The Twelve Chairs
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!
Presented by Guy A. St-Cyr
Based on the satirical novel The Twelve Chairs by Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, Brooks' film is just as caustic. In the USSR of the 1920s, an elderly aristocrat woman from the Tsarist regime reveals to her son-in-law and a priest that she has hidden some precious jewels in one of the twelve cushioned chairs of her previous residence. The two men set out on their own to locate the chairs, which are now scattered across the Soviet Union.
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.
