What Carl Sagan was to cosmology and Marlin Perkins was to zoology (and insurance), Jacques-Yves Cousteau brought his gently thrilling ocean-exploring adventures to the world at large, making crushing hydrostatic pressures and the bends seem like just another day at the office. Two Cousteau films kick off CineFamily's “Nature's Symphony Series”: the 1956 documentary Le Monde Du Silence, co-directed by Louis “Au Revoir Les Fishies” Malle, and the Oscar-winning 1964 documentary Le Monde Sans Soleil. In the first, we experience hitherto hidden wonders of the ocean as Cousteau and Co. voyage in the Calypso — arguably the most famous vessel of ocean exploration since the Argus — across the Mediterranean and Red Seas and the Indian Ocean. Le Monde Sans Soleil follows six oceanauts as they live 30 feet underwater for 30 days, and the effects of isolation gradually inflicted upon these men — even in the name of science and understanding.

Fri., Aug. 7, 8 p.m., 2009

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