Still from Jean Painlevé’s ‘The Love Life of the Octopus (Les Amours de la Pieuvre).’ | Courtesy of Structuring Strategies.
Tonight (Feb. 18), the CalArts School of Film/Video in collaboration with the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences presents a screening and discussion of the films of French filmmaker-scientist-inventor Jean Painlevé by the Los Angeles-based artist Marie Jager.
Painlevé, best known for nature films that scandalized the scientific community but won over surrealists and avant-gardists, constructed more than 200 documentary short films featuring subjects ranging from astronomy and pigeons to sea horses and sea urchins. Jean Luc-Godard cites Painlevé’s films as influences, remarking, “The French New Wave would not have been possible without Jean Painlevé and his underwater camera.”
In 2013, Jager founded the Jean Painlevé Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of the filmmaker’s work.
Below, we posted The Love Life of the Octopus (Les Amours de la Pieuvre).