Beauty and the Devil
Making lists is an activity moviegoers are fond of. Every year, the same ritual: compilation of the ten best films, with comparative analyses, debates, heated discussions. But what about the ultimate list of the most outstanding films in the history of cinema? That is to say, those films that must be seen, those that have forever transformed the art of cinema, but also our way of seeing a culture, of understanding the world as well as our own lives? This program aims to tackle this challenge with nearly eighty films, produced between 1916 and 1960, while waiting for your lists!
Throughout the ages, Faust has been a cursed magician, an ambitious aesthete, a passionate genius or the utopian of a better world. Embodied by Michel Simon, both Faust and Mephistopheles, he becomes an angel and a demon, just like his interpreter.
René Clair
René Clair (11 November 1898 – 15 March 1981) born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker and writer. He first established his reputation in the 1920s as a director of silent films in which comedy was often mingled with fantasy. He went on to make some of the most innovative early sound films in France, before going abroad to work in the UK and USA for more than a decade. Returning to France after World War II, he continued to make films that were characterised by their elegance and wit, often presenting a nostalgic view of French life in earlier years. He was elected to the Académie française in 1960. Clair's best known films include Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (The Italian Straw Hat, 1928), Sous les toits de Paris (Under the Roofs of Paris, 1930), Le Million (1931), À nous la liberté (1931), I Married a Witch (1942), and And Then There Were None (1945).
