Friday, May 12, 2017
132 - Place de la Republique, 1974, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
One Paris street corner.
Ten days.
Two cameras.
Lots of people.
Louis Malle.
An elderly gentleman walks through the Place without knowing Malle has been filming him for fifteen minutes.
A woman walks quickly past him, thinking he is trying to pick her up.
A woman refuses to believe they are filming her because in order to make a movie you must have actors. And she is not an actress. They talk to her. She is a happy person.
A woman sells wigs on the street corner. She shows him. She describes it. The people try them on. They select one. She places it on their heads. She cuts and styles it. They pay. They walk away wearing it.
Men too?
Yes, men too.
They are not embarrassed?
No.
If they are balding?
Not only that. Sometimes for a change of color. Sometimes as a joke. Also the men who perform at Madame Arthur's place. They come buy wigs twice a year.
The wig saleswoman is from Israel. Her friends invited her to visit Paris. She liked it. She stayed. She has been here ten years.
A elderly woman sings! Margot.
"One morning in the gutter in Montparnasse / Where for the first time I opened the door"
These lyrics are interesting! What happens next?
We do not find out.
She moves immediately into "Yes, Sir, that's my baby / No, Sir, I don't mean maybe . . ."
Then she tells us she is out here hustling.
"I console suffering humanity."
She shows off her legs.
"You laugh like I'm crazy, but I'm not. My mind's as clear as ever. But I'll go home like a real sucker and have a good cry. My poor husband died three months ago. Throat cancer. He breathed through a tube through his neck. . . . Thirty-eight years together. But the bus rolls on. What do you expect me to do?"
A man carries pictures in his pocket. He wants to make them bigger. He wants enlargements. He is looking for the store that makes enlargements.
A woman talks about how she puts up foreigners in her home.
A man sits on a bench playing the violin. Born in 1882. He shows his identification card to prove it. He is 92.
A woman sells lottery tickets.
A girl recently won 15 francs. She says you need 110,000 francs a month these days to make it.
A street cleaner recently won a million.
You sell a lot of winning tickets?
No. Never.
A woman worked in the metalworking industry. They retired me because they couldn't fire me. Not at my age.
A young woman is drawn to the camera. She wants to promote her mother-in-law.
Her mother-in-law is an aspiring actress. She is famous throughout Paris. She works at the Chatelet Theatre. She started there at age 13. She has done television.
Do we know her?
You will soon!
Her name is Gloria France.
I think I worked with her once.
Louis Malle did work with Gloria France once. She appeared in his 1962 film A Very Private Affair, 12 years ago.
A woman says her ideal of happiness is for a man to take care of her. He goes to work. She stays home. He comes home and she takes care of him.
Louis Malle says some women do not want that these days.
She says, That is because they do not like housework. They want to get out of the house. I want a man to take care of me. I want to take care of him. That is happiness.
A man fights with a police officer about being double parked.
A Jewish man from Poland tells his story. He used to wear the yellow star. He used to hide. Now he lives freely in France. He loves France.
A man talks about growing up Catholic on a farm. What his life was like. Awakening early. Feeding animals. Going to church.
We watch construction workers work on the street. A woman setting up umbrellas on the patio of her café. A woman holding her hand in front of her face so as not to be seen. The wig woman again.
A man who works on the fire hydrants explains that he has the authority to give parking tickets if necessary. He is not with the police, but he has the authority to give tickets if people are illegally parked and preventing him from doing his job.
A woman tells Louis Malle about Jesus.
She is 76 years old. She speaks to Him. He counsels her. Louis Malle asks, How? Does He talk to you? No. But we receive His message in our hearts.
Louis Malle listens.
She had cataracts in both her eyes. She prayed and she was healed. She was short-sighted and wore glasses for 54 years. Last Easter she stopped wearing them. Thank you, Lord.
She has passed out 100,000 tracts in two years.
Sometimes people are cruel to her. But it does not touch her.
Louis Malle talks to another man handing out tracts.
The man says policemen and police chiefs are returning to the Bible, returning to Jesus Christ. He has a job, as a welder, at night. He hands out tracts during the day. He sleeps in the afternoon and evening.
Malle talks to a 51-year old construction worker looking for work. The man says they hire temps now.
He talks to another woman who sells lottery tickets. She says you make a lot of friends selling lottery tickets. They come by on a regular basis and talk to you.
A woman tells him a man just stole her purse.
Another woman sits and counts her money.
Some men play dominoes. Sometimes they play cards.
A 92-year old woman comes to feed the birds.
A child rides on a ride.
A man is on disability.
An alcoholic brags that he is a ladies' man.
"Love lasts six months or a year."
He knows. He is an expert.
Another man says his wife is silly. Stubborn. She thinks she is always right.
They let a pretty girl hold the camera. Listen to the headphones. They put her to work.
She starts interviewing for them.
She asks a man if he has ever cheated on his wife. He says he is divorced. He claims to have had 400 girlfriends. And to have had the clap five or six times. And syphilis once. She laughs. Back when he was 45, his midlife crisis hit full force. He tells her he was really in love. And she loved him. But money problems got in the way. Money problems killed the marriage. It is always money.
The girl offers to walk with him. He says he does not have any money. She says not like that. But to talk. His face lights up. He will be the envy of the sidewalk. All the men will be jealous. He says she will enjoy his company. He explains that older men are smarter than younger men. Because of their experience. After younger men have had 1,500 women like he has, then they will understand.
Wait.
It was 400 women a minute ago. Now it is 1,500. He sure works fast.
Louis Malle ends by talking to a cross-eye German woman with the bicycle. He had spoken with her before.
She talks about Hitler. And how difficult he had made life for them in Paris. Back during the war.
Louis Malle is a good listener. He has spent ten days talking to many people. Openly. Curiously. Without judgment.
He ends with a quotation.
"Why," he said, "should one not tolerate this life, when so little suffices to deprive one of it." - Raymond Queneau.
Louis Malle seems to be a good guy.
Friday, May 12, 2017
Thursday, May 11, 2017
131 - Human, Too Human (Humain, Trop Humain), 1973, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
131 - Human, Too Human (Humain, Trop Humain), 1973, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
I'm not smearing Peugeot, but this is the hottest car now.
That is what an attendee says at an auto show.
About a 1973 Citroen.
A what?
A Citroen. It is a French car.
Have you never heard of it?
You have now.
French carmakers include Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, Venturi, Bugatti, and Alpine.
Louis Malle has taken his camera to the Citroen auto plant.
He opens on a farm with cows.
Then he pans across the road and looks at the outside of the auto plant. With its uniquely shaped zigzag roofline.
As choral voices sing, a woman pushes a joystick to move a hanging, sliding crane across a vast warehouse of coiled sheet steel to move one coil into position.
She lowers it onto a platform.
The platform rises.
The coil is engaged. It spins through a press which cuts it into sheets. And slides them into a stack. With a whip-smash sound.
For the next seventy-seven minutes we watch, without commentary, the inner workings of the auto plant. We abandon it for just a bit to visit the auto show.
Where the comments of the unsuspecting attendees are juxtaposed with the processes of the plant workers.
This film is a little boy's dream.
If you grew up watching children's shows such as Captain Kangaroo, then you were treated to 30-, 60-, and 90-second snippets of factory life.
Remember the one that took you inside the Wrigley's chewing gum plant?
You could not get enough of it.
Louis Malle has done his viewers a favor by providing this inner look without commentary of any kind.
We see welders, riveters, hammerers, screwers, flippers, seamstresses, sanders, grinders, buffers, polishers, painters, wirecutters, people who place nuts on bolts, and all kinds of jobs the names of which we do not know.
The workplace has a rhythm. A sound. A look. A feel.
The people work with competence and confidence.
Mostly quietly.
Without hovering supervision.
Each is in charge of his own section.
Each is an integral part of the steady process.
It is the opposite of Charlie Chaplain's Modern Times. His film showed the assembly line as dehumanizing. This film shows it as human. And skillfully so.
You observe the faces of the people.
And their clothing.
The occasional uniform. Coveralls. Aprons. Lab coats.
But mostly people wearing their own clothes. Pants and dresses. Skirts and nylons. A woman standing on wedges. Most people standing.
Dangling hair and dangling jewelry. No hair nets. No lab caps.
Dangling cigarettes with long ashes. You never once see someone stopping to ash his cigarette. His hands are too busy working. The cigarette just dangles. The ash just hangs.
Men welding without safety glasses.
Times have changed.
Perhaps Malle's only commentary comes in his odd choice to title his film after Friedrich Nietzsche's aphoristic book.
The connection is not immediately obvious from the footage.
Perhaps it is to a Marxist. Or someone who can find something to complain about in everything.
But this is not The Jungle. The workers are not portrayed as victims. Malle is not complaining. The workers are shown to be capable, healthy, and strong.
And one can glean from the film the concept of the work ethic.
The belief in work as a moral good.
Now, who would like to buy one of these ugly little cars?
131 - Human, Too Human (Humain, Trop Humain), 1973, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
I'm not smearing Peugeot, but this is the hottest car now.
That is what an attendee says at an auto show.
About a 1973 Citroen.
A what?
A Citroen. It is a French car.
Have you never heard of it?
You have now.
French carmakers include Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, Venturi, Bugatti, and Alpine.
Louis Malle has taken his camera to the Citroen auto plant.
He opens on a farm with cows.
Then he pans across the road and looks at the outside of the auto plant. With its uniquely shaped zigzag roofline.
As choral voices sing, a woman pushes a joystick to move a hanging, sliding crane across a vast warehouse of coiled sheet steel to move one coil into position.
She lowers it onto a platform.
The platform rises.
The coil is engaged. It spins through a press which cuts it into sheets. And slides them into a stack. With a whip-smash sound.
For the next seventy-seven minutes we watch, without commentary, the inner workings of the auto plant. We abandon it for just a bit to visit the auto show.
Where the comments of the unsuspecting attendees are juxtaposed with the processes of the plant workers.
This film is a little boy's dream.
If you grew up watching children's shows such as Captain Kangaroo, then you were treated to 30-, 60-, and 90-second snippets of factory life.
Remember the one that took you inside the Wrigley's chewing gum plant?
You could not get enough of it.
Louis Malle has done his viewers a favor by providing this inner look without commentary of any kind.
We see welders, riveters, hammerers, screwers, flippers, seamstresses, sanders, grinders, buffers, polishers, painters, wirecutters, people who place nuts on bolts, and all kinds of jobs the names of which we do not know.
The workplace has a rhythm. A sound. A look. A feel.
The people work with competence and confidence.
Mostly quietly.
Without hovering supervision.
Each is in charge of his own section.
Each is an integral part of the steady process.
It is the opposite of Charlie Chaplain's Modern Times. His film showed the assembly line as dehumanizing. This film shows it as human. And skillfully so.
You observe the faces of the people.
And their clothing.
The occasional uniform. Coveralls. Aprons. Lab coats.
But mostly people wearing their own clothes. Pants and dresses. Skirts and nylons. A woman standing on wedges. Most people standing.
Dangling hair and dangling jewelry. No hair nets. No lab caps.
Dangling cigarettes with long ashes. You never once see someone stopping to ash his cigarette. His hands are too busy working. The cigarette just dangles. The ash just hangs.
Men welding without safety glasses.
Times have changed.
Perhaps Malle's only commentary comes in his odd choice to title his film after Friedrich Nietzsche's aphoristic book.
The connection is not immediately obvious from the footage.
Perhaps it is to a Marxist. Or someone who can find something to complain about in everything.
But this is not The Jungle. The workers are not portrayed as victims. Malle is not complaining. The workers are shown to be capable, healthy, and strong.
And one can glean from the film the concept of the work ethic.
The belief in work as a moral good.
Now, who would like to buy one of these ugly little cars?
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
130 - Vive le Tour (Long Live the Tour!), 1962, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
130 - Vive le Tour (Long Live the Tour!), 1962, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
"Now let's talk about doping. In cycling slang, doping is called 'the charge,' and 'the charge' is killing this profession. Now every time someone quits, he's under suspicion.
This racer told us he must have eaten some bad fish. That same day, ten racers quit, and each said he'd eaten bad fish.
Contrary to popular belief, doping doesn't give you extra strength. It simply suppresses the pain. The doped-up athlete no longer knows his limits. He's nothing more than a pedaling machine."
Those words were written in 1962.
Nine years before Lance Armstrong was born.
42 years before he won his first Tour.
Do you think he started the problem?
Or was he born into it?
Louis Malle has made a documentary about the Tour de France.
And it is delightful.
It looks and feels like a film you may have seen at a Disney park when you were a child.
Or a film you saw in the cafeteria in the fourth grade.
The haircuts. The clothing. The film stock.
These racers are tremendous athletes. There is nothing about watching this film that makes you think they were less competitive than the racers of today. They are fierce.
They reach speeds of 37 mph and maintain it.
The racers climb from an altitude of 600 feet to an altitude of 6,000 feet. They descend to 800. Then they climb to 9,000.
They experience extreme changes in temperature and air pressure.
They eat, drink, urinate, and even sleep while racing.
The film features Rick Van Looy and Federico Bahamontes. King of the Mountains.
It makes you want to get out and exercise.
To compete.
To turn your own body into a racing machine.
Long live the Tour.
130 - Vive le Tour (Long Live the Tour!), 1962, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
"Now let's talk about doping. In cycling slang, doping is called 'the charge,' and 'the charge' is killing this profession. Now every time someone quits, he's under suspicion.
This racer told us he must have eaten some bad fish. That same day, ten racers quit, and each said he'd eaten bad fish.
Contrary to popular belief, doping doesn't give you extra strength. It simply suppresses the pain. The doped-up athlete no longer knows his limits. He's nothing more than a pedaling machine."
Those words were written in 1962.
Nine years before Lance Armstrong was born.
42 years before he won his first Tour.
Do you think he started the problem?
Or was he born into it?
Louis Malle has made a documentary about the Tour de France.
And it is delightful.
It looks and feels like a film you may have seen at a Disney park when you were a child.
Or a film you saw in the cafeteria in the fourth grade.
The haircuts. The clothing. The film stock.
These racers are tremendous athletes. There is nothing about watching this film that makes you think they were less competitive than the racers of today. They are fierce.
They reach speeds of 37 mph and maintain it.
The racers climb from an altitude of 600 feet to an altitude of 6,000 feet. They descend to 800. Then they climb to 9,000.
They experience extreme changes in temperature and air pressure.
They eat, drink, urinate, and even sleep while racing.
The film features Rick Van Looy and Federico Bahamontes. King of the Mountains.
It makes you want to get out and exercise.
To compete.
To turn your own body into a racing machine.
Long live the Tour.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
129 - Elevator to the Gallows, 1958, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
129 - Elevator to the Gallows, 1958, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
Two words: Miles Davis.
That is reason enough to watch this movie. Or listen to it, as it were.
Julien Tavernier did not kill the German tourist couple.
We know he did not. We saw who did.
It was Romeo and Juliet. Louis and Veronique. The star-crossed lover kids who tried to commit suicide by poison together after having committed the real crime.
But his car was found at the scene. And his raincoat. And his signature on the motel guest book.
So he needs an alibi.
It just so happens he has the perfect alibi. He was trapped in an elevator shaft at the time, and someone else stole his car and committed the murder.
He is innocent!
The only problem is no one saw him trapped in the elevator shaft who can corroborate his claim.
So he does not have a witness.
That, and the reason he was trapped in the elevator in the first place.
Which is that he was going back up to remove evidence of another murder, which he did commit.
Oops.
What a predicament.
I absolutely did not commit this murder, and I can prove it because I was stuck somewhere else after having committed a different murder.
Explain that one to the jury.
Julien is sleeping with his boss's wife. He made his boss rich during the wars. Indochina and Algeria. Julien is a paratrooper. Simon Carala, his boss, is a good old-fashioned war-industrialist.
They have traveled the road together.
But Julien is in love with Florence. Florence Carala. And she is in love with him.
She says so. Over the phone. In the opening shot. As she encourages him to do the deed. So that they can run away together. Into the sunset.
And he does commit the perfect crime.
Until he makes a mistake.
(Don't they always?)
He leaves the rope hanging in broad daylight which he had used to climb from one floor to the other to get to his boss's office without anyone knowing it.
He had just told his secretary he wanted to hole up in his own office and be left alone. She saw him enter his office and lock the door. Later she sees him exit.
No one knows he climbed out his window, went up the rope to the floor above, entered his boss's office, made it look like suicide, and used his knife to trip the door lock so that the boss's office will be found locked from the inside.
He returns to his own office and walks out the door for all to see.
And goes down the elevator in his haste to pick up Florence and sees the rope from his car below.
So he goes back up the elevator.
The elevator to the gallows.
And the maintenance man shuts down the building's power as he closes up for the night.
Leaving Julien stuck in the elevator.
Louis Malle began his career working for Jacques Cousteau.
The diver.
The marine biologist.
Filming underwater!
Then he worked for Robert Bresson. Whose films we have recently seen.
And now he begins his illustrious career with this gritty crime drama.
We want to ask if the character Julien Tavernier was named for the filmmaker Betrand Tavernier, but this film came out in 1958 and Bertrand's first film as a director came out in 1964.
Will Julien be prosecuted for a crime he did not commit?
Will he be caught for the crime he did commit?
Will he and Florence end up together?
Or will their next stop be the gallows?
129 - Elevator to the Gallows, 1958, France. Dir. Louis Malle.
Two words: Miles Davis.
That is reason enough to watch this movie. Or listen to it, as it were.
Julien Tavernier did not kill the German tourist couple.
We know he did not. We saw who did.
It was Romeo and Juliet. Louis and Veronique. The star-crossed lover kids who tried to commit suicide by poison together after having committed the real crime.
But his car was found at the scene. And his raincoat. And his signature on the motel guest book.
So he needs an alibi.
It just so happens he has the perfect alibi. He was trapped in an elevator shaft at the time, and someone else stole his car and committed the murder.
He is innocent!
The only problem is no one saw him trapped in the elevator shaft who can corroborate his claim.
So he does not have a witness.
That, and the reason he was trapped in the elevator in the first place.
Which is that he was going back up to remove evidence of another murder, which he did commit.
Oops.
What a predicament.
I absolutely did not commit this murder, and I can prove it because I was stuck somewhere else after having committed a different murder.
Explain that one to the jury.
Julien is sleeping with his boss's wife. He made his boss rich during the wars. Indochina and Algeria. Julien is a paratrooper. Simon Carala, his boss, is a good old-fashioned war-industrialist.
They have traveled the road together.
But Julien is in love with Florence. Florence Carala. And she is in love with him.
She says so. Over the phone. In the opening shot. As she encourages him to do the deed. So that they can run away together. Into the sunset.
And he does commit the perfect crime.
Until he makes a mistake.
(Don't they always?)
He leaves the rope hanging in broad daylight which he had used to climb from one floor to the other to get to his boss's office without anyone knowing it.
He had just told his secretary he wanted to hole up in his own office and be left alone. She saw him enter his office and lock the door. Later she sees him exit.
No one knows he climbed out his window, went up the rope to the floor above, entered his boss's office, made it look like suicide, and used his knife to trip the door lock so that the boss's office will be found locked from the inside.
He returns to his own office and walks out the door for all to see.
And goes down the elevator in his haste to pick up Florence and sees the rope from his car below.
So he goes back up the elevator.
The elevator to the gallows.
And the maintenance man shuts down the building's power as he closes up for the night.
Leaving Julien stuck in the elevator.
Louis Malle began his career working for Jacques Cousteau.
The diver.
The marine biologist.
Filming underwater!
Then he worked for Robert Bresson. Whose films we have recently seen.
And now he begins his illustrious career with this gritty crime drama.
We want to ask if the character Julien Tavernier was named for the filmmaker Betrand Tavernier, but this film came out in 1958 and Bertrand's first film as a director came out in 1964.
Will Julien be prosecuted for a crime he did not commit?
Will he be caught for the crime he did commit?
Will he and Florence end up together?
Or will their next stop be the gallows?
Monday, May 8, 2017
128 - Consider All Risks (Classe tous Risques), 1960, France/Italy. Dir. Claude Sautet.
Monday, May 8, 2017
128 - Consider All Risks (Classe tous Risques), 1960, France/Italy. Dir. Claude Sautet.
Bam!
That is the sound of Abel Davos's gun.
Abel is played by the great Lino Ventura. Ventura entered the scene in 1954 with Jacques Becker's crime drama Touchez Pas au Grisbi, starring Jean Gabin. and Jeanne Moreau. We have seen him in two Jean-Pierre Melville films: Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) and Army of Shadows (1969). We will see him again tomorrow in Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows (1958).
He is with his partner Naldi. Raymond Naldi. Played by Stan Krol.
They have been in Italy. Milan. Abel has his wife and two young boys with him. They went to Italy to flee from France. Where Abel was sentenced to death.
While in Milan they hold-up two officers who are carrying bank bags, get away by foot, steal a car, and find 500,000 lira in their possession. Naldi gets a motorcycle and they race one in front of the other through the countryside. They get to a roadblock. Naldi turns off the road and rides over the hill. All the officers chase him. Abel in the car gets around the roadblock. He drives into town looking for Naldi.
Naldi abandons the motorcycle on the hill, runs down into town, and steals a car by gunpoint. The two men find each other again on the road and get back into one car. They drive it to a bus stop and ditch it and take the bus and reunite with Abel's family.
They charter a boat to France and throw the boat driver into the sea. Then they throw him the life preserver.
When they land ashore two officers come out of the trees and surprise them, and the gunfight begins.
Abel and Naldi shoot both officers but not before they get Naldi and his wife Therese.
Now Abel is on his own. Alone with his children. He takes them into a church and explains to the older one that he will have to lead his little brother, following their dad at a distance so as not to appear to be together, and yet not getting separated. If you do get separated, take shelter in a church and ask for the priest. I will come and find you.
And now we begin our journey.
Abel will make sure that his children are taken care of.
He will turn to his old partners and friends in France for help.
They will betray him. They will send a stranger to help him, assuming that he will not make it and that the stranger will take the rap for it.
The stranger just happens to be Stark. Eric Stark.
Played by the one-and-only Jean-Paul Belmondo.
The director of this film, Claude Sautet, discovered Belmondo before Godard did. Before Godard cast him in Breathless. Before Belmondo was an international sensation.
When Sautet cast him, Belmondo was unknown, unexperienced, and a Big Risk.
Sautet felt that Belmondo was different. Special. He observed, "When he walks into bars, you feel it, like a kind of current."
Presence.
Electricity.
Sautet knew what he was doing.
His Producer, Bob Amon, did not know what he was doing.
He said, "With a face like that, audiences will want their money back."
Audiences did not want their money back. They kept giving it. Willingly.
That was nearly 60 years ago, and Belmondo, who is still alive at age 84, has made many millions of dollars for himself and for his producers.
One of the men who betrays Abel is Raoul Fargier, played by Claude Cerval. We have seen him as the croupier Jean in Melville's Bob le Flambeur (1956), as the priest in in Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958), and as Clovis in Chabrol's Les Cousins (1959). We will see him again in Luis Bunuel's Belle du Jour (1967).
The man who plays the fence, Arthur Gibelin, is the great Marcel Dalio. Wow! What a cast this is. These actors from different eras and areas working here together. Delicious.
Dalio is a giant of an actor, working from 1931 to 1980. We have seen him several times. He played Lieutenant Rosenthal in Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937), L'Arbi in Duvivier's Pepe le Moko (1937)--both opposite Jean Gabin--and the Marquis in Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939). He moved effortlessly back and forth between France and Hollywood and played in many American as well as French films, including Casablanca and To Have and Have Not.
The fence is a great character here, because he does more than take diamonds and give money. He is active. And he gets himself killed.
Jose Giovanni, the screenwriter, had been sentenced to death and spent time on death row. His sentence was commuted and he was later pardoned. He spent the rest of his life working as a novelist, screenwriter, and director, writing often about the lives of gangsters and prisoners. His films include Jacques Becker's Le Trou ("The Hole," or prison) (1960), Jean Becker's A Man Named Rocca (1961), and Jean Melville's Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966).
Giovanni said he met the real Abel Davos on death row, when Davos was put there before trial to keep him safe from other prisoners, and that he learned his story from him.
Claude Sautet, the director, was a 1st AD for many directors on many films, including some we have seen. He spent a lot of time improving upon other people's scripts and directorial choices. He made other people's movies better. So it came time for him to launch out on his own.
One of the ingredients that makes this film exciting to watch is its physicality. Ventura was a former wrestler, and he uses his prowess here in scenes of sudden violence. Stan Krol, his partner, was an adventurer, who had wanted to fly an airplane under the Eiffel Tower. These men were ready to rumble, and Sautet let them.
It is refreshing to see a film made at the start of the French New Wave which has nothing to do with the French New Wave.
Sautet is not trying to reinvent cinema. He is not trying to announce the death of cinema. He is not building pedestals for himself to stand on. He is not posing as a new god of film. He is simply making good movies. This was the first of thirteen he directed.
And it is juicy.
128 - Consider All Risks (Classe tous Risques), 1960, France/Italy. Dir. Claude Sautet.
Bam!
That is the sound of Abel Davos's gun.
Abel is played by the great Lino Ventura. Ventura entered the scene in 1954 with Jacques Becker's crime drama Touchez Pas au Grisbi, starring Jean Gabin. and Jeanne Moreau. We have seen him in two Jean-Pierre Melville films: Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) and Army of Shadows (1969). We will see him again tomorrow in Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows (1958).
He is with his partner Naldi. Raymond Naldi. Played by Stan Krol.
They have been in Italy. Milan. Abel has his wife and two young boys with him. They went to Italy to flee from France. Where Abel was sentenced to death.
While in Milan they hold-up two officers who are carrying bank bags, get away by foot, steal a car, and find 500,000 lira in their possession. Naldi gets a motorcycle and they race one in front of the other through the countryside. They get to a roadblock. Naldi turns off the road and rides over the hill. All the officers chase him. Abel in the car gets around the roadblock. He drives into town looking for Naldi.
Naldi abandons the motorcycle on the hill, runs down into town, and steals a car by gunpoint. The two men find each other again on the road and get back into one car. They drive it to a bus stop and ditch it and take the bus and reunite with Abel's family.
They charter a boat to France and throw the boat driver into the sea. Then they throw him the life preserver.
When they land ashore two officers come out of the trees and surprise them, and the gunfight begins.
Abel and Naldi shoot both officers but not before they get Naldi and his wife Therese.
Now Abel is on his own. Alone with his children. He takes them into a church and explains to the older one that he will have to lead his little brother, following their dad at a distance so as not to appear to be together, and yet not getting separated. If you do get separated, take shelter in a church and ask for the priest. I will come and find you.
And now we begin our journey.
Abel will make sure that his children are taken care of.
He will turn to his old partners and friends in France for help.
They will betray him. They will send a stranger to help him, assuming that he will not make it and that the stranger will take the rap for it.
The stranger just happens to be Stark. Eric Stark.
Played by the one-and-only Jean-Paul Belmondo.
The director of this film, Claude Sautet, discovered Belmondo before Godard did. Before Godard cast him in Breathless. Before Belmondo was an international sensation.
When Sautet cast him, Belmondo was unknown, unexperienced, and a Big Risk.
Sautet felt that Belmondo was different. Special. He observed, "When he walks into bars, you feel it, like a kind of current."
Presence.
Electricity.
Sautet knew what he was doing.
His Producer, Bob Amon, did not know what he was doing.
He said, "With a face like that, audiences will want their money back."
Audiences did not want their money back. They kept giving it. Willingly.
That was nearly 60 years ago, and Belmondo, who is still alive at age 84, has made many millions of dollars for himself and for his producers.
One of the men who betrays Abel is Raoul Fargier, played by Claude Cerval. We have seen him as the croupier Jean in Melville's Bob le Flambeur (1956), as the priest in in Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958), and as Clovis in Chabrol's Les Cousins (1959). We will see him again in Luis Bunuel's Belle du Jour (1967).
The man who plays the fence, Arthur Gibelin, is the great Marcel Dalio. Wow! What a cast this is. These actors from different eras and areas working here together. Delicious.
Dalio is a giant of an actor, working from 1931 to 1980. We have seen him several times. He played Lieutenant Rosenthal in Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937), L'Arbi in Duvivier's Pepe le Moko (1937)--both opposite Jean Gabin--and the Marquis in Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939). He moved effortlessly back and forth between France and Hollywood and played in many American as well as French films, including Casablanca and To Have and Have Not.
The fence is a great character here, because he does more than take diamonds and give money. He is active. And he gets himself killed.
Jose Giovanni, the screenwriter, had been sentenced to death and spent time on death row. His sentence was commuted and he was later pardoned. He spent the rest of his life working as a novelist, screenwriter, and director, writing often about the lives of gangsters and prisoners. His films include Jacques Becker's Le Trou ("The Hole," or prison) (1960), Jean Becker's A Man Named Rocca (1961), and Jean Melville's Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966).
Giovanni said he met the real Abel Davos on death row, when Davos was put there before trial to keep him safe from other prisoners, and that he learned his story from him.
Claude Sautet, the director, was a 1st AD for many directors on many films, including some we have seen. He spent a lot of time improving upon other people's scripts and directorial choices. He made other people's movies better. So it came time for him to launch out on his own.
One of the ingredients that makes this film exciting to watch is its physicality. Ventura was a former wrestler, and he uses his prowess here in scenes of sudden violence. Stan Krol, his partner, was an adventurer, who had wanted to fly an airplane under the Eiffel Tower. These men were ready to rumble, and Sautet let them.
It is refreshing to see a film made at the start of the French New Wave which has nothing to do with the French New Wave.
Sautet is not trying to reinvent cinema. He is not trying to announce the death of cinema. He is not building pedestals for himself to stand on. He is not posing as a new god of film. He is simply making good movies. This was the first of thirteen he directed.
And it is juicy.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
127 - Love on the Run, 1979, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
127 - Love on the Run, 1979, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.
You can't just do anything at all and then say "forgive me." You haven't changed at all. You're as self-centered as ever.
You haven't changed at all.
That is Colette's statement to Antoine.
Wait.
Colette?
This is not Antoine and Colette. This is Love On the Run.
He dated Colette years ago. Since then he married Christine.
Why is he talking to Colette?
Where is Christine?
Funny you should ask.
Antoine and Christine just got divorced.
Yesterday.
Today he is already on a train with Colette.
But he woke up yesterday with Sabine.
Who?
What is going on here?
No. He has not changed at all.
And Truffaut admitted it.
And Truffaut retired the series after this one.
Love On the Run has many of the ingredients that make the entire Antoine Doinel series so enjoyable. Antoine's personality. The women in his life. Relationships. High energy. Human foibles. Supporting characters.
And the series serves as a prototype for what Richard Linklater did with Boyhood.
When Linklater came out with Boyhood, it was a revelation. To follow a real actor as he grows up and create a fictional character who grows up with him.
It had never been done before!
Except that it had.
By Francois Truffaut. With the Antoine Doinel series. Only with five movies rather than one.
And if you look around, you may find other examples.
This is not to diminish Linklater's extraordinary accomplishment. What he and his team did together was fantastic.
It is to praise Truffaut for accomplishing something similarly impressive.
It is just too bad that he punted with his final film. The series was really starting to go somewhere. And it could have continued if only he had let Antoine grow up.
And not resorted to too many flashbacks.
If you have ever seen the final episode of Seinfeld, then we hope you have learned your lesson. Do not ever end a series by merely retelling the series in flashbacks.
Creators have a social contract with their audience. They have an obligation to deliver the goods. Seinfeld broke that contract by not doing the hard work of writing new material but by falling back on flashbacks.
If they had watched this series, they would have already known not to do that.
Lost also broke the contract in many ways. One of them was to pair up the wrong people with the wrong people. Love On the Run makes that mistake as well.
When creators try too hard to trick their audience into not guessing the ending, they sometimes veer away from narrative logic. Then good luck with the results.
In this series there are multiple options that could have satisfied narrative logic.
Antoine could have ended up with Christine.
In fact, you the viewer may be pulling for Antoine to reconcile with Christine. That is logical. Then he would change. He would grow. He would finally grow up.
Antoine could have ended up with Colette.
You the viewer may be pulling that, for him to get back with his first love. That is also logical. Then he would also have changed. He would have learned and matured and now returned to his childhood sweetheart not as a boy but as man.
Truffaut throws in another wrench. Liliane shows up!
From Day for Night. Where Jean-Pierre Leaud had played a completely different character, Alphonse, the name of his son in this series. Truffaut even throws in footage from Day for Night here, expecting us to willingly suspend our disbelief and believe it matches this story.
It is fun at first but then grows confusing.
Now it begins to feel like that Frasier episode where every woman from Frasier's past shows up all at once. It could be a great concept if it is well executed, but it is riding a fine line of falling into self-indulgence.
In this case, we do not end with the women. Truffaut brings a man back as well. Antoine's mother's lover. M. Lucien. The one Antoine saw on the street in The 400 Blows. He returns and explains things to Antoine.
Your mother loved you, son. She had a strange way of showing it, but she loved you.
We do not quite know if this provides comfort or resolution to Antoine or not.
Truffaut himself admitted on television that he was not happy with the way this film turned out. Specifically because he did not allow Antoine Doinel to grow or change. So, according to Truffaut, he became like a cartoon character. Always the same.
It is interesting that Colette delivers this line--You haven't changed at all--during an argument on a train.
It is precisely at this moment when you feel that the story is filled with possibility. Christine or Colette. Growth. Maturity. Understanding.
But right after she says it, he pulls the emergency handle to stop the train, and he jumps off and goes running.
Immediately, the viewer is disappointed. What was Truffaut thinking? This story was about to go somewhere. It had possibility! It had options! And you just squelched them and threw the whole thing away.
Truffaut owes an apology to the actresses who played Christine and Colette. He just wasted their characters, their storylines, and their talents. How ironic, then, that the actress who played Colette, Marie-France Pisier, contributed to the story. She did not protect her own character. The fact that she is a lawyer is wasted. The fact that she buys Antoine's book and invests her time and emotions into reading it is wasted. The fact that Antoine goes to the trouble to jump a train to be with her is wasted. The fact that they begin to recount old times and put the pieces together is wasted. Oh, let's just make her a prostitute and have him jump off the train because they have an argument over nothing. Nothing! He falls off the bunk and lands on her lawyer clothes. And she dumps him and they end everything over that? Really?
And no one is going to believe or cheer for any relationship with Sabine. A completely new person who is not part of the story line. It makes absolutely no sense.
If we are to believe he will "end up" with her, then we must, according to narrative logic and character logic, believe that it will last for awhile and he will be on his own again, forever trapped in a cycle of immature stupidity.
And the moment on the train becomes a metaphor for the ending of the series.
The story of Antoine Doinel has derailed.
127 - Love on the Run, 1979, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.
You can't just do anything at all and then say "forgive me." You haven't changed at all. You're as self-centered as ever.
You haven't changed at all.
That is Colette's statement to Antoine.
Wait.
Colette?
This is not Antoine and Colette. This is Love On the Run.
He dated Colette years ago. Since then he married Christine.
Why is he talking to Colette?
Where is Christine?
Funny you should ask.
Antoine and Christine just got divorced.
Yesterday.
Today he is already on a train with Colette.
But he woke up yesterday with Sabine.
Who?
What is going on here?
No. He has not changed at all.
And Truffaut admitted it.
And Truffaut retired the series after this one.
Love On the Run has many of the ingredients that make the entire Antoine Doinel series so enjoyable. Antoine's personality. The women in his life. Relationships. High energy. Human foibles. Supporting characters.
And the series serves as a prototype for what Richard Linklater did with Boyhood.
When Linklater came out with Boyhood, it was a revelation. To follow a real actor as he grows up and create a fictional character who grows up with him.
It had never been done before!
Except that it had.
By Francois Truffaut. With the Antoine Doinel series. Only with five movies rather than one.
And if you look around, you may find other examples.
This is not to diminish Linklater's extraordinary accomplishment. What he and his team did together was fantastic.
It is to praise Truffaut for accomplishing something similarly impressive.
It is just too bad that he punted with his final film. The series was really starting to go somewhere. And it could have continued if only he had let Antoine grow up.
And not resorted to too many flashbacks.
If you have ever seen the final episode of Seinfeld, then we hope you have learned your lesson. Do not ever end a series by merely retelling the series in flashbacks.
Creators have a social contract with their audience. They have an obligation to deliver the goods. Seinfeld broke that contract by not doing the hard work of writing new material but by falling back on flashbacks.
If they had watched this series, they would have already known not to do that.
Lost also broke the contract in many ways. One of them was to pair up the wrong people with the wrong people. Love On the Run makes that mistake as well.
When creators try too hard to trick their audience into not guessing the ending, they sometimes veer away from narrative logic. Then good luck with the results.
In this series there are multiple options that could have satisfied narrative logic.
Antoine could have ended up with Christine.
In fact, you the viewer may be pulling for Antoine to reconcile with Christine. That is logical. Then he would change. He would grow. He would finally grow up.
Antoine could have ended up with Colette.
You the viewer may be pulling that, for him to get back with his first love. That is also logical. Then he would also have changed. He would have learned and matured and now returned to his childhood sweetheart not as a boy but as man.
Truffaut throws in another wrench. Liliane shows up!
From Day for Night. Where Jean-Pierre Leaud had played a completely different character, Alphonse, the name of his son in this series. Truffaut even throws in footage from Day for Night here, expecting us to willingly suspend our disbelief and believe it matches this story.
It is fun at first but then grows confusing.
Now it begins to feel like that Frasier episode where every woman from Frasier's past shows up all at once. It could be a great concept if it is well executed, but it is riding a fine line of falling into self-indulgence.
In this case, we do not end with the women. Truffaut brings a man back as well. Antoine's mother's lover. M. Lucien. The one Antoine saw on the street in The 400 Blows. He returns and explains things to Antoine.
Your mother loved you, son. She had a strange way of showing it, but she loved you.
We do not quite know if this provides comfort or resolution to Antoine or not.
Truffaut himself admitted on television that he was not happy with the way this film turned out. Specifically because he did not allow Antoine Doinel to grow or change. So, according to Truffaut, he became like a cartoon character. Always the same.
It is interesting that Colette delivers this line--You haven't changed at all--during an argument on a train.
It is precisely at this moment when you feel that the story is filled with possibility. Christine or Colette. Growth. Maturity. Understanding.
But right after she says it, he pulls the emergency handle to stop the train, and he jumps off and goes running.
Immediately, the viewer is disappointed. What was Truffaut thinking? This story was about to go somewhere. It had possibility! It had options! And you just squelched them and threw the whole thing away.
Truffaut owes an apology to the actresses who played Christine and Colette. He just wasted their characters, their storylines, and their talents. How ironic, then, that the actress who played Colette, Marie-France Pisier, contributed to the story. She did not protect her own character. The fact that she is a lawyer is wasted. The fact that she buys Antoine's book and invests her time and emotions into reading it is wasted. The fact that Antoine goes to the trouble to jump a train to be with her is wasted. The fact that they begin to recount old times and put the pieces together is wasted. Oh, let's just make her a prostitute and have him jump off the train because they have an argument over nothing. Nothing! He falls off the bunk and lands on her lawyer clothes. And she dumps him and they end everything over that? Really?
And no one is going to believe or cheer for any relationship with Sabine. A completely new person who is not part of the story line. It makes absolutely no sense.
If we are to believe he will "end up" with her, then we must, according to narrative logic and character logic, believe that it will last for awhile and he will be on his own again, forever trapped in a cycle of immature stupidity.
And the moment on the train becomes a metaphor for the ending of the series.
The story of Antoine Doinel has derailed.
Saturday, May 6, 2017
126 - Day for Night, 1973, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.
Saturday, May 6, 2017
126 - Day for Night, 1973, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.
The orchestra tunes up.
The image of the sound track plays on the left side of the screen. Portraying the sound track on the left side of the film.
The conductor speaks.
Silence, please. Give me a nice clean soundtrack.
The orchestra begins.
The credits roll.
The conductor gives notes to the orchestra as the orchestra plays.
A still picture.
Dedicated to Lillian and Dorothy Gish.
Our film begins.
A city street. Scores of extras. Traffic. Pedestrians. Strollers. Dogs.
A man emerges from the Metro.
Another man walks down the other side of the street in the other direction.
We move down on a crane. Left on a dolly. Take it all in. Zoom in.
The two men approach one another. Stop. One slaps the other.
Cut!
Going again.
The 1st AD gives instructions on a megaphone.
-- The bus was two seconds late.
-- Background by the beauty parlor was late.
The Director works out the slap with the two leads.
The Camera department resets the camera on the crane platform.
The Producers go over the schedule.
Makeup touches up one of the leads.
The Script Girl teaches her intern.
-- Feet and frames, start and finish, then circle this.
Keep that light. Kill that light.
A journalist broadcasts live behind the set flats.
The Producer escorts the older Lead to the journalist. The Producer is named Bertrand. He is played by Jean Champion, who is also known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), Le Cercle Rouge (1970), and The Day of the Jackal (1973).
The older lead is named Alexandre. He is played by Jean-Pierre Aumont.
The interview begins.
It is the story of a man in his 50s whose son brings his young English bride home to meet his parents.
The younger lead gives his interview.
It is the story of a young man who marries an English girl. Three months later he introduces her to his parents at their seaside villa.
The bride will fall in love with the father-in-law.
The older male lead sees the film played as a romantic drama. He will win the girl.
The younger male lead says the film is played as a tragedy. He will lose the girl.
The 2nd AC, or Clapper, will slate the next shot.
Pamela 1, Take 4!
In France, the clap sticks are on the bottom of the slate. In America, they are on the top. To us, it appears as though he is clapping upside down--which we would use for a tail slate, at the end of a take. But the writing is right-side-up. They are using it as a head slate, at the beginning of the take.
We watch another take.
The city street. Scores of extras. Traffic. Pedestrians. Strollers. Dogs.
We are not on the crane but on a dolly. Closer. Watching through our camera and not theirs.
The bus. The lady with the dog. The white car.
The young male lead comes up out of the Metro. We now know his name is Alphonse. He is played by Francois Truffaut's perennial star Jean-Pierre Leaud.
Red car. Red car, faster. Red car, pull out.
Camera, move in.
Cut!
Going again.
Montage. 17 takes. Alphonse says that one was good. The Director says let us do it again. The Director is played by our director himself, Francois Truffaut. In the film he is Ferrand.
Back to One.
Now we look down on the red crane, as it looks down into the Metro.
And we see the great outdoor HMI PAR light.
The kind of motion picture light that has stood the test of time. That has remained through the technological developments of Tungsten, Fluorescent, and LED.
Because it replicates the sun.
It stands for Hydragyrum Medium Arc Iodide Parabolic Aluminized Reflector.
Say that ten times fast. Then memorize it.
The HMI is the type of light. The PAR is the fixture that houses it.
We do another take.
We watch the crane jib jib up. We watch all of the action at once. We are now in our master shot.
We pan left and see that the back side of the buildings are empty shells.
The entire city is on a studio backlot.
We are seven minutes into our two hour movie, and we have established our world.
We will now move into the Atlantic Hotel. Into the lives of the crew who are working on this film.
Odile, the make-up girl, is a petite brunette with a sprite-like personality and a quirky sense of style. She is wearing a colorful patterned short dress with a yellow ribbon trim and striped shoulders, with eminence purple shear nylons and red clogs. She has a red bandana tied into a floppy bow in her hair. Odile is played by Nike Arrighi.
Joelle, the Script Girl, is a tall conservative redhead wearing a cream-colored blouse and bell-bottomed blue jeans with a black leather belt. She carries her leather script bag as if it were a house-call doctor's bag. Joelle is played by Nathalie Baye. We saw her recently in Jean-Luc Godard's 1980 film Every Man for Himself. You may also know her from the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me If You Can.
Joelle has a tub but wanted a shower. Odile has a shower but wanted a tub. Joelle has come to ask the desk clerk to change rooms, but Odile overhears her and offers to change rooms directly. The two begin talking. They get excited. They walk up the stairs together. They bond.
Ferrand the director is pacing the hotel hallway. He has an earpiece. He has thoughts on his mind. He is wearing a brown-leather jacket over a blue-collared shirt with a navy-blue tie. He is looking intently at a hotel vase. Perhaps he wants to use it.
Joelle asks Odile to give him some headshots. She does. Pictures of Julie.
Julie Baker. The film's star. Played by Jacqueline Bisset. A British actress. Not here yet. She will be arriving later.
Ferrand shows the pictures to the Camera Operator. He is played by Walter Bal. He is a tall man with shoulder-length hair, wearing a denim vest over a paisley white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
They flip through the headshots as they anticipate what she will be like on set.
Walter saw her before. In that film with the car chase. Didn't she crack up once? Ferrand says, Yes. She had a nervous breakdown. Walter remembers she did not finish that film.
Ferrand rationalizes. But that was a year ago. She married her doctor. He can take care of her. She is lovely. She has light-green eyes.
Bernard arrives from around the corner. Bernard is the Property Master. Played by Bernard Menez. He wants to show Ferrand the trick candle for the costume party. Ferrand agrees. He plugs it into an outlet in the hotel hallway. He demonstrates it. Ferrand is sold.
Ferrand shows Bernard the hotel vase. He removes the flowers from it and picks it up. He would like to see it in Severine's dining room in the film.
We have not yet met Severine. She will be played by the great Valentina Cortese. You might know her from Jules Dassin's American film-noir thriller Thieves Highway (1949). Or Robert Wise's film noir drama The House on Telegraph Hill (1951). Or Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa (1954). Or Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits (1965). Or Franco Zeffirelli's Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972). Or Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of the Baron Munchausen (1988). We are in 1973, and she is 50 years old. She will play an older actress. She is alive today at 94.
We expect Ferrand to have Bernard ask the hotel's permission to use the vase. Instead, he says--
Take it. Not a word to anyone.
Alphonse comes down the stairs flirting with Liliane. In the way that we are used to Jean-Pierre Leaud doing when he plays Antoine Doinel. But he is a different character here.
Liliane is the Script Trainee. Or what we have already called the intern. Ferrand gives the vaseless flowers to her. She thanks him for the internship opportunity. He says it is nothing. They chat. Ferrand moves on down the hallway.
Alphonse pulls Liliane to him and kisses her.
They establish that Ferrand lost some of his hearing in the Artillery.
Alphonse asks Liliane to walk ahead of him so he can watch her bottom swing. She obliges him. They enter a room as the maid exits with a used room service tray. He looks back out to watch the maid walk away.
Lilian calls him out on it. He asks if she is jealous. She claims she is not.
They have twin beds. They put them together. She says he could have asked for a double bed. He says that would have meant going through Lajoie, the Production Manager. Who will be played by Gaston Joly.
The beds are heavy. He says it is tougher than moving an audience.
She says Pierrot the set photographer has given her a list of great little restaurants up in the hills. Pierrot will be played by Pierre Zucca. Who is the still photographer of this film.
Why did Pierrot give her a list of bistros?
Alphonse counters that they are in a city with 37 movie theaters. He intends to go to the movies. And eat if there is time left over.
She refuses. He agrees to do what she wants on one condition.
That you marry me.
He proposes!
Outside Jean-Francois has Odile the make-up girl try on an outfit so that she can be in the scene.
Ferrand the director talks to us in voice-over as he walks across the lot. Shooting a film is like crossing the Wild West in a stagecoach. You start out hoping for a nice voyage but soon you wonder if you will ever reach your destination.
He has lots of decisions to make. Sometimes he knows the answer and sometimes he does not.
Lajoie the Production Manager shows him two cars--a red one and a white one. He picks a third, a blue one. Which belongs to his AD. Maybe he will not mind.
Bertrand the Producer says the Americans insist the film be finished in seven weeks. Ferrand will talk to Jean-Francois about it. Jean-Francois is the 1st AD.
Odile shows him Severine's wig. Is it too light? Ferrand does not know.
Bernard the Property Master shows him a group of guns. Ferrand picks one for the final scene.
It is time to watch Dailies. Or Rushes.
All crew report to the screening room.
Severine is absent. She never comes to rushes. Alexandre is at the airport. There may be something wrong in his private life. Or he may be picking up someone.
Ferrand talks to Yann. The editor. Played by Yann Dedet. The editor of this film.
We watch the Rushes.
We watch the reactions.
Liliane shares a cigarette with Pierrot the Photographer. Alphonse sees it and grows jealous. He reaches over to touch her. She accepts.
Lajoie the Production Manager rushes in to tell Bertrand the Producer some news. Bertrand tells the crew.
There has been a power failure at the lab. The footage of the crowd scene has been lost and will have to be reshot.
It is time for the first scene between Alexandre and Severine.
The crew sets up an interior shot on the sound stage.
Alphonse tells Ferrand that he and Liliane will be getting married. Ferrand congratulates him. Alphonse asks Ferrand to be his best man. Ferrand is flattered. He agrees.
Later on set Ferrand congratulates Liliane. After he leaves she looks as though she does not know what he is talking about!
A man introduces Ferrand to two women. He is pitching them to him. How did he get here?
Jean-Francois the 1st AD approaches and tells Ferrand he needs him for something urgent. He walks him away. Ferrand asks what is urgent. Jean-Francois says, Nothing. I was rescuing you.
Jean-Francois is played by Jean-Francois Stevenin. Who is the 2nd AD of this film. Or in France, the Assistant Assistant Director. Jean-Francois is short and somewhat stocky with balding hair and a low center of gravity. He looks like a cross between Jason Alexander and Walton Goggins. He is wearing a green varsity-style jacket over a mustard plaid collared shirt.
Another stranger is sitting on set. Talking to the Producer.
Ferrand asks who he is. Jean-Francois says he is the police officer who gave them permission to film in the street. So Bertrand invited him to watch. Ferrand asks, Do I watch him work? When he arrests people? Jean-Francois laughs. Ferrand has to work in front of onlookers. He does not like it. It is part of the job.
They set up the shot.
They roll.
They slate.
They call Action.
Severine begins but says the wrong name. Another take. Severine begins but forgets her line. Another take. Severine asks Ferrand if she can do it as she does it with Federico, with numbers.
A reference to the legendary Italian director Federico Fellini. Suggesting that in Italy--or with Fellini anyway--they shoot MOS, or without sound, and then dub in the lines later.
She demonstrates. 17, 23, 5, 94, 48, 2, 33. And she plays it with great drama and feeling.
We have mentioned that Valentina Cortese, who plays Severine, really filmed with Fellini, in Juliet of the Spirits. Did she really say numbers instead of lines?
Ferrand says No to her request. Here we shoot direct sound. He pulls down the microphone from above and shows her. You will have to say the lines.
Another take. Severine misses the lines again. She calls for Joelle, the Script Girl. She demands cue cards. They make cue cards. Joelle shows her where they have hung them to the wall and behind the column.
Another take. Severine does a walk-and-talk. Alexandre sits in the chair listening. Odile the make-up girl, acting as the maid, opens and closes the door. Severine goes to open the same door but opens the wrong door, the door to the left. The closet door. She grows more emotional.
Another take. She does it again. Another take. She does it again. Another take. She does it again.
Bernard the Property Master has come over to spray dulling spray on the door. Severine grabs him and tells him he is the only one who understands. She kisses him. She invites him to her dressing room afterwards. He turns and gestures to the crew that she has been drinking. Heavily.
Ferrand clears the set of all non-essential personnel. Alphonse goes to leave. Ferrand says, Not you. You may stay. Alphonse says he would rather go watch a movie anyway.
Liliane the Script Intern gossips about Severine's drinking. Joelle the Script Girl defends Severine, rationalizing. Her son has leukemia. The call could come any time.
Severine blames it on her wig. It is too tight. It is giving her headaches.
They wrap the scene for the day. They will try again tomorrow.
Ferrand sleeps. He has dreams. Dreams that haunt the director. Voices speaking to him. Why do you not make political films? Why do you not make erotic films? The Americans insist you make the film in seven weeks.
He dreams of himself as a young boy. In black and white. Walking down the street. Bandying a cane.
Another day. We are outside.
Ferrand asks Jean-Francois, Who is that strange woman on set. Sitting and knitting.
Lajoie's wife. She goes with him everywhere.
A new actress is on set. Stacey. She will play Alexandre's secretary. On vacation with him. She walks with Joelle. She speculates that Ferrand does not like her. Joelle tries to assure her.
Alphonse and Liliane are over by a sailboat arguing.
We are at a swimming pool.
Stacey complains to Ferrand that she does not want to wear a bathing suit. Ferrand explains that it makes the scene work better.
Stacey does the scene.
The camera crew are working on a platform built out over the swimming pool.
Joelle can see now why Stacey did not want to wear a bathing suit. She points it out to Ferrand. She is three months pregnant!
Ferrand talks to Bertrand the Producer. He wants to fire her and get another actress. Bertrand says No. Ferrand shows him the schedule. She will be coming back in a few weeks. By then it will be obvious. Bertrand says she has an iron-clad contract. The stronger hand always wins.
The Composer calls and they listen to the score over the phone.
In a typical Nouvelle Vague moment, Ferrand empties his duffel bag of film books while we listen to the score. We see the film books. They are about--
Bunuel. Dreyer. Lubitsch. Bergman. Godard. Hitchcock. Rossellini. Hawks. Bresson.
Bertrand suggests that the secretary be pregnant in the film. Ferrand considers it. Then he says it will be confusing. It will appear as though Alexandre is the father. It will confuse the plot. They end with no decision made.
Julie Baker, the British star, arrives at the airport. Flash bulbs go off. The paparazzi follow her.
She holds a press conference.
They ask what the story is about. She says it is about a woman engaged to a man who then meets his parents and falls for the father.
They ask about her private life. Her breakdown. Her marrying of her doctor.
She remains calm and pleasant throughout. The press conference ends. Behind the scenes she is exhausted.
She introduces her husband, Dr. Nelson.
Another day of shooting.
Lajoie's wife is in the shot. Sitting and knitting. Ferrand asks if she can move back. She does.
He asks Joelle why she is always there. Joelle explains that she is so jealous of Lajoie that she keeps a constant eye on him. She makes his life hell and he is too week to dump her.
The crew calls them The Sorrow and the Pity.
They all laugh.
Alphonse sits in the car with Julie Baker. He asks her if she has stage fright.
Ferrand sees Liliane kissing Pierrot the Photographer over in the trees. That will not end well. He calls her in to slate the scene.
Liliane slates the scene.
We move inside. We film the scene.
Severine and Julie Baker. Alexandre and Alphonse. All in the scene together.
Alphonse and Liliane have another argument. He got her the internship so they could be together. She says she never wanted to be a Script Supervisor in the first place. She wanted to be an editor. He says she should have told him. He could have worked it out.
Ferrand calls him back to set.
Ferrand and Alexandre are walking.
Sorry to make you die again.
I'm used to it. In 80 films I've died 24 times. Electrocuted, stabbed, shot, but never a natural death.
Ferrand goes to Yann and Martine. Martine Barraque. The other real film editor on this film. They show him and Stacey the dailies of Stacey in the pool. The pregnancy does not show. It is okay. Stacey may leave for her plane. See you in a few weeks.
Alphonse grabs Jean-Francois's arm. I have a question. Are women magic? No, and neither are men.
Another crew member tells Ferrand his mother just died and he needs three days off. Ferrand understands. But he is losing a hand. The pressure builds.
They film a scene with a cat.
Bernard flies in the milk.
Alexandre the father plays the scene with Julie the daughter-in-law. Julie sets the food tray outside the door.
Bernard wrangles the cat. The cat does not wish to be wrangled.
Get the boom out of the shot. We will dub in cat sounds later.
Bernard explains that the cat has not eaten in three days. He is supposed to be hungry and should run to the food.
We will shoot the scene when you can find a cat who can act.
Joelle criticizes Bernard. I told you to get two cats.
Joelle goes and gets the studio cat. They film the scene again.
The studio cat does its job on the first take.
Fix the focus.
The studio cat plays around the tray and eats the food. And licks the milk.
Cut!
They get the shot.
The crew are happy.
Alphonse asks Alexandre his question. Are women magic?
Alexandre gets that faraway look. He had memories. Some are, yes. But some are not.
Alexandre rides with Dr. Nelson to the airport. He assures him that Julie will be OK.
Dr. Nelson explains. Everyone is afraid of being judged. But in your profession, judgment is part and parcel.
And there is more kissing in your job than any other.
Alexandre agrees. We do a lot of kissing.
They say the handshake was invented to show that one is unarmed and not a foe. We need more than that. We have to show that we love each other.
Christian arrives at the airport. Christian is with Alexandre.
Alphonse asks Bernard. Are women magic?
Bernard says their legs are. That is why they wear skirts.
Bertrand reminds Ferrand that Union rules require a 12-hour break. They have to shoot the kitchen scene tomorrow.
They are all going to a movie. The Godfather is playing.
Julie Baker stays back to memorize her lines. Ferrand needs to write them.
Ferrand and Joelle go over the script.
They discuss film theory. Then get back to work. The kitchen scene. They need to work out the scene between Julie and Alexandre. And write her lines.
Ferrand describes it. Joelle suggests they use that line. They turn to her press conference written in the newspaper. She herself described it. They work it out.
Julie is the child of a great actor. It affects her. They discuss children of great actors. Fairbanks. Barrymore.
The film quiz comes on TV. Jean-Francois and Bernard watch. The desk clerk watches them. They know all the answers.
Montage.
Julie memorizes her lines. They shoot takes of the scene. They pipe in fake rain.
Something magical is happening.
Julie and Alexandre are saying the lines Ferrand and Joelle wrote last night. Julie knows them.
The shot works. It is a beautiful moment.
Ferrand has another dream.
He as a boy is walking down the streets in black and white, bandying his cane. He arrives at a gate.
The next day.
Alphonse makes excuses to Ferrand.
Ferrand walks through the lot talking to Jean-Francois as he talks to us in voice-over.
We are at the halfway point. The film is coming together. Cinema is king.
Montage.
Ferrand works with the tilt of Julie's head. Alphonse steps through the dolly track as the dolly pulls away from him. Ferrand works with the tilt of Julie's fingers. The crew squats as the camera pans past them. Severine smiles. The camera zooms. Focuses. The actors in the car are pulled by a tow dolly. Julie slates the scene herself. The crane moves up. The camera points to us. The score plays.
Magic is happening.
Even Alpohonse and Liliane are getting along.
Company Move.
Julie and Alphonse have the day off. She will go antique hunting. He will go to a movie.
The company drives to the country.
They follow the directional signs that were placed for them ahead of time.
Bernard stops for Joelle. She is on the side of the road with a flat tire. He helps her change it. She invites him into the woods for a moment. He helps her with something else.
On set.
They set up on the side of the road.
Where is Joelle? Where is Bernard?
Some locals pass by with a donkey pulling a cart.
Hey! Whatcha doin'? / Making a movie. / Well, if ya need some stars, we're available. Yuck yuck yuck.
They dress up the stuntman. He drives the car around the curve. Falls out. The car plunges over the cliff. The stuntman is OK. Second camera got it.
They got the shot. The stuntman is wrapped.
The stuntman drives off with Liliane.
Wait! He was supposed to give Jean-Francois a ride.
Back at the studio, Julie thanks the stuntman for doubling her. She asks how it went. He says they got it on the first take.
Liliane informs Julie that they are in love and that he is taking her to London.
Wait. What?
Liliane is engaged to Alphonse. She has been messing around with Pierrot. But she is going with the stuntman to London? When did this happen?
They will not miss me, she explains. I am a fifth wheel.
Julie counters. She delivers a Truffaut ethic. An ethic for all filmmakers.--
You don't just walk out on a film.
What does Alphonse say? / He'll get the surprise tonight. / He will be terribly upset. / He is always terribly upset. / This is wrong. You are being cruel.
Time for a company picture.
Julie drives up in the red car. Mme. Lajoie is sitting. Sitting and knitting. Watching.
Stacey arrives. Pregnant. Very visibly.
Pierrot is setting up the camera.
Alphonse is looking for Liliane.
Julie takes Alphonse aside to tell him.
Pierrot watches as if he knows already. And is in on it.
Alphonse says it had to end this way. But then runs off.
Joelle finds out. She expresses another Truffaut ethic.--
I'd dump a guy for a film but never a film for a guy.
Ferrand sleeps. A third time. Neon CINEMA signs flash in his dreams.
He as a boy walks down the city streets in black and white, bandying his cane. He approaches the gate. It is a movie theater. Closed for the night. He uses the cane to pull a wheeled kiosk to him. And takes all the pictures off it.
Citizen Kane.
The boy is in love.
In love with Citizen Kane.
In love with movies.
Another day.
Julie in a pink dress climbs a tall ladder to a high platform with a false wall and French doors. It is designed to appear that Julie lives across from her in-laws.
She opens the doors and steps out onto the balcony and talks to them.
The red light flashes. We are filming.
Montage.
Ferrand watches the dailies. The film passes through the sprockets. The music plays. The car stunt. Magic.
Joelle goes into a hotel room. She finds Odile with Bernard. She is not bothered. She smiles.
She goes to Alphonse's room. He will not come out.
Severine holds court at dinner. She regales them with stories of Hamlet.
Severine calls out a man. Why are you sitting over there? Come join us. Jean-Francois explains he is not a member of the crew. He is a hotel guest. Severine invites him over anyway.
Julie asks Joelle to get Alphonse. Joelle explains he is sulking and she is used to it. Julie asks her to get him anyway.
Severine explains to the hotel guest the life of a filmmaker. We live together . We work together. We become a family. And then it is gone.
Alexandre tells a story about Severine. They were working in Italy. Someone said, "She is better than Eleanore Duse." He said, "Yes, she is a real doozy."
Alphonse comes out of his room. He wants someone to give him money for a brothel.
Ferrand says No. He tells him to go into his room and learn his lines.
Ferrand gives Alphonse some fatherly advise. Some more Truffaut wisdom.
Tomorrow is a workday, and it is the work that matters. You are a good actor. No one's personal life runs smoothly. That only happens in the movies.
Movies run along like trains in the night.
And people like you and me are only happy in our work.
Late at night Alphonse calls Julie and tells her that he is leaving. It is up to her to save the day.
She goes to his room and saves the day.
They have a great conversation where she dispenses wisdom. She says Liliane and the stuntman will not work out. He will tire of her and she will feel lost in London. She will be back in two weeks.
He complains.
My love affairs have always been disasters. I thought women were magic.
She responds.
Everyone's magic. . . . Or no one is.
The next morning Odile goes looking for Julie. She is not in her room.
Joelle has been up all night. Lajoie thought they had already shot the costume party, so he sent the costumes back. She went to the airport to retrieve them.
Julie wakes up with Alphonse. She gets up to set the alarm for him. He wakes up thinking they are now in love. He wants her to stay. She has to work. She tells him to sleep.
She goes to her room. She gets dressed for the day. She goes downstairs. She and Odile leave the hotel together. Julie has served the needs of the film.
Alphonse reads it differently, as only Alphonse can.
He calls and leaves a message for Dr. Nelson. He tells him that he and Julie are now in love and demands that he set her free.
Dr. Nelson calls Julie in her dressing room.
Bernard tries to get reimbursed for his expenses.
Alphonse has gone missing.
Joelle enters and says Julie has locked herself in her room.
Stacey comes up, and Julie lets her in.
Perhaps she feels an expectant mother would understand.
Joelle puts the pieces together.
Mdme. Lajoie is outraged by these people.
Your precious cinema! I think it stinks!
Stacey explains to Bertrand the Producer. She wants some tub butter. In a block.
TUB BUTTER.
Bertrand puts pressure on Bernard. He is Props, after all. Get some tub butter!
Bernard protests. It is not in the script!
They all run out to find it.
Alexandre takes it all in stride. He is a seasoned veteran and has seen it all before.
I've known far more costly whims.
He tells the Assistant Production Office Coordinator a story about Hedy Lamarr.
Who installed a rain machine in her garden in California to remind her of Austria.
Bertrand and Joelle frantically open sticks of butter into a bowl to mash them together.
There is no tub butter in the whole Riviera!
Jean-Francois calls. He has found Alphonse.
Racing go-carts at a go-cart track.
Ferrand himself carries the tub butter sculpture to Julie's room.
The towel on her wall says Jean Cocteau.
She cannot believe Alphonse made the phone call. Ferrand knows he acted like the child he is. But Dr. Nelson is a wonderful man. He will get over it.
Julie threatens to quit the movies.
Jean-Francois uses the time on set to record sound effects.
Stacey brings Dr. Nelson to set. No one was doing anything, so I got him.
Odile is getting Alphonse ready. Joelle appears. He tells her he is quitting the movies.
She calls his bluff.
Good idea. You do that.
She walks off smiling.
He is stunned.
Odile finishes and walks off like a sprite.
Ferrand writes new dialogue for Julie and gives it to Odile to take to her.
Dr. Nelson takes care of Julie.
He gives her a pill. He loves her. He is gentle. He understands. She recovers.
Odile brings the dialogue.
Even if that's true, I'll never be able to forget. I've decided to live alone. Now I know that life is rotten.
Her own words to Ferrand.
That man will use anything!
They film the scene.
She enters with the trick candle.
They play the score on a vinyl record live.
They do another take. That was the best one.
Bertrand rushes in with bad news.
Tragic news.
Ferrand talks to us in voice-over.
We're waiting for the film's English insurance representative. The film's fate is in his hands.
What I've always dreaded has happened.
The era of studio films had died.
So says Ferrand.
We watch more rushes.
The English insurance representative speaks.
He is played by the British novelist Graham Greene! Who is known in the film world for This Gun for Hire (1942), Ministry of Fear (1944), Confidential Agent (1945), Brighton Rock (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), Saint Joan (1957), The Quiet American (1958), Our Man in Havana (1959), and of course The Third Man (1949).
No. It's impossible. You cannot reshoot the scene with Alexandre with another actor. You will have to simplify the plot.
Ferrand and Joelle talk it through.
We will shoot it from a distance.
We will shoot him in the back.
We will shoot it in the snow.
They pump in the snow. Lots of snow. White, wet foam.
Ferrand gives camera notes to Walter.
Joelle brings in the stand-in.
Walter notices his hair is too long.
Ferrand asks Odile to trim it.
Bernard shows them the gun.
The scores of extras walk in the snow.
Alphonse tells Ferrand he plans to take a film in Tokyo. Turgenev. First Love. A Frenchman filming a Russian story in Japan. So he can be 13,000 miles away from his problems.
Dr. Nelson and Julie say goodbye. They are heading to Australia for a medical conference.
We film the scene we have seen before.
The opening scene.
Instead of slapping Alexandre, Alphonse shoots him. Shoots him from a distance.
We finish the scene.
We wrap.
The company packs up to leave.
See you at Unemployment. We can sign up together.
Bernard turns down Jean-Francois' request to ride with him.
This is a subtle point in the picture. Remember when Lajoie showed Ferrand a red car and a white car? Ferrand chose the blue car. Jean-Francois's car. He said he was sure Jean-Francois would not mind.
They do not bring it up again, but later Jean-Francois needed a ride from the stuntman, and now he asks Bernard for a ride. He has given up his car in service of the film.
Odile and Yann are getting married.
What!
Someone on this set was able to keep something a secret.
The journalist wants someone to interview. Ferrand will not do it. Bernard does it.
Was this not a hard film to make? I heard there were some rocky moments.
Not at all. It went fine! And we hope audiences enjoy as much as we enjoyed making it.
We zoom out to the sky.
We watch from above as the music plays.
Day for Night is Francois Truffaut's love letter to cinema.
As The Last Metro is his love letter to the theatre.
Jean-Luc Godard wrote him a nasty letter in response to this film. He is like the voice Ferrand heard in his dreams, demanding that he make political films. Francois Truffaut wrote Godard a scathing letter in return.
It was the end of their friendship.
Godard went on to noodle with films that are unwatchable to many people, claiming some kind of moral high ground over his political positions.
Truffaut went on to make heart-felt, entertaining, beloved films that will stand the test of time.
The End.
Fade to Black.
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