Jean Painlevé Movies

In close-ups and extreme close-ups, we watch two small species of marine crustaceans, the slender long-legged stenorhynchus and the clumsy,...

Titles in French and English help us know what we're seeing. In all waters, daphnia abound. They are crustaceans about 2 ml long, with one eye that...

A series of 5 choreographed sketches starring Jacqueline Clédon and Michèle Nadal.

An octopus slithers over objects on land—a doll, a skull—then oozes along the shore into the sea. It secretes its ink. The camera follows...

An octopus slithers into a narrow crack near the shore; we see its eye up close. It feeds on a crab. In spring it's time to mate. A male grabs a...

An enthusiastic grandfather sits with children in a Parisian park talking about pigeons. First. their physical appearance—eye, wings and tail,...

Mathusalem (or Methuselah) is a 1922 play by Ivan Goll, considered a precursor of the theater of the absurd. The 1927 run of the play saw five...

The film begins with methodical descriptions of one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional space. It then looks at a two-dimensional...

An educational film, a movie through a microscope, in two parts. Within minutes after the egg drops in the water, fertilization occurs and...

In mud flats along the coast of Brittany we watch acera, small ball-shaped mollusks that are about two inches in diameter. They rest in mud; then, in...

Jean Painlevé short film examining proportion and its effects on organisms.

Jean Painlevé short film examining population explosion and decline.

Jean Painleve short about an experimental canine surgery.

Alexander Calder created and performed one of the most important and beloved works, his miniature circus (1926-1931). More than twenty years later...