Paris Qui Dort (1922) - Rene Clair

Rene Clair's first film might very well be his best. Although just over 20 minutes, I loved the concept of the picture. A scientist perfect a ray to make the whole city of Paris stop dead in its tracks. However a few people are not affected, and proceed to run through the "ghost town" of Paris, having champagne on top of the Eiffel Tower and visiting the hottest clubs where all the dancers aren't moving. The film would be copied in some form or another many times over, and it was echoed quite well in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky introduction. I found it interesting though that on this particular Kino VHS release (I had seen it previously on the Criterion DVD for Under the Roofs of Paris) the score made it sound like it was some creepy science fiction/horror film and the doctor who created the ray was something of a monster. This was the American release, here named 3:25, and it was re-edited to highly contrast the fun and fancy free French original. Knowing the somewhat fantastic and surreal elements from Clair, this is a fine start as any to a subversive and always fascinating film career.