Open City: Philibert’s La Ville Louvre

This article examines Nicolas Philibert’s 1990 documentary La ville Louvre (1990), proposing a reading of its representation of art and work within the context of French politics of the 1980s. The film is situated in relationship to discourse about the controversy of François Mitterrand’s Grand Louvre renovations, particularly the glass pyramids designed by I. M. Pei. The film’s montage, its framing of workers and its contextual politics show it to be more politically inflected than is generally perceived.