Screening :

Alain Resnais,
The Song of Styrene, 1959

Directed by French Nouvelle Vague figure Alain Resnais (1922–2014) for the French industrial group Pechiney, The Song of Styrene (1958) is an ode to plastics. The narration spoken by Pierre Dux is a poem written by Raymond Queneau, all in alexandrines, whose title is a pun on the phonetic resemblance of “styrene” to “siren”. The film was produced within the framework of postwar industrial filmmaking in France, when large corporations regularly commissioned artists, writers, and filmmakers to communicate technological innovation and material progress. It reflects a broader cultural context marked by a strong French fascination with modernity in its various forms, where industrial production, scientific advancement, and new synthetic materials such as plastic were embraced as symbols of progress.