french media pre*paris blog iii

yes, we’re still going with all things semi*related to paris in anticipation of next month’s trip! here are a few things i’ve enjoyed lately…

[& if you’d like to support my writing and illustrating trip and get real MAIL from paris, you can support me in the crayon box (my author*illustrator patreon community) for all sorts of colourful, artsy story engagement. thank you!] :D

enjoy!!

<3 xo,

*hallie

an american in paris (film, 1951)

starring & choreographed by: gene kelly

director: vincente minelli

oscars: 6 (art direction, cinematography, costumes, music, screenplay, it also beat out both a streetcar named desire & a piece of the sun for best picture!)

inspired by: french impressionism & the musical catalogue of the late george gershwin who himself had studied painting in paris and wrote the orchestral ballet, “an american in paris.”

not french about this film: none of it was filmed there. they used a combination of 44 sets and backlots.

impressive: the 72-person symphony they used for the soundtrack and that the last seventeen minutes of the film is a completely wordless ballet finale. (the ballet sets in the style of different french impressionists: utrillo, rouseau, van gogh, toulouse-lautrec. gene kelly himself placing the camera for all the shots, too. since he choreographed the spectacle.)

the lyricist: alan jay lerner (who you may know from my fair lady’s musical adaptation from the george bernard shaw play pygmalion, among other things!)

so perhaps it’s not the first jukebox musical, but it DID start with the title (minelli wanted to make a musical called “an american in paris” from gershwin’s music), and they built the script (and lyrics to propel the plot) around the existing gershwin songs.

artsy: not just is the whole thing the lavish mgm-spectacle of a colourful musical you’d expect, but it really is a thoughtful piece on art & commerce. on high art & pop art. patrons and exhibition deadlines and facing the critics… and that they indulged a 17 minute ballet finale, and let oscar levant play a rather long (for a movie) piano solo piece with the full orchestra for a concert number—going to the film felt like experiencing both the symphony and the ballet. a full theatrical experience.

what’s parisian about it? i think the forever-struggle of the artist. and that “romantic” idea of the bohemian starving artist who lives in a foreign country and who’s friends with all the neighborhood kids. when a pretty patroness outfits him with a studio, gives him a gallery opportunity, and enables him to succeed at his craft… still all he wants (or gets distracted by) is to fall in love with the local girl who inspires him.

the story of diva and flea

story by: mo willems

illustrated by: tony diterlizzi

published by: hyperion books for children, 2015 (view here on bookshop.org)

the impetus: mo willems always wanted to write a book in paris. he moved into an apartment and his immediate environment inspired the tale. the landlady’s dog who never ventured past the garden. and the neighborhood cat who befriended him.

it’s all very lady & the tramp, but without the romance. the art was great (it’s essentially an illustrated chapter book), but eloise in paris is still my favourite for all the atmosphere and joie di vivre of paris!

the parisian takeaway: flâneur! the wanderers. hopefully my new “job” while i’m there next month. taking it all in. walking everywhere. sitting in a café for hours on end, writing in a notebook, sipping coffee, watching the world go by and being inspired through the habit of just being.

a moveable feast

by: ernest hemingway

(c) 1964 (written when he was living in the florida keys, i believe.)

so because i love and re-watch often woody allen’s film midnight in paris (which we covered in blog post ii), i was reading this book and in my head, the narrator is also speaking in (actor) hemingway’s blunt, straight-forward, staccato voice. and it was entertaining. his ego is on full display.

and i quote: “…and i was sure this was a very good story although i would not know truly how good until i read it over the next day.”

ah, only hemingway.
(you totally hear that in the actor’s voice, too, right?!)

a good re-read: especially since i had just read the paris bookseller by kerri maher (berkley, penguin random house, published 2022) which features hemingway and friends (james joyce, gertrude stein, ezra pound, t.s. eliot, f. scott & zelda fitzgerald, etc.) as they were together in paris, revolving through the doors of shakespeare and company, the famous english language  bookstore on the west bank.

the takeaway: well, while i have a LOT of passages underlined and starred, and the book is just good parisian fun, the very last paragraph of the book sums it up beautifully:

there is never any ending to paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. we always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. paris was always worth it and you recieved return for whatever you brought to it. but this is how paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.

l’agence

two seasons: on netflix (2022-2023 )

what i love: i could sit on the couch and re-watch these episodes (english captions on) and maybe re-learn a bit of my (sad) high school french. OR i can just watch and marvel at the architecture and homesteads and apartments this family rents and sells to people moving throughout paris.

as paris is cheaper to live in than new york city, it’s awfully tempting to up and move. but i’ve read enough ex-pat memoirs to know it’s not quite AS easy as that.

also ridiculous: after a few episodes, $7 million for an apartment starts looking cheap. (if you’ve ever been in the market for manhattan real estate, it actually is… but also MILLION. so no. still not cheap. but PARIS! so… it all starts looking romantically affordable.

i shall recommend to you the SECOND SEASON over the first. the first season felt like they were trying too hard to manufacture family drama (amongst the parents and three real estate brothers who all work together) for a story arc and intrigue. the second season is more houses and places across france to see. and less yelling, although being in business with family does always come with at least some conflict…

the takeaway: paris is more affordable than new york, but you still have to be a multi-millionaire. also blue suits seem to be a thing for guys, and i am INTO it!

the paris opera

a film by: jean-stéphane bron (2018)

things i love: documentaries about the creative process.

whether it’s a film about making a film, or a dance company, an artist (or a heist), i am here for it.

what’s parisian about it: how france as a nation values the arts. of course the government as the major funder of the ballet and opera comes with its own problems, but you should have SEEN the size of the press conferences! when a new director was hired. when they announced the 2015 season. when they changed artistic directors… it was like michael jordan returning to basketball or somebody sportsball famous announcing he was retiring. it’s a BIG deal over there!

i laughed out loud: for a long time. and loudly. because they played opera at full volume through a speaker next to a giant (GIANT!) bull to get him used to the noise, trying to train him to appear on stage in the new opera production moses & aaron. the bull remained nonplussed, but the cast was terrified the whole time.

see it because: it was wonderful and i watched it twice and i hope your local library has a copy of this film, too.

(the rolling wig cart! the organization of 1500 people to keep it running! finding a replacement with two days till curtain; the gratuitous amount of laundry… the newbie kid from russia who meets his opera idol and the famous guy tells the reporter “he’s not an admirer, he’s a singer like me.” yes, i cried at that.)

it was also interesting because i had just read the ballerinas (by rachel kapelke-dale, st. martin’s griffin, 2021) and one scene is exactly what this film showed… when the president of france comes to the annual fundraiser and all the ballerinas have to come out on stage in all white tutus and curtsey… like a silly parade.

but especially enjoyed: how it highlighted how everyone takes their art seriously as both culture and craft.

in the next blog post: la belle et la bête (both cocteau and christophe gans’ versions), moulin rouge, & gigi…

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