F.Standing proud on its spurs, the famous tricolor rooster is the emblem of the film company founded by Charles and Émile Pathé since 1896. And always sings the gallinaceous, as the title of the summer exhibition announces, which is one of the highlights of the Festival del Francophone cinema of Angoulême, founded by Dominique Besnehard and Marie-France Brière and whose Point is a partner.
A good excuse to celebrate cinema, this mixture of reality and spectacle dear to Truffaut, not only with the projections of historical treasures – children of heaven, by Marcel Carne (1945), Silence is golden (1947) et Sleeping Paris (1924), by René Clair -, but also through the beautiful scenography by Maciej Fiszer who in September will stage the Edvard Munch exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay.
Behind the scenes. On site, the Franquin space invites you to immerse yourself behind the scenes of the making of a film to discover the editing, sound mixing and sound effects workshops, spaces reserved for costumes, cameras, photos, posters, story-boards, scenarios, accessories ( from the swords of the Three Musketeers to the shield of Abraracourcix in the next Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom) and technological innovations. Here, the heritage of the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation joins an ambitious policy for cinema and its setting, the auditorium.
Inheritance. The costumes worn by Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon in “Le Guépard”, a masterpiece by Luchino Visconti (1963).
” The challengeinsists Pénélope Riboud-Seydoux, Executive Director of the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation, it had to create a link between the Pathé of yesterday and the Pathé of tomorrow by showing the diversity of the professions associated with it, particularly in the conservation and restoration of our catalog. ” The latter, full of ten thousand films – of which nine thousand silent are kept at the Pathé Foundation – and unique in the world, has been the memory of cinema since Exit from the Lumière factory in Lyonthe first film by Louis Lumière (1895).
Palaces. “In Angoulême, adds the curator of the exhibition, the Méliès room continuously broadcasts the famous Journal Pathé on the great events of the 20th centuryAnd century [la révolution russe de 1905, l’affaire Dreyfus, l’exploit de Charles Lindbergh, NDLR]. Pictures that still give me goosebumps. Next to it, in the Iribe room, we are at the center of a spatialized device of ten screens on which pieces of films by genre, action, drama, comedy, suspense are projected. “ An educational and entertaining journey that illustrates the technical progress of the film industry. Finally, we discover a space dedicated to these buildings of which Charles Pathé was one of the pioneers, such as the Pathé Palace at the Opera which, in 2024, completely renovated, will offer a complex of ultra-modern rooms and will become the headquarters of the company.
“The goal of our exhibition is emotion, great emotion, laughter and tears”, sums up Pénélope Riboud-Seydoux, a follower of change in continuity. And remain faithful to the spirit of Charles Pathé, son of butchers who became emperor of the 7thAnd art, which inspired the future of Hollywood and transformed cinema, a fairground attraction, into a mass spectacle§
Full view!