DEUX FOIS
Jackie Raynal is perhaps best known as the former programmer of two of New York’s premiere art cinemas – the Carnegie Hall and the Bleecker Street – who began her career in the 1960s as the film editor for New Wave directors such as Eric Rohmer, Jean-Daniel Pollet and Jean Eustache. Challenged by Zanzibar patroness Sylvina Boissonnas to stop editing other people’s films and make her own, Raynal traveled to Barcelona, where she completed DEUX FOIS (1969) in a single week. One of the most enigmatic of the Zanzibar films, it is composed of a series of unconnected episodes, some repeated twice. The fairy-tale phrase “once upon a time” is turned on its head, as is the logic of classical film construction. With herself as the film’s “star”, Raynal announces each of the film’s sequences and proclaims, theatrically and ironically, “tonight will be the end of meaning.”
DEUX FOIS has been described by Noël Burch as "an intentionally elementary meditation on certain primary functions of film, that could be said to be at the roots of film editing as such - expectations, exploring the picture, perceptual memory, relationships between on-screen and off-screen space - all explored in a series of free-standing sequence shots of perfect simplicity."
"This cinema 'au feminin' reminds us what the imperialist eye had repressed: different modes of editing impulses; what is seen and heard alters our perspective."
– Serge Daney, Les Cahiers du cinema
"About thirty shots, with rarely a spoken word. But this wouldn't be worth mentioning if DEUX FOIS were not the film it is: one of the strongest (and I'm weighing my words in these times of verbal inflation) yet, at the same time, most enigmatic works ever seen. It took me three screenings over the course of several years to accept that I don't understand a thing about DEUX FOIS."
– Louis Skorecki, Semaine des Cahiers
This DVD publication also features AUTOUR DE JACQUES BARATIER, a video portrait, by Jackie Raynal, of filmmaker Jacques Baratier, with appearances by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Bernadette Lafont (LE RÉVÉLATEUR.)
Contents
Format: DVD-PAL / Region 0
(No Regional Code); Inquire for downloadable DSL file/s
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DEUX FOIS
(France, 1969)
Director: Jackie Raynal
Editor: Jackie Raynal
Cinematographer: André Weinfeld
Sound Editor: Nina Baratier
Producer: Sylvina Boissonas
Production Company: Zanzibar Films.
Cast: Jackie Raynal, Francisco Viader, Oscar.
• 64 minutes
• 35mm
• B&W
• Sound
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Bonus Material
AUTOUR DE JACQUES BARATIER
(France, 2002)
Director: Jackie Raynal
• 21 minutes
• Color
• Sound
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Total Running Time: 01:25:26
Language: French. English, Spanish, German & Italian subtitles
Booklet Text: Claire Renier, Frédérique Devaux, Jackie Raynal & Lynne Higgins (Bilingual French & English)
Published By: Re:Voir Video
Institutional Price: $250 (plus shipping), Digital File Download $500
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