English
FrançaisParis qui dort
- Production : France, 1923
- Length : 63 min at 20 frames/second
- Orchestration : 1st violin, 2nd violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, Clarinet, Bassoon, French Horn, Piano
English title “The Crazy Ray”
Scenario :
Albert, the night watchman on the Eiffel Tower, wakes up one morning to discover that nothing is moving in the city. Life has come to a standstill, the Parisians are frozen like statues, all clocks have stopped at 3.25 am. Five people, among them a thief and a policeman assigned to guard him, arrive by plane from Marseilles to find the airport personnel petrified. In a street, they meet Albert, steal a taxi and have the time of their lives while Paris sleeps…
The Director :
René Clair
Born under the name of René Chomette in 1898, René Clair René Clair started life as a journalist and then turned to the cinema in 1920. At first an actor and assistant director, he started making films with Paris qui dort and Entr’acte (1924), a pearl of the surrealist cinema.
Commercial success and critical acclaim came with the brilliant farce comedy, An Italian Straw Hat (1927) followed by his famous early musical talkies, Le Million (1931) and A nous la liberté (1932). He continued his career in Hollywood during the war and came back to France to make the films of his mature years, Le Silence est d’or (1947) et Les Grandes manœuvres (1955). René Clair was elected to the Académie Française in 1960 and died in 1981.
The Composer :
Gabriel Thibaudeau
During the last 25 years, Antonio Coppola has written numerous scores for silent movies. Today, he is considered to be one of the most knowledgeable and experienced musicians in this very specialised field.
Born in Rome in 1956, he studied piano, composition and conducting at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory. In 1973, he started work as a pianist for theatrical productions and contemporary dance. When in 1975 he accompanied a silent movie on the piano for the first time, he immediately decided to cease his other musical activities and devote himself to this. Since 1975, he has been invited to play at hundreds of silent movie projections in cinemas throughout Italy, France, Germany, the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Greece and England.
He has given courses on the musical accompaniment of silent movies in numerous universities in Europe and throughout the world.
