Notre Dame, cathédrale de Paris

This film was restored in 2024 by Argos Films and the Cinémathèque Française,

with the support of the CNC and the Neuflize OBC Corporate Foundation.

It was digitized and restored by ECLAIR CLASSICS in 4K

from the original 35mm acetate negatives, for both image and sound.

NOTRE-DAME PARIS CATHEDRAL

When the Cathedral was white,

it wasn't cenacles that imposed their law:

the whole city was on the march... - THE CORBUSIER.

It was the 12th century, on the Île de la Cité.

Season after season,

the largest of cathedrals was built

on the ruins of a temple once raised to the Roman gods

by the boatmen of the Seine.

They had deliberately turned their back on Antiquity,

and launched the immense white stone vessel to unknown heights,

as high as they could.

Three generations of builders carried out the master builder's plans.

From Romanesque to Gothic,

architects, masons and image-makers took turns,

without knowing how far they could go.

To withstand the walls' enormous thrust,

they had to launch these monolithic 15-meter-long arches.

The architects' calculations proved correct.

Today, behind the cathedral's apse chapel

lie the dead stones.

Here,

other workers

rework chimeras disfigured by time.

Everything in Gothic art unfolds outwards.

Above the big city,

facing the banks of the Seine:

the watchers of Notre-Dame towers.

Pigeons often