CHILDREN OF PARADISE

(Les Enfants du Paradis)

Thursday, July 3@ 7:30pm

One of the most celebrated films in the history of French cinema, this lushly romantic work is considered by many to be the screen's most sophisticated depiction of the mystery of romance. Set in Paris in the 1840s, it tells the epic tale of Garance (Arletty), an actress and woman of the world, and the men who love her, among them the mime Baptiste (unforgettably portrayed by Jean-Louis Barrault) and the actor Lemaître (Pierre Brasseur). Deftly entwining theater, literature, music, and design, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert resurrect the tumultuous world of 19th-century Paris, teeming with hucksters and aristocrats, thieves and courtesans, pimps and seers. Amazingly, the film was produced over a two-year period in virtual secrecy, without the knowledge of the Nazis then occupying France, who would surely have arrested several of the cast and production staff members (including Prévert) for their activities in the Resistance. The film opened in Paris right after the liberation, and ran for 54 weeks. In 1990, the French Film Academy voted it the "Best French Film in History.” France, 1946, 190 min., b/w