Cinematheque Francaise

In Paris, I ventured out on a metro line to find the French cinema museum.  After a few wrong turns, I happened upon Place Leonard Bernstein in front of a gorgeous institution sitting on the brim of a park-oasis. The museum inside the Cinemateque had two exhibits: a permanent collection of Henry Langois'(basically all of film history in a visual nutshell) and a temporary show highlighting Hair and its use in the sexual politics of film.

Living history.  I wish I had visited this place 50 and 55 years ago.

Notable items:
-the machine-man from Metropolis. Not as tall in real life as I thought but still a wonderfully complex suit.  Funny that this resides in Paris and not Berlin.  In the German filmhouse, they only have a replica.
-a section of gears from the machine that Chaplin is sucked into in Modern Times
-basically every single primitive camera and/or projection device ever created. I spent hours looking at zoetropes, lantern boxes, etc.  The museum cleverly separated the Lumiere stuff from the Edison stuff with a "choose a side" partition.
-the spiraly box from Un Chien Andalou. It has red piping!
-a plethora of pictures of Catherine Deneuve, Penelope Cruz, Naomi Watts, Jane Fonda, etc. in the hair exhibit. There were tons of other pictures too. Male gaze, my power.
-a short film by Abbas Kiarostami about hair, made specifically for the exhibit.  It was recorded in Iranian and subtitled in French.  It consisted of 5 or 6 head-on interviews with young girls.  The "director" attempts to gain their trust and then get them to cut off their hair.  None of them will, and they sit there and argue with the "director" about why not.  It was quite fascinating. Kiarostami sure loves destroying innocence only to have it win out in the end.  (Close-Up is one of my all time favorite films)

Notable thoughts:
-Hair is severely overlooked in film theory.  Kracauer, Mulvey.....and then?
-Henry Langois is my new personal hero.  I feel like I would've had his life if I were born to see the advent of a golden age.
-Bunuel has beautiful handwriting.
-Cocteau's star is even more glorious in person.
-I really love French film  I also really love film history.  Never ask me to rank history, theory, and practice--my head will explode.
-Oddly enough, the German film museum had a lot more about Jean Gabin (through his days with Marlene Dietrich) than the French museum.


All in all, this museum provided me with one of the best days of the trip from my trip.  Meta study-abroad.