THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER SPENDS
AN EVENING WITH PIERRE LHOMME

ARMY OF SHADOWS AND RARELY SEEN DOCUMENTARIES
BE SEEING YOU AND CLASS OF STRUGGLE
PRESENTED BY LHOMME IN PERSON

New York, NY (August 21, 2013) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center (FSLC) will spend An Evening with Pierre Lhomme on Thursday, September 12. In advance of the opening of the new restoration of Lhomme and Chris Marker’s landmark documentary Le Joli Mai (on September 13 at Film Forum), the Film Society of Lincoln Center will present a double bill showcasing the range of Lhomme’s gifts: a pairing of Be Seeing You, a radical, black-and-white Marker documentary, with its sequel, Class of Struggle, and a special presentation of Melville’s magisterial color epic Army of Shadows. Lhomme will be in attendance at both shows.

“Pierre Lhomme is nothing less than a pivotal figure in French cinema of the last 50 years, a visionary cinematographer and a trusted collaborator of too many great filmmakers to name,” said Dennis Lim, FSLC Director of Cinematheque Programming. “We are delighted to welcome him to the Film Society for what we are sure will be a wide-ranging discussion of his singular career.”

Lhomme shot stoic Resistance leaders for Jean-Pierre Melville, wistful aristocrats for James Ivory, and dreamy romantics for Robert Bresson. Over the course of a half-century-long career, he has made an unmistakable mark on the history of cinematography in France and abroad, creating a body of work remarkable both for its flexibility of tone and unity of vision.

Born on April 5, 1930 in Boulogne-sur-Seine, France, Pierre Lhomme has photographed films for many of the most important filmmakers in the last fifty years and has won the César Award for Best Photography twice: first for Camille Claudel, directed by Bruno Nuytten (1988), and then for Cyrano de Bergerac, directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau (1990). He has also been nominated for that award five additional times: for Lovers Like Us (1975), directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau; The Flesh of the Orchid  (1974), directed by Patrice Chéreau; This Sweet Sickness (1977), directed by Claude Miller; Judith Therpauve (1979), directed by Patrice Chéreau; and Deadly Circuit (1982), directed by Claude Miller). He currently lives in Paris and Provence.

Pierre Lhomme will be available for interviews; please contact Colin Beckett at Icarus Films, [email protected], with requests. Pierre Lhomme’s presence has been made possible by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and UniFrance Films. Special thanks to Florence Almozini, Nathalie Charles, Florence Charmasson, Muriel Guidoni and Delphine Selles-Alvarez.

Tickets will go on sale tomorrow, Thursday, August 22. Admission for An Evening with Pierre Lhomme will be $15 for General Public, $12 for Film Society Members. Separate admission is available just for the 10pm showing of Be Seeing You and Class of Struggle for $13 for General Public; $9 for students and seniors (62+); and $8 for Film Society members. Tickets to the 10pm screening will be sold only at the box office after 9:30pm, subject to availability. Visit www.FilmLinc.com for additional information

Films, Schedule & Descriptions

Army of Shadows
Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969; 145m
This austere, heartbreaking portrait of French Resistance fighters— sheathed in trench coats, capped in fedoras, and struggling to survive in a gray occupied Paris—is widely and justly considered director Jean-Pierre Melville’s crowning achievement. It also locates the emotional core beneath his characteristic layers of cool remove. Lhomme’s camera has a tender feel for the cool of city mist and the texture of light on skin. “It’s here,” wrote the critic J. Hoberman, “that Melville fully achieved his notion of the sublime.”
**Pierre Lhomme in person for Q&A!
September 12 at 6:30pm

Be Seeing You / À bientôt, j'espère
Chris Marker and Mario Marret, France, 1968; 39m
Class OF Struggle / Classe de lutte.
The Medvedkin Group, France, 1969; 37m
Made under the auspices of the filmmaking co-op SLON, À bientôt, j'espère consists largely of candid interviews with striking textile workers from the French city of Besançon as they stake out their grievances not only against factory owners but also against the larger factors keeping them at the lower rung of the social ladder. After completing the film, Marker confessed that, despite his best efforts, it was still the work of an outsider, and that the only way to fairly document the workers’ condition would be to give them control over the filming. The result was Classe de lute, a simmering first-person document of working-class discontent in the late 1960s, and a fascinating look at the immediate causes and effects of May ’68.
Pierre Lhomme in person for introduction!
September 12 at 10:00pm

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Among its yearly programming of film festivals, film series and special events, the Film Society presents two film festivals in particular that annually attract global attention: the New York Film Festival, which will soon present its 51st edition, and New Directors/New Films which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award—now named “The Chaplin Award”—to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sidney Poitier, and most recently – Barbra Streisand. FSLC presents its year-round calendar of programming, panels, lectures, educational and transmedia programs and specialty film releases at the famous Walter Reade Theater and the state-of-the-art Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, Jaeger-LeCoultre, American Airlines, The New York Times, Stonehenge Partners, Stella Artois, the Kobal Collection, the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.

For Media specific inquiries, please contact:

John Wildman, (212) 875-5419, [email protected]
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