White Mane

Crin blanc

France

1953

39 Min

Black and White

1.33:1

French

Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
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CAST Alain Emery, Laurent Roche, Clan-Clan, Pascal Lamorisse, Francois Perie, Charles Guillauma, Charles Fouhetty, Pierre Bestieux, Pierre Moureaux-Nery

SOUND Regine Artarit

Cannes (In Competition): Best Short Film, Cannes (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs)

Synopsis

In the south of France, in a vast plain region called La Camargue, lives White Mane, a magnificent stallion and the leader of a herd of wild horses too proud to let themselves be broken in by humans. Only Folco, a young fisherman, manages to tame him. A strong friendship grows between the boy and the horse, as the two go looking for the freedom that the world of men won’t allow them. Long unavailable in the U.S., this extraordinarily shot wonder from Albert Lamorisse, the director of The Red Balloon, is a work of technical sophistication and immense natural beauty. —The Criterion Collection

Director

Albert Lamorisse

French filmmaker, screenwriter and producer, Albert Lamorisse was born January 13, 1922 in Paris, France. He is best remembered for making the exquisite short The Red Balloon(1956), starring his son Pascal. It is a whimsical fantasy in which a French boy is befriended by a magical red balloon. The short earned him both a grand prize at Cannes and an American Oscar. Lamorisse started out as a photographer and began making short films in the late 1940s. The poetic simplicity of his short- and medium-length films gained him an international reputation. His 1952 short, White Mane, an account of how a young boy gentles an untameable wild white stallion, also took top prizes at Cannes and the American Oscars. He unsuccessfully tried his hand at feature-length films in the early ‘60s and then returned to making short documentaries. Tragically, while making The Lover’s Wind (1970) in Tehran, Lamorisse was killed in a helicopter crash. Using his production notes, the film was edited and released… read more