Bagatelle for Willard Maas is one of the most talked-about movies released in 1961, attracting audiences with its cinematic storytelling and memorable performances.
"This is a new version of the now famous film made for her husband, the poet and film-maker. Returning from the Brussels fair, she shot this at Versailles and the Louvre. There is wit, irony and prophecy here (though perhaps not apparent to those who do not know Marie Menken and Willard Maas personally). She says only 'A more serious film than ARABESQUE, BAGATELLE attempts to synchronize into a lyric statement some observations on Versailles.' Marie Menken's fountains are the fountains of life. Marie Menken's Versailles is the Versailles of death. The beauty of this film is the alternation of the fountains and Versaille death. Only Marie Menken would have the subtlety, sensibility, sesitivity, receptivity to fuse and fetilize the classical paradoxes in such an immediate visual apotheosis." -- Charles Boultenhouse
