ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the film Champs-Elysees directed by Jean Lods. Apart from Vingt-quatre heures en trente minutes, Lods also made Champs-Elysees. Like the former Paris film, Champs-Elysees was sponsored by the aristocratic cinephiles Vicomte de Noailles and Etienne de Beaumont. In 1935, John Grierson praised Lods as a "master of camera" and a "master of montage" while Harry Potamkin, in an article on "The Montage Film" in the February 1930 issue of Movie Makers, was rather critical of the films by Lods and Kaufman. Referring to Champs-Elysees, Potemkin reproached the filmmakers for attempting to include too much in their films. "The work of Lodes and Kaufman," he wrote, "defeats its expert photography and rhythmic reiterations by going in for too many sequences. Champs-Elysees was screened at the second Congress International du Cinema Independent in Brussels in 1930, its program also including Jean Virgo’s À propos de Nice.
