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Frederick Wiseman's Paris Collection groups three documentaries: La Comédie-Française ou L'amour joué (1996), La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (2009), and Crazy Horse (2011). Shot in Wiseman’s direct-cinema style—no interviews, no narration—they follow rehearsal, administration, casting, lighting, and the nightly demand to go onstage at the Comédie-Française, the Paris Opera Ballet, and the Crazy Horse nude revue. Taken together, the films are a study of how three historic Paris performance houses work, and of how bodies, craft, and looking are organized.
La Comédie-Française is the oldest continuous repertory company in the world, founded in Paris in the late 17th century. This is the first time a documentary film-maker has been allowed to look at all the aspects of the work of this great theatrical company. Sequences in the film include sections of plays, casting, set and costume design, administrative meetings and rehearsals and performances of four classic French plays, Don Juan by Molière, La Thebaide by Racine, La Double Inconstance by Marivaux and Occupe-toi d'Amelie by Feydeau. (Zipporah Films)
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A film by Frederick Wiseman following the ins and outs of 7 ballets by the Paris Opera Ballet.
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A cinéma vérité look inside Paris' Crazy Horse, a club that boasts the greatest and most chic nude dancing in the world.
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