Jean Painlevé Movies

An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the...

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...

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...

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...

A close-up look at sand urchins and rock urchins. At the seashore, a man digs up a sand urchin. We look closely. He sets it back in the sand, and it...

Title cards introduce images we watch without narration; they are displays of shape and color. François de Roubaix's electronic music...

In close-ups and extreme close-ups, we watch two small species of marine crustaceans, the slender long-legged stenorhynchus and the clumsy,...

Titles in French and English help us know what we're seeing. In all waters, daphnia abound. They are crustaceans about 2 ml long, with one eye that...

This documentary about the life and work of filmmaker Jean Painlevé was originally presented in eight parts on French television. It was...

An octopus slithers over objects on land—a doll, a skull—then oozes along the shore into the sea. It secretes its ink. The camera follows...

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...

The film begins with methodical descriptions of one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional space. It then looks at a two-dimensional...

Painlevé’s first film on animal behavior, focusing on the Hermit Crab. On this film we see the Hermit Crab trying to find shelter.

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...

Alexander Calder created and performed one of the most important and beloved works, his miniature circus (1926-1931). More than twenty years later...

Shot primarily by twelve French cameramen (led by filmmakers Jean Painlevé and Jean Grémillon), in August 1944, this film captures the...

Mathusalem (or Methuselah) is a 1922 play by Ivan Goll, considered a precursor of the theater of the absurd. The 1927 run of the play saw five...

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

Jean Painleve short about an experimental canine surgery.