Chacun son cinéma...excepté les frères Coen

The good news: for those of us who couldn't finagle our way to Cannes this year, there is a way to see Chacun son Cinema (To Each His Own Cinema), the omnibus film commissioned by Gilles Jacob in celebration of the festival's 60th anniversaire. Thirty-three films. Three minutes each. A celebration of cinema itself. An unbelievably impressive roster of international auteurs asked to illustrate "their state of mind at the moment as inspired by the motion picture theater," In other words, stag loops for cinephiles. Released on DVD in France last Friday, the good people at FNAC whisked a copy to my doorstep in a matter of days (albeit with a shipping charge equal to the price of the disc, but, hey...it's worth it.) The bad news (well, for me at least): Of all the films in the programme, the one I was most excited about was World Cinema, from the Coen brothers. It featured Josh Brolin as a cowboy in front of an art house theater, mulling over the decision to see either Renoir's Rules of the Game, or Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates. Coens + my favorite film of 2006 = cinematic gold. (How can it not?) Yet for some unknown, unexplained reason, World Cinema is absent from the DVD. (Close your eyes for a moment and imagine Filmbrain having a mini-tantrum at 2:30 in the morning.) Still, the remaining 32 are all present, with the added bonus of extended versions of Anna (Alejandro González Iñárritu), The Electric Princess Picture (Hou Hsiao-hsien), and No Translation Needed (Michael Cimino). As tempted as I am to watch the entire film in a single sitting, part of me feels I should savor each one slowly, as one would a box of rich, delicate confectioneries. At the moment I've only treated myself to a single film -- Lars von Trier's Occupations, which finds the depressed Dane suffering the boorish shenanigans of a fellow audience member during the black-tie premiere of Manderlay. The outcome is expectedly dark, amusing, and the kind of act many of us have no doubt secretly fantasized about. (Well, maybe not quite as extreme, but there was that one time at Film Forum...)

Comments

[filmbo]

Maybe the Coens short will appear on the No Country for Old Men DVD.

[JennyKins]

On Anne Thompson's Variety blog, she wrote, "Filmbrain didn't get the Coen brothers film." I honestly thought she meant you didn't understand it. Funny.

[Ken]

Did the DVD have english subtitles by any chance?

[Filmbrain]

Yes, there are English and French subtitles for all the films.

[Jimmy]

Out of spite, you should throw it up on youtube so we of the plebs can see what Von Trier does to Gérard Depardieu.

[Tom]

Thank you for this tip. Despite an impoverished understanding of French, I was able to set up and account on FNAC and order Jean-Luc Godard's HISTOIRES (DU) CINEMA which I have been searching high and low to find. A very reasonable price for the 4 DVD set (the price listed showed up deeply discounted during check out... €45!) and I am looking forward to getting the discs. I may have to find a region-free DVD player now...hrm. Anyway, thanks again!

[Gary Meyer]

CHACUN SON CINEMA- TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA

Nowhere have I found the shorts listed in the order they play on the DVD. I am listing them here but it is most fun to watch them without looking at the list as most name the director following the 3 minutes short and it is fun to guess who directed each work.
Several themes reappear such as blindness, near empty cinemas, projection problems and self reverential moments.

OPEN-AIR CINEMA- Raymond Depardon
ONE FINE DAY- Takeshi Kitano
THREE MINUTES- Theo Angelopoulos
IN THE DARK- Andrei Konchalovsky
DIARY OF A SPECTATOR – Nanni Moretti
THE ELECTRIC PRINCESS HOUSE- Hou Hsiao-Hsien
DARKNESS- Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
ANNA- Alejandro González Iñárritu
MOVIE NIGHT- Zhang Yimou
THE DYBBUK OF HAIFA- Amos Gitai
THE LADY BUG- Jane Campion
ARTAUD DOUBLE BILL –Atom Egoyan
THE FOUNDARY- Aki Kaurismäki
UPSURGE –Olivier Assayas
47 years later- Youssef Chahine
IT’S A DREAM- Tsai Ming-Ling
OCCUPATIONS- Lars Von Trier
THE GIFT- Raul Ruiz
THE CINEMA AROUND THE CORNER- Claude Lelouch
FIRST KISS- Gus Van Sant
CINEMA EROTIQUE- Roman Polanski
NO TRANSLATION NEEDED- Michael Cimino
AT THE SUICIDE OF THE LAST JEW IN THE WORLD IN THE LAST CINEMA IN
THE WORLD David Cronenberg
I TRAVELLED 9000 KM TO GIVE IT TO YOU –Wong Kar Wai
WHERE IS MY ROMEO? –Abbas Kiarostami
THE LAST DATING SHOW- Billie August
IRTEBAK – Elia Suleiman
SOLE MEETING –Manoel De Oliveira
5.557 MILES FROM CANNES
WAR IN PEACE –Wim Wenders
ZHANXIOU VILLAGE- Chen Kaige
HAPPY ENDING- Ken Loach

Not on the DVD are a second Walter Salles short, Joel and Ethan Coen’s WORLD CINEMA and David Lynch’s ABSURDA, all delivered to late to be included.

List of actors and segments: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0973844/