Marcel Carné | PARIS LA

“Jacques Becker’s mise en scène flexes the emotions, the way you flex your muscles.” — Bertrand Tavernier

Long before he directed Isabelle Huppert and Philippe Noiret in Coup de torchon, Dexter Gordon in Round Midnight, or Dirk Bogarde and Jane Birkin in Daddy nostalgie, Tavernier was a cinephile par excellence. In his youth he founded a cinema club, wrote for Cahiers du cinéma, was an assistant to Jean-Pierre Melville, a publicist for Raoul Walsh and John Ford, and co-authored the volume 30 ans de cinéma américain (and its update 50 ans…, both with Jean-Pierre Coursodon).

And he went to thousands of movies: in his hometown of Lyon, at a sanitorium in St. Gervais (recovering from childhood TB), in his boarding school village, and in Paris, a film-lover’s Valhalla. What he saw during those years he’s brought to the screen in his very personal new documentary VOYAGE À TRAVERS LE CINÉMA FRANÇAIS.

“A remarkable work, made with great intelligence. VOYAGE is enlightening about classic French cinema, and about many forgotten or neglected filmmakers. You are convinced that you know all that by heart, until Tavernier comes along to reveal to us the pure beauty of it all.” – Martin Scorsese

MY JOURNEY THROUGH FRENCH CINEMA/VOYAGE À TRAVERS LE CINÉMA FRANÇAIS, through July 20.

LAEMMLE ROYAL, 11523 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles

laemmle.com/films/42390

Jean Gabin and Arletty in Le jour se lève (1939), directed by Marcel Carné.

After the fall of France in 1940, Jean Renoir, Julien Duvivier, and (briefly) Jean Gabin decamped for Hollywood. Director Marcel Carné and poet–screenwriter Jacques Prévert stayed in their occupied country and, under straitened circumstances, assembled their magnum opus LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS (CHILDREN OF PARADISE).

“The cast is a record of Paris under the Nazis, and one can only regret that some of the players [Arletty] did collaborate, while some were falsely accused of it. It is hard when actors are held up to the standards of human beings.” — David Thomson*

Les Enfant’s first screenings took place in Paris immediately after the Liberation, and the film was celebrated as an emblem of French fortitude and “patriotism” during wartime. Rather than talk about who did what to whom during the dark years, it was easier for Paris to find a symbol of freedom in a 3-hour “panorama of theatrical enterprise, from the lowest street performer to the loftiest actors” [Thomson], set in a simpler time one hundred years prior to its release.

LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS

Friday and Saturday, February 24 and 25, at 7:30 pm.

New Beverly Cinema

7165 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles.

*“Have You Seen…?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films, by David Thomson, is out in paperback.

Above: French poster.

Below: Jean-Louis Barrault (standing) as Baptiste in Children of Paradise.

PARIS LA

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Tag Archives: Marcel Carné

TAVERNIER’S CINÉMA FRANÇAIS

CHILDREN OF PARADISE