Jean Painlevé

Title cards introduce images we watch without narration; they are displays of shape and color. François de Roubaix's electronic music accompanies these images, photographed under a polarizing microscope. The crystals appear to move like tiny organisms: small ...  (more)

In mud flats along the coast of Brittany we watch acera, small ball-shaped mollusks that are about two inches in diameter. They rest in mud; then, in water, they dance, their skirt-like hood spreading like a dervish's cassock. They spin and spin. The film adds ...  (more)

An octopus slithers into a narrow crack near the shore; we see its eye up close. It feeds on a crab. In spring it's time to mate. A male grabs a female; he inserts his third arm in her respiratory cavity. We watch another pair: a larger female is the aggressor here ...  (more)

After a comic introduction, we look closely at a shrimp. Eyes on stilts, color patterns, pinchered walking feet, a rostrum. We watch shrimp eat using a strong claw and a fine one; we watch digestion. After eating, shrimp clean themselves. The female lays eggs that ...  (more)

At a marine biology station, a clump of algae reveals polyps, stomachs with limbs, limbs with buds, buds with poison cells. This animal reproduces by buds, which we watch close up in time-lapse images. In another kind of jellyfish, the buds grow inside then live ...  (more)

A complex creature. Regular underwater photography, magnified close-ups, and film through a microscope present sea urchins. We see their mouth and five teeth close and open. After injecting one with gelatin, the shell is removed and we see the muscle structure, ...  (more)

Examines the sea horse, the only fish that swims upright. We watch it use its prehensile tail to wrap around plants and other sea horses. A frontal bulge houses organs including an air ballast. Three fins propel this fish. We see a female place her eggs in a male's ...  (more)

In close-ups and extreme close-ups, we watch two small species of marine crustaceans, the slender long-legged stenorhynchus and the clumsy, short-legged hyas. To blend in, both cover themselves with found objects, such as algae and sponges. We watch them move, eat, ...  (more)

After a look at some strange creatures, the narrator and camera take us to the Chaco forest, on the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, where a vampire bat lives, desmodus rotondus, attacking wildlife and domesticated creatures, killing small ones by ...  (more)

A series of 5 choreographed sketches starring Jacqueline Clédon and Michèle Nadal.  (more)

The Sounds of the Sounds of Science is a score written by Yo La Tengo for filmmaker Jean Painlevé. It contains 78 minutes of instrumental music to accompany his eight short documentary-style films shot underwater.  (more)

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An enthusiastic grandfather sits with children in a Parisian park talking about pigeons. First. their physical appearance—eye, wings and tail, and color—and their varieties. Then, he encourages the children to imitate their walk. He points out courtship and mating ...  (more)

This documentary about the life and work of filmmaker Jean Painlevé was originally presented in eight parts on French television. It was edited to remove duplicated material from its original length of 240 minutes.  (more)

The mesmerizing, utterly unclassifiable science films of Jean Painlevé (1902-89) have to be seen to be believed: delightful, surrealist-influenced dream works that are also serious science. The French filmmaker-scientist-inventor had a decades-spanning career in ...  (more)

Perrault's fairy tale presented in claymation with choral voices. Bluebeard goes courting, all six of his wives having died. He arrives at the house of a widow with two daughters. He's greatly feared, but he overcomes objections with a generous dowry. One sister ...  (more)

The film begins with methodical descriptions of one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional space. It then looks at a two-dimensional world inhabited by flat mice. It imagines how a human, from the third dimension could interact with that world. It then ...  (more)

We begin on planet Earth, with a demonstration of measuring distances using triangulation. Then, an imaginary voyage begins from earth to the moon, on to Mars, Saturn, the closest star (besides the sun), and beyond to the edge of our universe. The film depicts ...  (more)

Jean Painlevé short film examining proportion and its effects on organisms.  (more)

Jean Painlevé short film examining population explosion and decline.  (more)