During the '30s, René Clair was considered one of the cinema's most stylish innovators and satirists
Now, however, both the 'poetic realism' and the exuberant humor on which his reputation once rested seem shallow and dated
A critic, and a poet and actor in the serials of Louis Feuillade, the young Clair aligned himself with the French avant-garde of the '20s Indeed, his silent work may be seen as offshoots of the Dada movement: his debut, "Paris Qui Dort" ("The Crazy Ray"), was a bizarre comic fantasy in which a mad scientist uses a magic ray to render the city immobile; only a group of strangers, safe atop the Eiffel Tower or in a plane, remain conscious to search for the culprit and bring Paris back to life
A critic, and a poet and actor in the serials of Louis Feuillade, the young Clair aligned himself with the French avant-garde of the '20s Indeed, his silent work may be seen as offshoots of the Dada movement: his debut, "Paris Qui Dort" ("The Crazy Ray"), was a bizarre comic fantasy in which a mad scientist uses a magic ray to render the city immobile; only a group of strangers, safe atop the Eiffel Tower or in a plane, remain conscious to search for the culprit and bring Paris back to life