Brumes). Clair had the thrilling idea of having the two switch roles halfway through with a young Faust adopting the traits of Philipe as Simon becomes the devil. While the former plays up his good looks and vulnerability, the latter is unpredictable, boisterously over-the-top and just plain brilliant. In reality, Simon detested his (younger, more handsome?) fellow actor and the atmosphere on set became rather tense.

Lesser known than his national counterparts such as Renoir or Feyder, Clair still left a remarkable impression on French cinema. In 1924 he directed Paris Qui Dort which revealed the free and oneiric tone that marked most of his later films such as La Beauté du Diable and Les Belles de Nuit. With his Entr’acte, he creates film celebrated as a fine surrealist work involving the participation of Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray among others. At the time, he also wrote texts and critiques essential to understanding the avant-garde of the 1920s. He counts À Nous La Liberté and Le Silence Est d’Or among the 30 films he made along with works made in the U.K. and the U.S.

Offered here is a chance to see Beauty of the Devil in all its big screen beauty as a crisp 16mm black and white English subtitled print in fine shape! Preceded by surprise shorts including one by René Clair.

Coffee, tea and home-baked desserts offered at intermission.


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