Dans la ville blanche
Ce cinéaste suisse féru de politique, d'histoire et de sociologie a marqué son temps et plusieurs générations de cinéphiles. Nous programmons deux de ses films qui chacun à leur manière font un pas de côté dans son parcours d'ensemble : l'un est une observation de la société et des moeurs, précise et froide (Messidor), tandis que l'autre, solaire et radical, lorgne du côté du cinéma de la balade ou de l'errance (Dans la ville blanche).
Paul disembarks and deserts. He loves Lisbon. He also loves two women at the same time. Topographed by Tanner, Lisbon, almost abstract, becomes the most beautiful city in the world. Urban poetry perfumed with the smell of the sea. The journey is made on the spot, facing the window, with Jean-Luc Barbier's saxophone creating the space-time of the hero.
Alain Tanner
Tanner found work at the British Film Institute in 1955, subtitling, translating, and organizing the archive. His first film, Nice Time (1957), a short documentary film about Piccadilly Circus during weekend evenings, was made with Claude Goretta. Between 1960 and 1968, Tanner returned to Switzerland, and he made more than 40 films as well as documentaries for French-language television there. In 1962, he became the co-founder of the Swiss young filmmakers' "Groupe Cinque." His first feature film, Charles, Dead or Alive (1969), won the first prize at the international film festival in Locarno. His next two films, La salamandre (1971) and Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976), were made in close collaboration with the art critic and novelist John Berger, who had also worked with him, to a lesser degree and without a credit, on the writing of Charles.
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