016 - The Last Metro, 1980 France; Dir. Francois Truffaut.

Monday, January 16, 2017

016 - The Last Metro, 1980, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.

When I was a child we had a book by Corrie Ten Boom called The Hiding Place.

It was about a family who hid Jews from the Nazis during World War Two.

Later I discovered a book called The Diary of Anne Frank, or Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.  It was a diary kept by a girl who was herself a Jew kept in hiding by one of those families.

We grew up during the Cold War.

We imagined what it would be like to be taken over by Communists and to find places to hide.  I would build places in my mind, buildings with hidden rooms, secret doors, private passageways, closets behind closets, basements under basements.

If you have seen The Fault in Our Stars (2014), then you have seen the two young protagonists go to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

If you have seen Inglourious Basterds (2009), then you have shivered as Christoph Waltz as Nazi Col. Hans Landa sits in a farmhouse talking threateningly as a Jewish family hides beneath the floorboards.

If you have seen Black Book (2006), then you have fled with Rachel Stein, played by Carice van Houten, as she flees her hiding place to pose as a singer in occupied Netherlands.

Whether it was Nazi-occupied Europe or the Communist Soviet Union, we understood the emotional power behind the idea of hiding from tyranny.

I am an actor.  I enjoy movies about the theatre.  Life behind the curtain.

Watch Being Julia (2004), starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons.  It is excellent.

Watch the farce Noises Off (1992), with Michael Caine, Carol Burnett, Denholm Elliott, John Ritter, and Christopher Reeve.  It is hilarious.

Watch the Oscar favorites, the classics All About Eve (1950) and the instant classic Birdman (2014).

What if you put these two kinds of stories together?

A movie about a hiding place set in a theatre.

That says it all.

That is the premise of The Last Metro, a film by the greatest director to have come out of the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague), Francois Truffaut.

It also stars the two greatest international stars to have come out of France, Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu.

We have already seen some of France's great stars--Yves Montand in The Wages of Fear, and Jean-Paul Belmondo and Emmanuelle Riva in Leon Morin, Priest.  We have also been introduced to New Wave darling Anna Karina.  Now we meet these two.

With this movie, we are in great hands.

Under Nazi-occupied Paris, a theatre hires actor Bernard Granger (Gerard Depardieu) to join their company.  The theatre's owner, Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent) has gone into hiding.  The public is told he has fled to South America.  His wife Marion Steiner (Catherine Deneuve) now runs the theatre, and they are mounting their next play.  Their artistic director, Jean-Loup Cottins (Jean Poiret), runs rehearsals.  Cast and crew do their work under the pressures of occupation, as theatre critic Daxiat (Jean-Louis Richard) shows suspicion about Steiner's whereabouts.

Steiner is hiding in the basement.

He will rig an unused air duct so that he can hear the rehearsals from below and give acting notes to his wife at night, when she sneaks down to be with him.  She will pass the notes to Cottins, and he will give them out at rehearsals, with no one but Marion knowing that her husband is present and providing the notes.

The theatre critic is so savvy that when he attends the play's opening night, he knows that it cannot be the directorial work of Cottins but rather shows the strong hand of the great Steiner.

Imagine that premise.  The critic knows his trade, and the artistic style of the play may be what gives Steiner away.

Intrigue.

Granger may be involved in the Resistance and secretly rigging theatre props as explosives to smuggle out to attack the Nazis.

The costume girl is also Jewish.

Marion goes to local Nazi headquarters to make an appeal.

Daxiat appeals to Cottins to try to take over the theatre.

They will try to raid the basement--during a performance!

The tensions continue to mount.

Meanwhile, a love triangle develops, as Marion is spending all her time during the day with her costar as her husband is going mad with his secret incarceration.

How will all this turn out?

The film is beautifully shot by cinematographer Nestor Almendros, who had a triumphant career.  In addition to the many films he shot for New Wave directors Francois Truffaut and Eric Rohmer, he also filmed movies such as Kramer vs. Kramer, The Blue Lagoon, Sophie's Choice, Places in the Heart, and Billy Bathgate.

It won ten Cesars, the French Oscar, for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Music, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Editing, and Best Sound.  Watch it and see if you agree with their assessments.

The Last Metro refers to the curfew placed on Paris.  During the Winter, the citizens would go to the theatre to stay warm.  After the show, they had be sure to catch the last metro home in order not to break the curfew.  The consequences were not to be desired.

Art holds up a mirror to nature.

It also inspires hope in the midst of struggle.

In this film, it provides the means of survival.