Paris: The Opening of an Exhibition

Film Review by Dean Duncan May 26, 2015

We begin with courtly music arranged for synthesizer. This goes with the setting up footage: the sounds and ideas of the Enlightenment registering in the age of the bell-bottom. The Eames have done this kind of thing before, and understandably, but this time it seems to be purely (self?) promotional. And where would you show a seven minute commercial, and how might people respond to it? There’s really not much education happening here. But there is, no matter what they do, exquisite taste. We have the usual mix of photos and moving pictures, the subtle elaboration of objects, with the exhibit visitors adding a wonderful dimension to the formal design. This may be purely (self?) promotional, but the left-to-right tracking shots they use have some of the depth and beauty of the opening scenes of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Joan of Arc film!