(liner notes) Submariner Cinema 1: Jean Painleve

There exists an extravagant flotsam of international cinema; produced at a remove from the more lucrative entertainment industry, or even the prestige of purely aesthetic schools, what might be considered an "expedient cinema" has largely escaped the attention both of film audiences and of critics. Never intended for a mass-audience, and without the presage of a Big Noise publicity machine, most of these films have been viewed only unwillingly: by students in science or civic ethics classes, delegates at an industry convention, or trainees within vocational education. Sometimes these films represent the earliest experiments of filmmakers who've proceeded to respected careers in feature filmmaking (e.g. Dusan Makavejev's 31 shorts for Zagreb Film, or the astonishing sponsored works of the young Fred Schepisi in the late 1960s); more often, they represent the entire celluloid oeuvre of unsung auteurs. If many of these films are unremarkable, the brightest gems are among the most magical works of Twentieth Century cinema, and should be celebrated accordingly. More than this; because these films are typically produced without regard for the prevailing conventions of commercial filmmaking, they suggest the possibility of whole new criteria of cinema aesthetics...

Read the rest in the liner to the new BFI set, available here

(somewhat-revised version of an original article from senses of cinema)

Painleve on the D-L from Ubuweb