L'are et la vie (French, 1970)

[Music] in [Music] the following is an English language version of the French film art and [Music] life France is not only a country of beautiful chat and Cathedrals but also of many ugly monuments usually monuments to the dead are among the worst offenders but there are other types of unsightly Public Works so-called official art for a century now ugly and meaningless statues to Great men such as this pastor Memorial in Paris or these decorative frescos of the sorun in the same age that produced this conventional work painters such as Paul cesan edar mané AUST Renoir Edgar duar Paul Goan Claude Monet and others were painting the canvases that gave rise to Contemporary Art of course today their works are honored in official [Applause] museums to see them now the public throngs to the Lop or to the Museum of Modern Art is our art going public truly any closer now to the artists of our own time than in the past in his studio in solitude the artist's aim is to create new forms but he must also reach the public attract them with his art but [Music] how the art dealers of the Bank of Paris are often the ones to give the painter his first chance in the neighborhood of the reeden the reona and the r doine one shop in three is a small art gallery for painting and sculpture but it is on the right Bank in the more famous galleries where an artist can hope for major [Music] [Applause] success the ordinary Republic does not come to these openings rather other artists and Wealthy art lovers make up these select circles the result in France is that for the work of contemporary artists has become something of a luxury for a privileged [Music] few to change this the French government has begun a program to bring living artists and the public together in many cities such as here in Amya special Mees cultural centers have been built they are open to the public at no cost or very little designed to make each visitor feel at ease and to help him enjoy and understand what he sees to know and appreciate Modern Art [Music] on the day our cameras filmed these scenes a large exhibit of tapestries was [Music] up though it was early in the morning several visitors had already come to see the exposition on their way to work a high school student was studying a guide to the exhibit and others were busy in the library of the center in the afternoon a visiting Englishman lectured on Contemporary Art in Great [Music] Britain elsewhere other students music lovers were listening to records or if they so desired they could have seen a dance troop in rehearsal we filmed part of a new ballet a combination of pantomime and [Music] dance the rehearsal ended with a finale colorful rhythmic almost acrobatic [Music] the same evening the center's other theater presented a new play by a Latin American author not well known in France before the play is a hit with this young audience a few days later we found ourselves on a beach in the South no tourists anywhere where no sunbathers just sculpture a row of sculpture for a new city being built right before our [Music] [Music] eyes with a pleasing or disturbing these Works seem to have grown from the sand itself even before the city and this in itself is a novel vision [Music] [Applause]