ROUBEN MAMOULIAN
BROADWAY AND HOLLYWOOD GOLDEN AGE

Synopsis:
This film, which takes place in Tbilissi, Rochester, New York, Los Angeles but also in Paris recounts the density and complexity of one of the bigmasters and pioneers of Hollywood and Broadway.
Avoiding any heavy and redundant also linear and strickly biographical commentary, this documentary tries to be the abettor of Rouben Mamoulian’s elegant and fluid style.
It reminds the audience about Mamoulian’s talent in having enriched the cinema with his romantic sensitiveness and imagination as many other strong personalities from central and oriental Europe such as Michaël Curtiz or Ernst Lubitsch exposed in their art.
We discover in this 63 minutes documentary, shot in numerical video, never before seen interviews with Rouben Mamoulian by Arby Ovanessian, one year before his death at home in Beverly Hills.

The aim of this documentary is to better reveal the Studios works and Mamoulian’s unique position. The images, recall to mind the technical changes, Mamoulian’s profound interest for the speaking cinema and show the various clashes with the studios during the shooting of Cleopatra (finally signed with Joseph Mankiewicz) and Porgy and Bess which became one of Otto Preminger master piece.
This documentary is also created with the help of Pierre Berthomieu’s iconography, one of the contributors of the review Positif and the writer of Rouben Mamoulian, the gallery of double.

It has partners such as :
The Eastman Theater of Rochester, The Library of Congress in Washington
(where Mamoulian’s personal archives have been set down).
The fact that Rouben Mamoulian had other interests during his carreer and even after he left the studios are also largely recalled because they show a secret and whimsical personality. His two books, his conferences in the universities and museums, help the audience to understand his elegant receding that he always took towards the trompe-l’œil and spangles of his profession.

Among those interviewed :
- Janis PAIGE, actress of the last Mamoulian film : Silk stockings (1957)
. Pierre BERTHOMIEU, writer of Rouben Mamoulian, the gallery of the doubles
. Dickran KOUYMJIAN, University of Fresno (California)
. Mark SPERGEL, writer of Reinventing Reality, the Art and Life of Rouben Mamoulian
. Robert GITT, UCLA Film Archive
. Miles KREUGER, President of The Institute of the American Musical (Los Angeles)
. Arby OVANESSIAN, film director (interviews with Rouben Mamoulian 1986)

Researchers and organizers of Broadway Theaters, Eastman Theater (Rochester), Hollywood studios, extracts of shot statements of Rouben Mamoulian but also samples of his films complete this new approach of the film director.

Broadcast:
CinéCinéma Classic (2007-2008)

Festivals:
Fipatel (2007)
Year of Armeny in France
International Festival La Rochelle (2007)
International Art Film Festival (Montreal 2008)

Press:
“ French director Patrick Cazals will attend this screening of his excellent video documentaries Sergeï Paradjanov,the rebel and Rouben Mamoulian, the golden age of Broadway and Hollywood which look at two very different directors born in the Georgian capital of Tbilissi… The Mamoulian documentary also features fascinating interviews with its subject, covering both his stage and his movie work, and it confirms that Mamoulian,remembered mainly as a technical innovator, was an underrated and highly cultivated filmmaker ”

Jonathan Rosenbaum (Critic’s choice Chicago Reader - 2007/05/11)

“ It took a Frenchman, Patrick Cazals, to make this long overdue documentary about a man who very possibly could have been the greatest film/theatre director of the last century (Orson Welles is the only one who comes to mind who so excelled in both fields). It’s a duly reverent and affectionate tribute we should all be grateful for, even as one might regret its frustrating brevity (only 63 minutes to cover a career which spanned four decades) ”

David Noth (Film Journal International - 2007/09/22)