Ridiculous underwater movie pioneer needs your help!

Before Jacques Cousteau but - just as relevantly - after Alfred Jarry, was Jean Painlevé.

Between 1927 and 1989, in close collaboration with Geneviève Hamon, Painlevé made over 200 movies. The filmmakers are best known for their underwater documentaries which delivered previously unimaginable footage of the sea’s strangest occupants narrated in a tone that was more Isabella Rossellini than David Attenborough.

Like Harley Byrne, Painlevé built his own recording gear to capture phenomena that were out of reach to the common enthusiast. The films worked in counterpoint to mischievously selected jazz or classical tracks, but even as the filmmakers anthropomorphized their aquatic subjects this absurd mismatch of tone only inflated the sense of wonder at these alien sea-beasts; Painlevé and Hamon were, of course, contemporaries of the surrealists. What would their films have been like if they’d been born across the Channel and grown up among the GPO Film Unit instead?

Anyway, the organisation that Painlevé formed to produce his films, Les Documents Cinématographiques, are raising money to preserve four of the late couple’s films, including three of the pre-war pictures for which they are best known: The Hermit Crab (1929), Acera, or the Witches’ Dance (1930), and Hyas and Stenorhynchus (1931) (those titles!). The fourth is Diatoms (1968), which appears to be from their microscope slide period!

They’re crowdfunding for a couple more weeks to raise €58,000 for the restoration of the movies through the creation of 35mm archive copies and hi-res digital prints for an eventual Blu-ray release. Perks include some snazzy sea-life posters, catalogues, streaming subscriptions, and of course the chance to have your name in the new credits not too far under the celebrated monikers of Painlevé and Hamon.

The project is supported by the fabulous online art film curators MUBI, who also supported UNIVERSAL EAR’s project manager and chief underwater movie crowdfunding campaign correspondent during his MFA, so you can see some pretty reasonable and well-tuned folks give the project their stamp of approval. Stump up today! Become a part of underwater movie history!