Lumiere & Company

To celebrate the centenary of Louis and Auguste Lumiere’s first film program in 1895, the Lyons Cinema Museum restored one of the brothers’ hand-cranked cameras, reconstructed their original film stock, and got 40 directors from all over the world to make a film under roughly the same conditions the Lumieres had: one sequence lasting 52 seconds, no sync sound or artificial lighting, and a maximum of three shots. Predicatably, the results are all over the place and fascinating. My favorite is Abbas Kiarostami’s lyrical contribution, though David Lynch’s also commands attention. Among the others who play the game are Theo Angelopoulos, John Boorman, Costa-Gavras, Peter Greenaway, James Ivory, Andrei Konchalovsky, Spike Lee, Claude Miller, Arthur Penn, Jacques Rivette, Jerry Schatzberg, Liv Ullmann, Wim Wenders, and Zhang Yimou. There’s some long-winded wraparoundinvolving mainly footage of the directors at work or speaking about their assignments, photographed and directed by Sarah Moonbut you’re not likely to be bored. (JR)

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