Arnaud des Pallières was born in Paris in 1961. As a teenager, he became interested in theater, literature, and then cinema. He studied filmmaking at La Fémis and went on to make around ten short films. In 1989, he organized and filmed a now-legendary lecture by Gilles Deleuze: What Is the Creative Act? He also directed several essay films for television, blending documentary and fiction, including Is Dead (Incomplete Portrait of Gertrude Stein) in 2000 and Disneyland, My Old Homeland in 2001. For the cinema, he directed several feature films: Drancy Avenir (1997), Adieu (2003), Parc (2009), Michael Kohlhaas (2013), and Orphan (2016). Since 2004, Arnaud des Pallières has been developing a visual and sonic fresco—a constellation of multiple films—depicting 20th-century American stories, reinvented from archives drawn from the Prelinger collection. Through this series of films, the filmmaker explores America as one would the lost city of Atlantis. Diane Wellington, Dust of America, and American Journal emerged from this original creative process.
Remember America. Remember the cities, the houses, all the people, the arrivals, the departures, the children coming, the children leaving, death, life, movement, speech. Remember the deep inner sigh of everything that lives in America. Bend down. Pick up what others have lost from life. And do something with it...
Is Dead - Portrait incomplet de Gertrude Stein
We discover the work and life of Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), an American writer who lived in France for more than half of her life ("... not the half that made me, but the half where I did what I did ..."), through a montage of her autobiographical texts, on images of today mixed with archives of the past.
Gilles Deleuze : qu'est-ce que l'acte de création ?
In 1987, at the invitation of Jean Narboni and Arnaud des Pallières, Gilles Deleuze gave a lec-ture at the Fémis State film school. He spoke of ideas in cinema, the act of creation, art as a form of resistance. Des Pallières filmed him as he spoke. On screen, a body, gestures, words. In the air, the liberating energy of creation. Filming thinking in motion: des Pallières had already reached thi...
Remember America. Remember the cities, the houses, all the people, the arrivals, the departures, the children coming, the children leaving, death, life, movement, speech. Remember the deep inner sigh of everything that lives in America. Bend down. Pick up what others have lost from life. And do something with it...
Is Dead - Portrait incomplet de Gertrude Stein
We discover the work and life of Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), an American writer who lived in France for more than half of her life ("... not the half that made me, but the half where I did what I did ..."), through a montage of her autobiographical texts, on images of today mixed with archives of the past.
Gilles Deleuze : qu'est-ce que l'acte de création ?
In 1987, at the invitation of Jean Narboni and Arnaud des Pallières, Gilles Deleuze gave a lec-ture at the Fémis State film school. He spoke of ideas in cinema, the act of creation, art as a form of resistance. Des Pallières filmed him as he spoke. On screen, a body, gestures, words. In the air, the liberating energy of creation. Filming thinking in motion: des Pallières had already reached thi...