The celebrated 'French Buster Keaton' has finally won his battle over distribution rights to get his films shown again
Pierre Étaix is back, by popular demand. Jerry Lewis acclaimed him as a genius and Terry Gilliam is a devoted fan, but until very recently, the 83-year-old Étaix, a comedian, magician and clown who Paris-Match called "the French Buster Keaton", was in danger of being forgotten entirely. His films are timeless treasures of whimsical, physical comedy, but copyright difficulties meant that his movies had not been distributed, let alone released on home video, for decades. Étaix's signature on a disastrous distribution contract cast his films into oblivion, but 56,000 more, including those of Jean-Luc Godard, David Lynch and Woody Allen, on a petition in 2009, have rescued them for posterity. The end to this long-running legal dispute should be a cause for celebration among film fans, even though many, quite understandably, will never...
Pierre Étaix is back, by popular demand. Jerry Lewis acclaimed him as a genius and Terry Gilliam is a devoted fan, but until very recently, the 83-year-old Étaix, a comedian, magician and clown who Paris-Match called "the French Buster Keaton", was in danger of being forgotten entirely. His films are timeless treasures of whimsical, physical comedy, but copyright difficulties meant that his movies had not been distributed, let alone released on home video, for decades. Étaix's signature on a disastrous distribution contract cast his films into oblivion, but 56,000 more, including those of Jean-Luc Godard, David Lynch and Woody Allen, on a petition in 2009, have rescued them for posterity. The end to this long-running legal dispute should be a cause for celebration among film fans, even though many, quite understandably, will never...
- 12/23/2011
- by Pamela Hutchinson
- The Guardian - Film News
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