Directed by François Reichenbach • Documentary • With Johnny Hallyday, Les Chaussettes Noires • 1963 • 11 minutes
IN MEMORY OF ROCK captures the power, promise, and fear generated by the early days of rock n’roll. It is also a fascinating study in the juxtaposition of image and music. Outside an arena, a crowd of young people gather for a concert, the camera lingering on them as we hear a Boccherini minuet. Inside, rising French rock stars Eddy Mitchell, Vince Taylor and Johnny Hallyday gyrate in leather jackets and cowboy boots to pounding drumbeats. Meanwhile, the floor in front of the stage turns into a proto-mosh pit (complete with injury), while the police perpetrate violence of their own. Is rock n’roll harmless fun or a social ill? This short offers no judgments, leaving interpretation to the viewer.
Up Next in The Sixties
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Paris, a Winter's Day
Directed by Guy Gilles • Documentary • 1962 • 10 minutes
This is a love letter to living in Paris — even on a bitterly cold winter’s day. Interspersed with shots of the city, we hear from Parisians, including a group of boys on the joys of pelting passers-by with snowballs, and a 73-year-old who...
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The Lion Hunters
Directed by Jean Rouch • Documentary • 1965 • 77 minutes
Shot on the border between Niger and Mali over a period of seven years, THE LION HUNTERS is Jean Rouch's documentation of the lion hunt performed by the gow hunters of the Songhay people.
Rouch has said that he made the film 'to try to gi...
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Giacometti
Directed by Michael Gill • Documentary • 1967 • 14 minutes
The artist at work in his studio shows artist Giacometti drawing and modelling in his studio in Paris.
