Thursday night was a fun evening at the Ciné Claire de Lune – an open-air cinema – in Place des Vosges, Paris’ original park.
The main feature - the wonderfully melodramatic 1939’s black and white version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” - was projected onto a huge screen, right in front of Victor Hugo’s impressive mansion overlooking the park.
I was surprised how well it’s aged (the film, not the house - though you can see that even in the distance, it still looks splendid, too). The crowd seemed completely transfixed by what must be a very familiar story in this part of town.
This lovely group exhibition - “Gravity and Grace” (La Pesanteur et la Grâce) - was a very pleasant discovery today, at the Colleges des Bernardins at Pont Marie, very close to the Cité.
The foyer of the former monastery has a stunning vaulted ceiling and is a beautiful setting for the work (the piece pictured is by Marthe Wéry, but there's work by the other international artists involved, on the website http://www.collegedesbernardins.fr/index.php/art/expositions.html).
It’s refreshing to see so many small, independent shops, cinemas and theatres still in existence here in Paris – independent movie theatres, in particular, seem to be very few and far between in London and Sydney.
This tiny and unexpected place (the Théâtre de la Huchette,, above) is right in the heart of the tourist district of St Germain. I spent some of my afternoon tracking down another indie outfit in the area – The San Francisco Bookstore for a couple of second-hand English-language books. I know, I know…no wonder my French isn’t getting any better!
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