Science Is Fiction: 23 Films By Jean Painleve

The mesmerizing, utterly unclassifiable science films of Jean Painleve (1902-1989) have to be seen to be believed: delightful, surrealist-influenced dream works that are also serious science. The French filmmaker-scientist-inventor had a decades-spanning career in which he created hundreds of short films on subjects ranging from astronomy to pigeons to, most famously, such marine-life marvels as the sea horse and the sea urchin. This definitive three-disc collection brings together the best of these, and also includes the eight-part French TV series "Jean Painleve Through His Films", rock band Yo La Tengo's eight-film score "The Sounds of Science", and an essay by film scholar Scott MacDonald.