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Le chant du Styrène

1958 film by Alain Resnais

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 26, 2025
Entity authorityQ3221040 ↗
Source-derived summary

Le chant du Styrène (lit. "The Song of Styrene") is a 13-minute long French documentary film from 1958. It was directed by Alain Resnais for the French industrial group Pechiney to highlight the merits of 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".

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Le chant du Styrène” as 1958 film by Alain Resnais. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1958—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1958-01-01. The account is most persuasive where chant, Styrène and film can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1958 film by Alain Resnais. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 26, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3221040. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Le chant du Styrène”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Le chant du Styrène primary sources, Le chant du Styrène archive and chant research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Le chant du Styrène”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Le chant du Styrène” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.