Hartt's Patrick Miller to Perform at 'April in Paris Film Festival' on Sunday

The 14th annual April in Paris Film Festival at Cinestudio, Trinity College, will present a special screening of Julien Duvivier’s 1930 French silent film, Au Bonheaur des Dames (1930), on Sunday, April 7, at 2:30 p.m. at Cinestudio, Trinity College, Hartford.

The film will be screened with a new piano accompaniment prepared and performed by Patrick Miller, associate professor of music theory at The Hartt School.

General admission is $8. The theme of the 14th annual April in Paris Film Festival is the tales of cities.

Made at the end of silent film era, Au Bonheur des Dames is a dynamic, modern treatment of Émile Zola's panoramic novel of mid-19th-century Parisian society. Brilliantly photographed on locations throughout Paris, the film focuses on a small fabric shop struggling to survive in the shadow of a vast department store, the renowned Galaries Lafayette. Using elaborate expressionistic film techniques to capture the complex and varied rhythms of modern Paris, Julien Duvivier meticulously documents the pleasures of a bourgeois consumer culture fascinated with fashion, image, and luxury. The film is also an astute depiction of class tensions, sexual competition, and capitalist ruthlessness.

Au Bonhear des Dames features the renowned Dita Parlo, at the time an up-and-coming German actress, who would later star with unforgettable performances in Jean Vigo's L'Atalante (1934) and Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937).

Patrick Miller has performed his piano accompaniments for silent film screenings throughout New England with performances at the Wadsworth Atheneum, University of Hartford, University of Connecticut Storrs, Connecticut College, Mount Holyoke College, Trinity College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University. He has studied silent film music at the George Eastman House, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Library of Congress and has accompanied the masterworks of American and international silent cinema. Since 2001, he has accompanied silent film screenings for the April in Paris Film Festival at Cinestudio, Trinity College.