12/18 LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS - Screening at The Eastside Cafe

Currently I am curating the Friday film screenings at The Eastside Cafe.

Help support the community building programs at The Eastside Cafe Space, enjoy good film & homemade organic popcorn as well!

12/18 - LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS (CHILDREN OF PARADISE) 1945
Epic French masterpiece showcases life and love in many of its guises.
The movie contains all kinds of cinematic categories: mass scenes perhaps with 10'000 extras, chamber play with close-up photos of emotional faces, deep and genuine love, superficial sex, friendship, comic pantomime, tragic pantomime, comic theatre (that is, both the theatre scene and the public on the screen), tragic theatre, murder, hand-to-hand-fighting, pocket-picking, etc. And everything put together into one single film. Even more, whenever a section is comic, it rests so completely in the comic mood that the spectator cannot imagine that the entire movie was not comic from the first beginning, and will not remain so to the last end. Whenever it is tragic, it rests equally completely in the tragic mood. This is literally one of my favorite and least known films.
It may be interesting to know that four of the roles are real historical persons: the actor Frederick Lemaître, the pantomimic performer Baptiste Debureau, the mediocre gangster Jean-François Lacenaire, and the latter's assistant Avril. Lacenaire was executed in 1836. His memoirs, written while he awaiting execution, helped him become the inspiration for Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Some other facts about the film:

• When Italy fell to the Nazis, the Italian co-producers left the project, causing a financial vacuum.

• The original French producer had to withdraw when he came under investigation from the Nazis.

• Production designer Alexandre Trauner and composer Joseph Kosma - both Jews - had to work in hiding and submit their ideas via intermediaries.

• Turning was ended a short time before the D-Day and the director, having planned to distribute the film after the liberation of France, had three copies printed and concealed in three different places: a cellar of the Banque de France, a strongbox of Pathé and a Provence country house.

• A large number of members of the French Resistance worked on this film's crew, as Nazi power was at its peak in France and these fighters needed concealing.


Part of the
The Eastside Cafe
"Viernes de Pelicula"
"Film Screening Fridays" Series
Organic Films and Snacks every other Friday
Feature starts at 7:30 pm
In a Non-Commercial setting

THANKS IN PART TO THE FANTASTIC CORE OF THE AMAR COLLECTIVE!!!

Price: $3 dollar suggested donation
Bring something to share (food, drink, vinyl record, bean bag chair...) for reduced admission.

Doors Open 7:00 - 11:00pm
All taking place at The Eastside Cafe
5469 N. Huntington Dr, El Sereno, CA 90032
http://eastsidecafeechospace.blogspot.com/
questions: olivaresmandato@yahoo.com