IN-PERSON EVENT AT THE ALLIANCE (GLASS OF WINE & DISCUSSION)

“I’m woken by unbearable pain and since I can’t sleep or pace back and forth, I relieve myself by taking this notebook and attempting to cry out my pain to the unknown friends who will read these lines. They exist. I know them without knowing them. I can just see them in the shadows.” —Jean Cocteau

Beginning on August 26, 1945, the day before shooting began, until June 1, 1946, the day after the film was first screened, Jean Cocteau kept a diary of the making of his masterpiece Beauty and the Beast. Throughout he details every stage of production, as he faces and surmounts numerous obstacles including severe problems with his health, and ultimately the great pleasures of camaraderie with his remarkable collaborators: Jean Marais, Henri Alekan, and Christian Bérard, amongst others.

Join us to talk about Nicholas Elliott's new English translation of Jean Cocteau's Diary of a Film.

Don't miss the screening of the film the day before! Sign up here. Apply code AFDC2142 for free entrance to the discussion if you register for the film screening the day before.

Beauty and the Beast

France, 1946 | 93 minutes | Black & White | in French with English subtitles

Jean Cocteau’s sublime adaptation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy-tale masterpiece—in which the pure love of a beautiful girl melts the heart of a feral but gentle beast—is a landmark of motion picture fantasy, with unforgettably romantic performances by Jean Marais and Josette Day. The spectacular visions of enchantment, desire, and death in Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) have become timeless icons of cinematic wonder. (The Criterion Collection)

Join us for a screening of this beautiful French classic by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau on Thursday, October 26th at 7:00 pm. The screening will last for an hour and a half and will be followed by a glass of wine and a light reception.

About Nicholas Elliott

Nicholas Elliott is a writer, translator, and film programmer based in New York City. He is a contributing editor for film for BOMB magazine and was the American correspondent for French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma from 2009 to 2020. His writing on film has also appeared in Film Comment, The Criterion Collection, 4 Columns, Extra Extra Magazine and anthologies on the films of Chantal Akerman, Philippe Garrel and Ryusuke Hamaguchi. His translations from French to English include two essays by William Marx, professor at the Collège de France (The Hatred of Literature, Harvard University Press; The Tomb of Oedipus, Verso), a biography of Gustave Flaubert by Michel Winock (Flaubert, Harvard University Press), a collection of conversations between Marguerite Duras and Jean-Luc Godard (Duras/Godard, The Film Desk), The Falling Sky by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert (Harvard University Press, winner of the 27th French-American Foundation Non-Fiction Translation Prize, 2013), and his most recent translation, Diary of a Film by Jean Cocteau.

He has programmed film series at French cultural centers in New York, Washington DC, Tokyo, and Kyoto and was a member of the programming committee for the Locarno Film Festival from 2018 to 2020. He has been a trustee of the Flaherty Film Seminar since 2017. Nicholas is the writer and director of three short films, which have screened internationally at New Directors New Films (MoMA/Film at Lincoln Center), Rotterdam International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives and Chicago Underground, among others. He has worked extensively in theater between the United States and France as a producer, assistant director, dramaturg, translator, and occasional performer for artists including Richard Maxwell, The Wooster Group, Jeanne Balibar, Daniel Fish, and Pascal Rambert.

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