Pacific 231

The text and the video excerpt below document Philippe Langlois’s book, Les cloches d’Atlantis, Musique électroacoustique et cinéma, Archéologie et histoire d’un art sonore, éditions mf, Paris, 2012.

Although clearly more formal and less poetic than Mikhail Tsekanusky’s version, Jean Mitry’s version of Pacific 231 is nonetheless a model that draws its inspiration from the avant-garde cinema of the 1920s, like a vibrant homage to the filmmaker Abel Gance, for whom Mitry had a genuine admiration.