SERIOUS CINEMA

How seriously do the French take their movies?

Consider a government-sponsored film and video school that opens Thursday at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris: Nuclear scientists, astronomers, physicists, surgeons, even rare book dealers will join film makers in the study of cinema.

“I want students to go through all the tools,” said president (and screenwriter) Jean-Claude Carriere.

Astronomers and physicists will teach how they photograph distant galaxies and minute particles. Surgeons will explore ways of recording sounds inside the body. The French National Center of Scientific Research offered films that it’s collected since 1895, the first year the Lumiere brothers demonstrated their invention, the Cinematographe, combining camera and projector.

Guest lecturers include Philip Kaufman on technical aspects of “The Right Stuff,” Milos Forman on editing a film (“Amadeus”) with music, Roland Petit on staging dance sequences, and Andrzej Wajda on changing perspective in paintings and in film.

Sixty students have been selected from 4,000 applicants from several countries, paying a nominal tuition of 400 francs ($60). The school--La Foundation Europeene pour les Metiers d’Image et de Son--will share space at the Palais de Tokyo with La Cinematheque Francais, now celebrating its 50th anniversary, the Center of National Photography and the Bibliotheque du Cinema.