Black and white in color [videorecording] / Home Vision Entertainment ; Janus Films ; Reggane-S.F.P.-Artco Film Productions ; an Arthur Cohn Production ; original screenplay by Georges Conchon and Jean-Jacques Annaud ; directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud ; produced by Arthur Cohn, Jacques Perrin, Giorgio Silvagni. The sky above, the mud below / Embassy Pictures Corp ; Joseph E. Levine presents ; directed by Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau ; produced by Arthur Cohn and Rene LaFuite.
Black and white in color: Jean Carmet, Jacques Dufilho, Catherine Rouvel, Jacques Spiesser, Dora Doll, Maurice Barrier, Benjamin Memel Atchori, Peter Berling, Marius Bengre Boignan, Claude Legros, and the inhabitants of Niofouin, Cote d'Ivoire. The sky above, the mud below: narrator, William Peacock. Black and white in color: Originally produced as a French motion picture in 1976. The sky above, the mud below: Originally produced as a French documentary in 1961. Special features: Interview with the filmmakers [director Jean-Jacques Annaud and producer Arthur Cohn] (14 min.); Arthur Cohn: Producer's perspective (5 min.); Filmographies [text feature]; essay by film historian Ronald Falzone [insert].
Contents:
Black and white in color: Opening credits -- German army depends on us -- Just another day in the colony -- Simple geographer -- Matter of taste -- Vive le France! -- Conscripts -- Strategy -- Crossing the Rhine -- Patriotic spectacle -- Machine gun? -- Rising to the occasion -- Community support -- Terribly refined -- Decision #21 -- Christian conscience -- Name is Bartheleme -- Staging the troops -- Peace & security -- Trench warfare -- Decent army of French savages -- I used to be a socialist -- End credits. The sky above, the mud below: Opening credits -- Excursion -- Island of the wicked -- We were off -- First encounter -- News of our arrival -- Mock birth -- Adoption -- Ghost tree cutting -- Back to the sea -- Must be realistic -- Progress delayed -- From another world -- Bridge -- Going on -- Off at dawn -- Last edge -- Which river? -- At last.
Summary:
Black and white in color: A French colony in Africa's Ivory Coast discovers months after the fact that World War I has begun. Spurred on by a capricious patriotism, they figure they'll do their part by attacking the German colony up the river. After all, they have six rifles, and one of them is an automatic. So off to war they march -- or rather, their servants do, carrying the white folk on palanquins. They soon stop for a lovely picnic. When machine gun fire is heard in the distance, they run back to the safety of the colony. All goes well until a young geographer becomes the key strategist for the French, working with the local tribal chief and turning the old colonial social hierarchy on its head. The sky above, the mud below: Long before PBS, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel made documentaries ubiquitous, films like this seminal if straightforward work were only available via local art house theaters. One of the earliest looks into native life on Papua New Guinea, this documentary follows a group of Europeans on a seven-month trek to bisect the island. During the perilous expedition (450 miles, as a crow flies) through jungle and across high altitudes, the group encounters tribes of headhunters and cannibals, observing and filming their rituals and ceremonies.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.