"'Le Joli Mai,' the 1962 documentary that just ended its run at Film Forum and opens Friday in Los Angeles, offers a wide spectrum of in-the-street interviews with residents of Paris and its suburbs that take off from, and conclude with, the question of happiness. The discussions join that idea closely with the political events of the time. That’s why the movie, by Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme, could use some footnotes; many of the events to which it refers are likely unfamiliar to many American viewers (and, I confess, were largely unfamiliar to me before I did some research on the period a decade ago). The notion of asking people about happiness had already played a crucial role in documentary history, in the 1960 film 'Chronicle of a Summer,' by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, in which the filmmakers pose the same question to Parisians chosen at random, as well as to a select cast of friends and acquaintances. ..."
New Yorker: Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme’s “Le Joli Mai”
Slant
W - Le Joli Mai
YouTube: Le Joli Mai - Trailer
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