During the 1920s, René Moreau made numerous actualités on places such as New York, Venice, Tyrol, Mont Blanc, Lake Como, and various sites in French North Africa. He also dedicated several films to Paris such as Le Bois de Boulogne sous la neige and La Seine sous le ciel de Paris, both released in 1928. Of particular interest is Ciels de Paris (1925), which shows Paris neighborhoods and monuments against changing skies. Later, Moreau combined Ciels de Paris with La Seine sous le ciel de Paris into a single film titled Visages de Paris (1929), which, in the words of Guy Gauthier, “oscillates between an impressionist description and a tenderness marked by nostalgia.”
As Myriam Juan noticed, the film follows a route combining a spatial and thematic logic, first crossing the city from east to west, then exploring the center and the Notre-Dame area. Moreau also takes us to the Latin Quarter, les Invalides, the Parc Monceau, and Montmartre. The second part of Visages de Paris follows the course of the Seine, from the Notre-Dame to the Pont Alexandre III. The connections are clear, the shots are mostly static. The filmmaker operates like a photo-journalist, visualizing a succession of environments geographically separated from one another, without attempting to create an illusion of a continuity between them. Nonetheless, the careful framings and the impressionist sensibility for atmospheric effects transcend the traditional scenic, giving Moreau’s Paris film a highly poetic dimension.
Steven Jacobs
further reading
Gauthier, Guy, Un siècle de cinéma français: Des tourneurs de manivelle aux voltigeurs du multimedia (Paris: Armand Collin, 2004).
Juan, Myriam, “Le cinéma documentaire dans la rue parisienne,” Sociétés & Représentations 17, 1 (2004): 291–314.
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