Cinéma Vérité/Direct Cinema filmmaker Allan King at MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is putting on a brief retrospective of direct cinema pioneer Allan King. The show will include his early work such celebrated work as Warrendale (1966), A Married Couple (1969), Come on Children (1973), and Skid Row (1956), which was one of the first films to use direct address as a central narrative device.

Warrendale won the Prix d'art et d'essai at Cannes in 1967, shared a BAFTA Best Foreign Film Award with Antonioni's Blow-Up, and a New York Critics Award with Bunuel's Belle Du Jour - and Jean Renoir called him "a great artist". Just think about that for a moment.

Jean Renoir.

His recent films Dying at Grace (2003), Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company (2005) and Empz 4 Life (2006) are also part of the retrospective.

The show was put on in part with the support of Telefilm and the Canadian Consulate General in New York.

The exhibition runs from May 9-31, 2007.

MoMa Film Exhibitions, 2007: Allan King.


Image from Allan King's film Warrendale, 1966.

[Edit: I found this quote on wiki:

Il faut le dire, tout ce que nous avons fait en France dans le domaine du cinéma-vérité vient de l'ONF (Canada)." Trans. "It must be said, all that we have done in France in the area of cinéma-vérité comes from Canada" - Jean Rouch

When was the last time Canadians were influential in cinema? Maybe it's time we start doing that again]