french or french-ish films: post vii
i can no longer call this the “pre*paris french media blog” because the paris trip has already happened. (or, what we were hoping for as the first paris trip of this decade, anyway!)
but, i haven’t been able to stop myself.
it’s like you read one book or article and it mentions another… and so you pick up another… and it’s endless.
well, so are things inspired by that city of light we all call paris.
so i’ve been watching even MORE french*inspired and french*made movies.
i love them so.
today, i’ll catch you up on two animated (american) films, as well as two fRENCH MuSICALS i learned about! (who knew?!? my screenwriter, fellow theatre-nerd bookstore pal savannah did, that’s who! now you and i both know, too! hurray!)
ratatouille (2007)
“although each of the world’s countries would like to dispute this fact, we french know the truth: the best food in the world is made in france.
the best food in france is made in paris…”
and so my favorite pixar movie since a bug’s life begins.
what’s french about it:
the obsession with food
the infamous rat problem in paris (which has since been solved, actually; the nyc rodent extermination expert ought to give them a call.)
the apartment window views (a common parisian movie trope, but we love it all the same. pan from the artist at work to the couple arguing before kissing… we know exactly where we are! even before that inevitable iconic shot of the eiffel tower at twilight.)
fine dining (esp. the “chef” title in the kitchen and the other roles of precision and execution)
the view of notre dame while passing under a bridge on the seine river
the slanted windows and skylit apartments
bicycles (a reminder: they don’t go with traffic like they do in the usa; always look both ways for bikes, not just cars!)
haute cuisine (tiny portions; immaculate presentation)
making fun of americans and our american-ness (the corn dog, the overalls!)
listening to the crackle of bread
bribing the grower for the best produce
the fact that humans can solve any argument by kissing
forever a view of the eiffel tower
the traffic (although i only saw a couple of vespas when i was there; bicycles are much more ubiquitous)
and american-about-paris was the use of a riff on gershwin’s “an american in paris” ballet music
i find this film beautiful and hilarious. and while it’s perhaps a bit silly, that adds to the charm. and the ethics of rats stealing our food and garbage (see also: robert c. o’brien’s mrs. frisby and the rats of nimh) is i guess the only story arc we humans can think of aside from rats wanting to be great chefs. (i know disney movies are famous for their easter eggs, but i’m happy to announce that without a guide, i spotted aladdin’s lamp in the chef’s office!)
here are a few of my (many!) favorite quotes from the film:
{brad bird gets the main writing credit, but this project was handed around a lot at pixar, and i’m guessing patton oswalt did quite a bit of improv while recording the voice of remy, so i don’t wanna give out any unnecessary credits here except to say that the final script was pretty snappy, imho.}
“if you are what you eat, then i only want to eat the good stuff.” ~remy
“wait wait, whoa—you read?”
“well, not excessively.”
“oh, man. does dad know?”
“heh—you could fill a book—a LOT of books with things dad doesn’t know. and they have—which is why i read!” ~remy & emile
“what can i do? i’m a figment of your imagination.” ~remy’s ghost conscience chef gusteau
“you’ll need more than soup to survive in my kitchen.” ~chef skinner
“no no no! don’t just HORK it down!” ~remy (i actually say that one a lot!) ;D
“what do you ‘have to’ more than family?” ~emile
“you didn’t think i would stay forever, did you? eventually a bird’s gotta leave the nest.”
“we’re not birds, we’re rats. we don’t leave our nests, we make them bigger.” ~remy & dad
“…rats. all we do is take, dad. i’m tired of taking. i want to make things. i want to add something to this world.” ~remy
“we don’t mean to be rude, but we’re french. and it’s dinner time.” ~collette
“not anyone can be a great artist. but a great artist can come from anywhere.” ~anton ego
the aristocats (1970)
walt disney animation studios
(including legends frank thomas and ollie johnson, master animators of the form.)
“ladies do not start fights. but they can finish them.” ~marie
a classic example of the good ol’ days of hand-drawn (the way it should be) animation, the aristocats is set in paris in 1910. and yes, while it’s always the butler, we can still appreciate the disneyfication of talking animals, the jazz of paris, and a number of allusions to the city’s most famous painters.
it also has a number of cartoon gags (ex: the artist in beret and smock drinking at the café who pours out his wine when he sees a mouse chasing the gang of cats) and one problematic stereotype. a number of familiar voice actors give their talents to our parisian cats, dogs, mice, and humans. (you’ll hear the voice of winnie the pooh, the sheriff of nottingham, baloo the bear, and more.) and there is inevitably some rotoscoping happening. (why else does monsieur george the doctor have the same physicality of dick van dyke as the old banker man in mary poppins?!)
sure, it feels like lady and the tramp with cats x 101 dalmations. but i appreciated the sketchy line animation drawings with splashes of color for the opening credits. and that one of the kitty brother’s in named “toulouse” (after toulouse lautrec, of course!) and the accordion music of course transports us to paris in any decade.
what’s not {modern} parisian about it:
the empty streets.
they made the eiffel tower short and wide to fit in the long shot of the city.
and i’m not sure the hippie jazz cats and their psychedelic colors are the same kind of jazz that parisians love in their underground clubs.
some of my favorite quotes:
“why should you be first?” ~toulouse
“because i’m a lady.” ~marie
“you’re no lady. you’re a sister.” ~berlioz
“well, it’s most important that i get back to paris.” ~duchess
“it’s not exactly the ritz, but it’s peaceful and quiet.” ~thomas o’malley
the umbrellas of cherbourg (1964)
in its language of origin: les parapluies de cherbourg; ‘parapluies’ being a word i learned on location this spring in paris; both when i was caught in a downpour and bought a broken one from a kind man at a touristy trinket shop and when i wasn’t allowed to bring said ‘parapluie’ into shakespeare & co. and someone picked up my umbrella by, er, “mistake” and i walked back home without one!
directed by: jacques demy
composer: michel legrand
i’ve been spiraling through TOO MANY IDEAS to write now that i’m home from paris. one of which was “what if someone wants to set a happy musical in paris?” well, my friend savannah pointed out that, despite the french people’s love of ennui, it’s been done.
(however, that is not this film. but the next one we’ll talk about. ha!)
the umbrellas of cherbourg is a french jazz opera. bright pop colors (rumored to be the inspiration for la la land’s color scheme) that vibrate against the romantic (& ulitmately true-to-french-style depressing) story line.
“i wanted to make them really cry—and i did—i succeeded.” ~director jacques demy
the ending isn’t necessarily entirely unhappy. but definitely the alternate to the one you’d expect from a romantic musical. (see also, again: la la land.)
“i’m always looking for emotion. which is why i say i’m more sentimental than intellectual.” ~jacques demy
unlike la la land, but very much like evita, every word of this movie is sung.
what i’ve learned about old musicals, though: the stars were often dubbed. and they weren’t mad about it. (singing in the rain has had me believing all this time that they would be, right?!)
the voices were recorded first and played and immeasurable volumes on set (on location in the streets of cherbourg, where auteur/director jacques demy grew up!) for the actors to sing along. (which wasn’t pretty to hear, by any means, but it’s much more authentic to sing when lip-synching for breaths and such.)
while demy’s first three commercial films were prescriptive of the french new wave, he wanted to challenge himself with his new feature.
so the umbrellas of cherbourg defies french new wave, but it also defied the american musicals coming out of the hollywood studio system. (american films of the 1940’s all hit france at once once the german occupation of ww2 ended; while france admired the american films and started making their own costume dramas with the same production quality and star-billing of the american studio, they added a required “french-ness,” to the formula. the film critics of the cahiers du cinema found these new post-war french films “soul-less,” and thus new wave was born. (a more casual look to film; no artifical lighting; shot on location; the auteur director as the author as the film bringing his own personal expressions and style, personal mythologies and philosophies, fellow filmmaker references, hand-held cameras, etc etc etc.)
finding the traditional musical too choppy, the story interrupted every so often by a song or dance number, demy wanted to make something seamless. umbrellas is the first all-sung live-action film and straddled the intersection between traditional quality and the new wave—it was made on location, but incorporated artisan production design. not just custom-made costumes, but custom wallpaper design for the backgrounds that lead the color of one scene into the next. (also fascinating is how the shots are devoid of shadow! bright, flat, pops of color like a matisse painting!)
while there’s no dancing or choreographed numbers, there are a number of longshots with constant camera movements. and since umbrellas was all-singing, well, it couldn’t have been easy!
two oh-so-very-french-about-it quotes:
“people only die of love in the movies.”
“i would have died for him. so why aren’t i dead?” (this sung while a carnivale confetti parade happens outside of the shop window!)
and to demy’s next feature: the young girls of rochefort. (in french: les desmoiselles de rochefort)
the challenge for which he gave himself:
“what a dream—if people coming out of the theatre could dance and sing and be happy—what are you going to do for that? and i wrote a story. a lot of people really were very happy. i was happy, too….[it’s] better than money, i tell you.”
the young girls of rochefort (1967)
in french: les demoiselled de rochefort
auteur: jacques demy
starring: gene kelly (dubbed in french, thank goodness, his american accent is deplorable en français!) and catherine deneuve (the same simple starlet from jacque demy’s umbrellas of 1964 we spoke of above.)
music by: composer and demy collaborator michel le grand again
another main actor/dancer you might recognize: george chakiris, who won the academy award for his role as bernardo in sondheim & robbins’ 1961 west side story; he’s neither latino nor french, but american-born to two greek immigrants.
does a happy french musical exist? yes.
set in paris and not made by americans? not that i’ve found yet! (please comment below if you know of one?)
this one IS happy (thanks to the last split seconds where everything “works out,” it seems), and is made by a frenchman, is in french, but isn’t set in paris. allors. it’s still worth a wacky watch.
enjoyable:
the color palette starts out in white and blue with pops of red (how french!), and they dance before anyone ever says a thing. (which is 5+ minutes in to the film; then we get two lines of dialogue before another group dance number begins; huzzah!)
it’s all very modern/jumpy/ballet dance vibes reminiscent of west side story’s dance vibes; but make it a french port town where it’s sunny and happy instead of, you know, new york gang violence.
one of the sisters wants to be a composer. which feels revolutionary even now when only 13% of professional composers are women.
the audience gets to be aware of how everyone’s stories are intertwining even as the characters are blissfully unaware. (missed connections! true love around the corner! mistaken identities!)
ponderings:
interesting how the songs and dances don’t necessarily advance the narrative, but are explaining our characters’ backstories. (excessively and often repetitively, actually.)
is it breaking the fourth wall if the characters are talking (or singing) to the camera, even though we know they’re talking (or singing) to another character across from them?
was casting gene kelly an ode to the american musical tradition? or demy’s own grab for an american star? or was he just a fan?
awkward:
a lot of super-fake singing and music-playing on instruments. (so much for french new wave authenticity; but demy was blurring the lines already anyway!)
still can’t figure out why the song about the murderer/serial killer in town? unless that was absolutely the only way for the artist to meet the wrong twin?
french about it:
it’s a big deal for the french to share anything personal—or let you call them by their first names. (yes, the opposite of america where employees wear name badges for customers to informally address them even though they’re total strangers; no wonder the faeries stole our magic faster here in the usa, no?)
so. much. pining.
a jules & jim reference (a françois truffaut film; the french love to acknowledge other film makers and their idols in their films); then mentioning the film’s own composer when listing music tastes.