Le Grand Cirque Calder 1927

Le Grand Cirque Calder 1927 (DVD) (*)

$32.99

Language Selections:
Silent ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
France ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
43 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1954 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
Jean Painlevé

Written By:
Jean Painlevé

Actors:
Alexander Calder ..... Himself

Synopsis:

Alexander Calder (1898-1976) lived in Paris between 1926 and 1933. During these years the young artist created and performed one of the most important and beloved works, his miniature circus (1926-1931). On July 12, 1931, Calder wrote to his parents: "Jean Painleve, son of the erstwhile minister, who makes documentary films, came again to see the circus and seems very much interested in filming it - but he has to get someone to back it first for of course one is not apt to make money with a really good film." More than twenty years later Painleve made Le Grande Cirque Calder 1927, begun in 1953 and completed in 1955.

Friends brought friends to see Calder perform his Circus. They sat on a low bed or on crates, munching peanuts while Calder, on the floor, manipulated his characters with strings and wires so that trapezist flew through the air, cowboys lassoed horses, and acrobats catapulted across space. It was through circus performances as well as in the artist studios and café life of Paris's Montparnasse quarter that Calder met colleagues who would also become icons of twentieth-century art and life-long friends: Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, and Marcel Duchamp, among them. Now is your chance to experience Calder's Circus in action.

This DVD was produced on the occasion of the exhibition Alexander Calder: The Paris Years, 1926-1933, jointly organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. This exhibition marks the return of Calder's Circus (1926-31) to Paris, the city of its making, for the first time since the Whitney acquired the work in a grassroots fundraising effort from some five hundred foundations, corporations, and private individuals in 1983. Le Grande Cirque Calder 1927 is in the archives of Les Documents Cinematographiques, Paris, under the directorship of Brigitte Berg.

This product was added to our catalog on Sunday 10 April, 2016.