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The Vampire (Le Vampire)
Jean Painlevé<p>A short look at the vampire bat sucking blood from a guinea pig.</p>
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<p>A short look at the vampire bat sucking blood from a guinea pig.</p>
<p>Bucolic scenes from the outskirts of Paris are contrasted with stark footage from slaughterhouses.</p>
<p>Draped in her skin of changing colors, Madame des Étreintes has closed her eyes... Between her heavy eyelids of a savvy pleasure seeker, however, filters a glint of a gaze perpetually on the lookout. Because this common mollusk has eyelids and can dose its gaze, unlike fish with the permanent astonishment of their round eyes.</p>
<p>Underwater photography presents the octopus: breathing, swimming, eating, dying.</p>
<p>A close-up look at sand urchins and rock urchins. At the seashore, a man digs up a sand urchin. We look closely. He sets it back in the sand, and it burrows out of sight. Its intestines take nutrients out of sand. Using magnification 200,000 times normal size, we see a rock urchin's spines with suckers on the end; a drawing illustrates how they work. A sea urchin walks toward a rock. We see three-fingered jaws - pedicellaria at the end of flexible stems - take in algae and other bits. We also see cilia less than 0.001 ml in length; their motion constant, creating whirlpools. On the shore again, we watch the setting sun. Occasional titles in French tell us what to watch for.</p> <p> </p>
<p>In the documentary entitled "Hyas", the spectacular dominates. The crustaceans Hyas and Stenorinques are shown, absolutely opposite in form but always found together and dressed either in algae or sponges, in a setting of algae and sponges with which they often blend in, which allows for some rather pretty effects. The finesse of the Stenorinque and the grotesqueness of the Hyas are associated with the splendor of the Spirograph worm which displays on the screen the fireworks of its gill plume. The object of this film was above all, even in the enormous enlargements of the gills, the decorative research and the photographic presentation.</p>
<p>Examines the sea horse, the only fish that swims upright. We watch it use its prehensile tail to wrap around plants and other sea horses. A frontal bulge houses organs including an air ballast. Three fins propel this fish. We see a female place her eggs in a male's pouch where they are fertilized and nurtured until birth in violent contractions. Inside the pouch are nurturing blood vessels. We then follow the growth of an embryo, greatly magnified: we examine its heart beating and its dorsal fin moving. Young sea horses attach themselves to each other. The film ends with images of many sea horses moving on the ocean floor, superimposed on a horse race.</p>
<p>Using plasticine reinforced with metal, the sculptor René Bertrand, helped by his children, six, seven and eight years old, whose little fingers worked wonders, modeled each character between each shot of an image - and sometimes, as in Bluebeard's wedding, there were a multitude of them. He discovered that by taking three successive gestures on a single image, one obtained an extraordinary flexibility of gesture, but the film was then half done, so the first half is a little arthritic while the rest is magnificently animated</p>
<p>Nothing moves in the water. But in every corner of the seaweed, behind every horsetail root or carpet under the dead leaves, watchmen live in ambush. Eating, being eaten, are the outcomes of every moment, night and day. Night and day, death without anger, without passion, without reflection, without procrastination, without morality, necessary death: it is for need.</p>
<p>I am very attached to the partitive "DES" jellyfish, because the species are so numerous and varied and have different methods of reproduction. In this film, only four are indicated... These are very small animals. These polyps, reminiscent of tiny amphorae, are in fact only about one to two millimeters long. Essentially formed of a stomach attached to the algae by a foot, the animal is surrounded by three circles of tentacles. It is through them that I understood the disruptive role of light, which jellyfish or their larvae cannot escape under the microscope, when frame-by-frame shooting is necessary for several days and nights.</p>
<p>Like all crustaceans, the rock shrimp (Palemon Vulgaris) molts, that is to say, comes out of its skin. It is less extraordinary than the molting of insects where the animal is completely destroyed before being reconstituted into a different animal, but it is still moving because if this molt (every day at first, every week then, then every month...) is not complete, it would end up dying on the spot, dragging its exuvia... (that was to place this beautiful term).</p>
<p>Many mollusks are simultaneous reciprocal functional hermaphrodites. In aceras, hermaphrodites where copulation takes place in a chain, the lead animal will play the role of female, the one that finishes the role of male, the intermediaries will play a double role, female with the next, male with the previous. Aceras live and feed in mud and algae. When the dances take place, they gradually gain the free animals that develop the lateral lobes like capes.</p>
<p>In Diatomeés, Jean Painlevé turns his lens toward the microscopic world of diatoms—unicellular algae encased in intricate silica shells. Filmed using advanced microscopy techniques, this silent, color-drenched short reveals the hidden rhythms and patterns of these aquatic organisms. Floating between scientific observation and visual abstraction, the film transforms a biological subject into a meditative dance of form and light. Created in the later years of Painlevé’s career, <em>Diatomeés</em> exemplifies his singular ability to merge science, art, and cinema into a hypnotic exploration of the invisible.</p>
<p>I had asked the musician François de Roubaix to write some music that he would like, to which I would later put images. His father gave me the cassette where François had recorded some music that didn't inspire me at all. Then one day, it was a flash of lightning: liquid crystals, the latest version of Yves Bouligand with whom I had shot miles of film on this subject, from the first to the last image, without editing, the correspondence burst forth... Cosmic coincidence.</p>
<p>If I made a film about pigeons, it was for ethological reasons. I had noticed in the square near the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers that there were often one or two pigeons from outside the neighborhood that kept their distance from the locals, did not take part in their food, and two or three days later had left or accepted. I wanted to film this behavior and show it to kids to find out what they thought about it...and then it changed. I became interested in these birds... The film begins with a tribute to the animal photographer Ylla and ends with a tribute to Étienne-Jules Marey, creator of scientific cinema.</p>
<p>A comparative study of biology, locomotion and the reproductive techniques of the Brittle Star (closely related to the Starfish). Elegant musical evolutions.</p> <p>A poetic study of movement beneath the waves, <em>Les Danseuses de la Mer</em> transforms sea urchins and brittle stars into ethereal performers. Using underwater cinematography far ahead of its time, Jean Painlevé films these slow, hypnotic creatures with the eye of a surrealist, revealing their strange elegance and silent choreography. The film is both scientific observation and marine ballet—a celebration of life forms that seem to float between science and dream.</p>
<p>Jean Painlevé x Yo La Tengo</p> <p>The Sounds of Science is a live audiovisual performance that brings together the poetic underwater films of French filmmaker and biologist <strong>Jean Painlevé</strong> with an original instrumental score by indie rock band <strong>Yo La Tengo</strong>. Commissioned by the San Francisco Film Festival in 2001, the project features eight of Painlevé’s short films—including The Sea Horse and The Love Life of the Octopus—accompanied by a dreamy, atmospheric soundtrack. The result is an immersive journey where science meets sound, and marine life drifts through surreal soundscapes.</p>
<p><strong>Traitement expérimental d'une hémorragie chez le chien</strong> (1926) is one of Jean Painlevé’s earliest scientific films, documenting a medical experiment on hemorrhage treatment in a dog. Shot with clinical precision, the film captures the intersection of veterinary science and cinematic observation, offering a raw and unfiltered look at early 20th-century medical practices. Though stark and unsettling, it marks Painlevé’s commitment to using film as a tool for scientific education and experimentation—an early example of his evolving visual language at the threshold of science and ethics.</p>
<p>The film begins with methodical descriptions of one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional space. It then looks at a two-dimensional world inhabited by flat mice. It imagines how a human, from the third dimension could interact with that world. It then suggests how beings from a fourth dimension might interact with us. Next the film posits time as a fourth dimension, with scenes to aid comprehension. An off-screen narrator, graphs, and clever photography provide explanations and illustrations. The film asks viewers to use their imaginations.</p>
<p>In this rare and cerebral work, Jean Painlevé explores the mathematical and biological dynamics of competition in nature. Using diagrams, animation, and real footage, the film illustrates predator-prey relationships, population growth models, and ecological balance through the lens of scientific abstraction. Departing from his more poetic underwater films, <em>The Struggle for Survival</em> reveals Painlevé’s interest in theoretical biology and the invisible structures that govern life. It is a pioneering blend of science education, visual experimentation, and early mathematical modeling.</p>
<p>We begin on planet Earth, with a demonstration of measuring distances using triangulation. Then, an imaginary voyage begins from earth to the moon, on to Mars, Saturn, the closest star (besides the sun), and beyond to the edge of our universe. The film depicts imagined landscapes, and it speculates on universes beyond ours. It ends with philosophical musings about the significance of Earth.</p>
<p>Similitudes des longueurs et des vitesses (1948) is a playful yet rigorous cinematic exploration of scale, proportion, and motion. Using scientific models and visual analogies, Jean Painlevé illustrates how physical laws apply across sizes and speeds, from the microscopic to the monumental. Through clever editing and visual experimentation, the film reveals the hidden harmonies of nature, where length and velocity dance to the same mathematical rhythm. A fascinating fusion of physics and film, it exemplifies Painlevé’s talent for turning abstract concepts into poetic visuals.</p>
<p>A landmark eight-part series, <em>Jean Painlevé au fil de ses films</em> traces the boundary-blurring life of filmmaker, biologist, and surrealist-adjacent thinker <strong>Jean Painlevé</strong>. Through candid interviews and carefully selected film excerpts, Painlevé reflects on six decades of work that brought science to the screen — not as dry fact, but as living poetry.</p> <p>Combining artistry and inquiry, Painlevé's cinema gives voice to the hidden lives of marine animals and scientific curiosities, elevating the microscopic to the mythical. Each episode explores a different chapter of his extraordinary career.</p> <p><em>Episode Guide:</em></p> <p>Episode 1: The Young Man and the Microscopic From bourgeois Parisian childhood to the radical 1920s: Painlevé's early days, fascination with cinema, and encounters with surrealism.</p> <p>Episode 2: The Birth of Scientific Cinema The 1930s and the formation of the Institut du Cinéma Scientifique. Early experiments with slow motion and underwater cinematography.</p> <p>Episode 3: The Seahorse Breakthrough In 1934, L’Hippocampe becomes a cultural shockwave — a film that transforms marine biology into cinema of sensation.</p> <p>Episode 4: Cinema Under Occupation Painlevé’s activities during World War II — his resistance to fascism and the role of film as political and moral expression.</p> <p>Episode 5: The Laboratory of the Sea Postwar relocation to the Biological Station of Roscoff. A new chapter of filming with scientists and divers on the Breton coast.</p> <p>Episode 6: Science is Cinema A meditation on form and function: Painlevé’s view of the camera as an extension of the microscope, and cinema as a tool for seeing.</p> <p>Episode 7: The Ethics of Observation Reflections on the filmmaker's responsibility when capturing the lives of nonhuman subjects. Painlevé questions objectivity.</p> <p>Episode 8: Legacy and Light Nearing the end of his life, Painlevé considers what it means to have built a body of work where science, cinema, and poetry co-evolve.</p>