The Festival and a French twist
Films at MFA, and fashion in Montreal
With the Boston French Film Festival starting this Thursday - more on that in a moment - why not think about a full Francophone immersion and take in the splendid Yves Saint Laurent exhibition in Montreal as well?
Admittedly, a Canadian show centered on fashion design stretches the bounds of a column about the local film scene, but hear me out.
The show about the French fashion designer was organized by Montreal's Musée des Beaux-Arts (in English, the Museum of Fine Arts) and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It opened at the Montreal museum three days before Saint Laurent's death on June 1.
Included - and here's one of the film connections - is the black dress with wide cream-colored lapels and cuffs worn by Catherine Deneuve in 1967's "Belle du jour," demure and understated for her role as a housewife who spent her afternoons turning tricks.
As well, sections of a 48-minute documentary "Yves Saint Laurent, tout terriblement," made by Jérôme de Missolz in 1994, play continually in a corner of the room. Other video clips of the artist at work and at play come from a mix made by the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent.
In some parts of the world - say, Texas - a five-hour drive is easily in the "local" realm. The show is only going to be on display in Montreal and in California at the de Young Museum, in San Francisco, so this is your only close-by chance to see it. Details are at the museum at 514-285-2000 (no country code is necessary when calling Canada from the states) and mmfa.qc.ca.
FRENCH FILM FEST: The 13th Annual Boston French Film Festival, always one of the most popular events on the local festival calendar, opens this Thursday at the Museum of Fine Arts and runs until July 17.
The opening night film is the romantic comedy "Shall We Kiss? (Un baiser s'il vous plait)" by Emmanuel Mouret, starring Virginie Ledoyen. Other films include Abdellatif Kechiche's "The Secret of the Grain," which picked up four César Awards including Best Director and Best French Film; Claude Chabrol's new comedy "The Girl Cut in Two"; Eric Rohmer's new "Romance of Astrea and Celadon"; Audrey Tautou in Claude Berri's "Hunting and Gathering"; and Daniel Auteuil - what French festival would be complete without a new Daniel Auteuil film? - in "Conversations with My Gardener."
The festival was coordinated by Julie Broucqsault and Delphine Eychenne. The full schedule is online at mfa.org/film, or call the museum at 617-267-9300.
"TECHNICOLOR DREAMS": The science behind the film coloring process of Technicolor wasn't invented out in Hollywood, but right here in Cambridge, in the 1920s. Herbert Kalmus and Daniel Comstock were MIT graduates and they came up with a way to layer three separate color film strips, in blue, red, and green, during the printing process.
This so-called "3-strip Technicolor" gave movies those incredibly saturated colors and was used successfully in the top-budget movies of the 1930s ("Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "The Wizard of Oz," and "Gone with the Wind" most especially). As the technology became less expensive, it was used in more movies after World War II.
The Harvard Film Archive has put together a film series to celebrate the artistry of studio-era Technicolor cinematography, in a program that draws from both vintage and newly restored prints.
Today's films include "The Quiet Man," a John Ford movie starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara and set in a brilliantly emerald-green Ireland, at 7 p.m., and, at 9:30 p.m., a color film noir, "Slightly Scarlet," directed by Allan Dwan with John Alton as cinematographer. On Friday, it's Gene Tierney as a femme fatale in "Leave Her to Heaven."
For the full schedule, call 617-495-4700 or go to hcl.harvard.edu/hfa.
SCREENINGS OF NOTE: Today at 12:45 p.m. and Thursday at 3:40, the Boston Jewish Film Festival co-hosts an encore screening at the MFA of "Jellyfish," one of the most popular films from the 2007 festival. The husband and wife directing team Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen present a look at modern Israeli life through the stories of three Tel Aviv women. The directors won the Camera d'Or for Best First Feature at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
And on Saturday at 11 a.m., the Brattle Theatre continues its Elements of Cinema series. The Brattle has deemed these movies so important to a film fan's education that it's presenting them all for free. On tap this month: "Gun Crazy," the 1949 movie about lovers on a crime spree. Boston Globe arts writer and recent Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Feeney leads the post-film discussion.
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com.
