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Jean Bottéro, News from Mesopotamia
Louvre Interviews series
These films are designed as encounters—with people, ideas, methods. […] They use the means of cinema—its ability to evoke the past, and often even the invisible—to bring the viewer face to face with the art historian. (Michel Laclotte, former Director of the Musée du Louvre.)
Director(s): Marie Haddou, Thierry Spitzer
Genre
Documentary
Copyright
1996
Length
52 minutes
Producer(s)
Arkadin ; Musée du Louvre
In this film, Jean Bottéro gives viewers a splendid history—and poetry—lesson. This great epigraphist, and therefore man of letters, is also a practical man. He introduces us to myths, gods, everyday life, and social organization as he strolls beside the Euphrates or explores the ruins of Mari. Jean Bottéro is also a gifted storyteller who delights in recounting the tribulations of the goddess Ishtar and the grandeur of Gilgamesh, or the Flood in Mesopotamian mythology (which occurred long before the Bible episode). His warmth and enthusiasm revive the prodigious epic of a sadly forgotten civilization.