Writer, journalist, and film critic Lucie Derain (1902–67) is the only woman city symphony filmmaker from the interwar period we know of today. In 1927 she made Harmonies de Paris together with Albatros studio cameraman Nicolas Rudakov, who collaborated also with Jean Epstein, René Clair, and Abel Gance. Her film is a poetic documentary about Paris, which loosely follows the day-in-the-life-of-a-city structure and combines a picture postcard view on the French capital with typical city symphony elements. After arriving in the city by airplane, Derain shows many of the famous sights, such as Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Dôme des Invalides, but she also depicts a subway ride and busy street scenes with pedestrians, stop-and-go traffic, and the emblematic city symphony figure of the traffic policeman. In addition to those scenes of modern city life, the film also depicts the old and narrow streets of Montmartre, which recall Alberto Cavalcanti’s Rien que les heures (1926). Derain contrasts such images with shots of Montparnasse, with its sidewalk cafés, art galleries, and antiquarian bookshops, thereby presenting Paris’s more chic side as well.
The film includes some experimental sequences, such as double exposures or a shot showing a highly distorted street scene, one that has the appearance one gets from a funhouse mirror. A recurring element in Harmonies de Paris is a shot of sparkling waters, presenting the Seine as part of the city of Paris.
Only shortly before a clock shows 6:10 p.m., Derain introduces the theme of labor by presenting wires, poles, factories, chimneys, workers, shovels, cranes, basketwork, as well as a meat market and the Bouquinistes. Urban nightlife with neon lights, a merry-go-round, and shots of the Moulin Rouge follow before Derain concludes with intertitles that read “the sweetness of life” and “harmony,” and that are coupled with images of parks, trees, nature, rowboats, a statue, and a man with a bottle of red wine sitting on the banks of the Seine and looking up at the Paris skyline. And at the end of the film, we are also presented with a shot of a woman in close-up—the filmmaker herself.
The film was released in May 1929 after its premiere had taken place at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier in December 1928. In 1930, Derain, who wrote for Cinémagazine and other avant-garde cinema journals, also collaborated with Jean Tarride on a science fiction/comedy montage film entitled Désordres, which played together with Jean Vigo’s À propos de Nice (1930) at the Studio des Ursulines. Furthermore, Derain co-founded the Ciné-Club de la Femme, which was very active in the early 1930s, and she was involved in the establishment of the Cinémathèque française, as she helped Henri Langlois to program silent films in the early sound film era.
Eva Hielscher
further reading
Juan, Myriam, “Le Cinéma documentaire dans la rue parisienne,” Sociétés & Réprésentations 17, 1 (2004): 291–314.
Païni, Dominique (ed.), La Persistance des images: tirages, sauvegardes et restaurations dans la collection films de la cinémathèque française (Paris: Cinémathèque Française and Hazan, 1995).
Vichi, Laura, “Lucie Derain,” in Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta (eds.), Women Film Pioneers Project (New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2013), retrieved from https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/lucie-derain/, 17 March 2017.
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