High Anxiety
Mel Brooks' comedic style is one of exaggeration, irreverence and absurdity. In addition, his caricatures can be ferocious. With him, there are no half-measures! Director, screenwriter, producer and actor, Brooks has also played with cinematic codes, twisting the western (Blazing Saddles), gothic horror film (Young Frankenstein), silent comedy film (Silent Movie), space opera (Spaceballs) and peplum (History of the World, Part 1), to name only a few.
From March 27 to April 21, the Cinémathèque invites you to laugh your head off - because it feels good. And as a bonus: comedians and humorists will be presenting some of the films.
Many thanks to l'école nationale de l'humour for putting us in touch with up-and-coming comedians!
Nobel Prize-winning psychiatrist Richard Thorndyke is appointed director of an asylum in Los Angeles. He is to replace his predecessor, who has mysteriously disappeared. On his arrival, he quickly realizes that nothing is quite right, and that it's not the patients who are sick. An homage to Hitchcock!
Mel Brooks
Melvin Kaminsky, known as Mel Brooks, is an American director, actor, executive producer, screenwriter, composer, and producer, born on June 28, 1926, in New York. He co-directed his first film with Ernest Pintoff: a parody short film about modern art titled The Critic, which won an Academy Award. He then wrote a screenplay based on his experiences with Broadway producers, which became his first feature film as a director: The Producers, which also won an Academy Award. It was there that he met the actor who would become his frequent collaborator in many of his films, Gene Wilder. In 1974, while filming one of his most famous movies, Blazing Saddles, Gene Wilder proposed an original screenplay. This became Young Frankenstein, a parody of the classic 1930s film.
