Meet France’s mysterious master of photography, neglected in his own lifetime but since feted for helping position the medium as an art form, and as an inspiration to surrealists. This meditative Arts Council documentary introduces Eugène Atget, a former actor who began to document the streets of old Paris from the 1890s. Little is known about his early life and the three decades he spent capturing, in eerie tableaux, urban spaces since lost to progress. The film includes dramatised scenes from his life, including his belated ‘discovery’ by American photographers Man Ray and Berenice Abbott, who published many of Atget’s works after his death in 1927.
Recommendations
view all
Directed by John Ford
Avatar: Creating the World of Pandora
McQueen
The Curious Birth of Benjamin Button
Naqoyqatsi
28 Up
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
Fuck
The Class of ‘92
Seduced and Abandoned
A Decade Under the Influence
Drew: The Man Behind the Poster
Milius
Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20
My Mom Jayne
And the Oscar Goes To...
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me
I Am Heath Ledger
A Plastic Ocean