COMING ATTRACTIONS

Soon to be a Los Angeles attraction? Paris subway riders are being entertained these days by culture videos while they wait for their trains in the station. Some people became so engrossed recently at a station on the Champs Elysees that they let several trains come and go as they watched television monitors showing Mona Lisa’s smile, bicycles and airplanes. Paid for by private and corporate sponsors, the videos are shown on hundreds of screens scattered in 120 stations on the Paris Metro. Culture videos, or “clips” as they are known, with their three- to six-minute format are familiar to French television viewers. The clips are styled after short word games and documentaries on flowers and animals that filled time between programs on state-run TV channels before the days of commercials.