Franju came late to filmmaking, working as an archivist at the Cinémathèque for many years, before turning to short-subject documentary filmmaking with the infamous BLOOD OF THE BEASTS, and only embarking on his first feature a decade later at the age of 47. But in the next fifteen years, he directed eight feature films (as well as several projects for television), including several classics which fully deserve to be much better known. This survey of Franju’s career presents a selection of his short films and features, with extremely rare screenings of THÉRÈSE DESQUEYROUX and Franju’s Louis Feuillade re-make, JUDEX.

HEAD AGAINST THE WALL / LA TÊTE CONTRE LES MURS
(1959, 95 minutes, 16mm. In French with English subtitles.)
After committing “irrational” acts of vandalism aimed against his father, a troubled young dropout is committed to an insane asylum because of a false medical report. Exploring the darker regions of the human psyche, Franju reinforces themes of madness, imprisonment and the sanity behind insanity with an actual psychiatric hospital as the filming location.
“In 1959, the year before he directed his surreal horror classic EYES WITHOUT A FACE, Georges Franju made his move from documentary to feature production with this devastating noir about a young dropout whose bourgeois father plunks him into an insane asylum. The great chanteur Charles Aznavour makes his screen debut as a friendly epileptic. Godard called it ‘an insane film about insanity, a film of an insane beauty.’”–Elliott Stein, VILLAGE VOICE
–Friday, March 14 at 7:00, Monday, March 17 at 9:15, and Thursday, March 20 at 7:00.

EYES WITHOUT A FACE / LES YEUX SANS VISAGE
(1960, 88 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles.)
“As Dave Kehr originally described it, ‘a classic example of the poetry of terror.’ Georges Franju’s 1959 horror film, based on a novel by Jean Redon, is about a plastic surgeon who’s responsible for the car accident that leaves his daughter disfigured; he attempts to rebuild her face with transplants from attractive young women he kidnaps with the aid of his assistant. As absurd and as beautiful as a fairy tale, this chilling, nocturnal black-and-white masterpiece was originally released in this country dubbed and under the title THE HORROR CHAMBER OF DR. FAUSTUS, but it’s much too elegant to warrant the usual ‘psychotronic’ treatment. It may be Franju’s best feature, and Eugen Schufftan’s exquisite cinematography deserves to be seen in 35mm.” –Jonathan Rosenbaum, CHICAGO READER
–Friday, March 14 at 9:00, Sunday, March 16 at 5:00, and Wednesday, March 19 at 7:00.

SHORT FILM PROGRAM:
LE GRAND MÉLIÈS (1936, 25 minutes, 16mm, English version)
This delicate, poignant film covers the career of Méliès from toystore and stage magician to pioneer filmmaker. Méliès is played by his son, André.
BLOOD OF THE BEASTS / LE SANG DES BÊTES (1949, 20 minutes, 35mm)
Franju’s first film is considered to be one of cinema’s purest achievements: an unflinching portrait of the bloody routine of butchery in a Paris slaughterhouse. Jean Cocteau said of BLOOD OF THE BEASTS, “There is not a single shot that does not move us, almost for no cause, through the sole beauty of the style, the great visual calligraphy.”
HÔTEL DES INVALIDES (1951, 23 minutes, 35mm, in French with English subtitles)
Franju’s scathing, surreal portrait of the Paris veteran’s hospital. This attack on war is considered (along with BLOOD OF THE BEASTS) to be one of the major achievements in French documentary filmmaking.
LA PREMIÈRE NUIT (1958, 20 minutes, 16mm, no dialogue)
In LA PREMIÈRE NUIT, a young boy descends into the Paris Metro, which is transformed by Franju into a mysterious world of shadows and monstrous engines.
–Saturday, March 15 at 5:00, Sunday, March 16 at 7:00, and Tuesday, March 18 at 9:15.

JUDEX
(1963, 104 minutes, 16mm.)
A rare opportunity to see Franju’s superbly elegant and thrilling tribute to the adventure fantasies of Louis Feuillade. Judex, eponymous righter-of-wrongs and master of disguise, attempts to prevent arch villain Diana Monti (glorious in her black cat-suit), from laying her hands on the fortune of a crooked banker. Thus begins a magical clash between good and evil, where deception abounds, innocent women are kidnapped and occult powers bring villains back to life. Illuminated throughout by the director’s unique sense of poetry, Franju creates some truly surreal set-pieces (such as the masked ball with all the dancers wearing sinister bird-masks). The beautiful black-and-white photography evokes a lost era of silent adventures, but transforms the simple innocence of those serials into something profound.
“Vigo, Fellini, Feuillade, Murnau, Dreyer, even Carné meet together with Henry James,…Breton, Baudelaire, Kafka and Proust.” –SIGHT & SOUND
–Saturday, March 15 at 7:00, Sunday, March 16 at 9:00, Tuesday, March 18 at 7:00, and Thursday, March 20 at 9:00.

THÉRÈSE DESQUEYROUX
(1962, 109 minutes, 16mm. In French with English subtitles.)
“Emmanuèlle Riva (of HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR) as François Mauriac’s Thérèse, the provincial bourgeois lady who attempts to murder her gross, prosperous husband (Philippe Noiret) for the best and worst of reasons: he is dull. It’s an oblique yet almost painfully lucid account of the stifled emotions that lead to attempted murder. You see bourgeois comfort and hypocrisy through the eyes of the sensitive intelligent person who registers exactly what it all is – you see through Thérèse the poisoner’s eyes. The film is measured and relentless, and very beautiful in an ascetic way… Riva is perfectly balanced against Noiret (whose performance here was prized and celebrated).” –Pauline Kael
–Saturday, March 15 at 9:15, Monday, March 17 at 7:00, and Wednesday, March 19 at 9:00.

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