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PARIS . City of Cinema

Paris, rich backdrop of many unforgettable films

filmotech.com. 05/07/2010. Themes

VERY SOON WE WILL BE SEEING TWO MAJOR FRENCH FILMS WHICH, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, ARE RELATED TO PARIS IN SPANISH CINEMAS. FIRSTLY, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, STARRING CATHERINE DENEUVE AND EMILIE DEQUENNE, BY ANDRÉ TECHINÉ; A DRAMATIC STORY BASED ON A REAL-LIFE EVENT THAT SHOOK FRANCE RECENTLY CONCERNING A FALSE ACCUSATION OF ANTI-SEMITISM. A YOUNG GIRL CONCOCTS THIS STORY IN ORDER TO IMPRESS HER MOTHER AND HER BOYFRIEND, WHICH LEADS TO A MEDIA UPROAR IN WHICH THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC IS FORCED TO INTERVENE. AND SECONDLY, TRÉSOR, BY CLAUDE BERRI AND FRANÇOIS DUPEYRON, A BRILLIANT COMEDY WHICH HAS BROKEN BOX OFFICE RECORDS IN FRANCE, STARRING ALAIN CHABAT, MATHILDE SEIGNER AND THE UNFAILINGLY WONDERFUL FANNY ARDANT. THESE NEW RELEASES BRING TO MIND THE INFINITE NUMBER OF FILMS WHICH IN PREVIOUS YEARS HAVE USED THE ?CITY OF LIGHT? AS A BACKDROP.

À bout de souffle

Three of the best-known, most famous films set in the atmosphere of gay Paris are An American in Paris, with Gene Kelly, and two others sharing the same name, but very different stories, featuring a certain world-famous cabaret located on the Boulevard de Clichy: Moulin Rouge; one, the John Houston drama and the other, a spectacular musical starring Nicole Kidman in which the Australian star sings and dances a collection of songs known in every corner of the world.

We are gong to recall, albeit very briefly, some of the most significant cinematographic productions filmed in the squares, boulevards and famous settings of the beautiful French capital.

Paris, je t?ame [Paris, I Love You ], an novel experiment; the story is told in several independent episodes, which occur in different quarters of Paris and the themes of which vary from drama to comedy.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, a dark tale based on the famous novel by Patrick Süskind; for this film a faithful recreation of eighteenth-century Paris was required. The protagonist attempts to distil the scent of the feminine essence itself from the bodies of the women he murders.

Jean Luc Godard, known as the genius of the French New Wave, brought Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg together in Breathless, about two outcasts who meet, explore, and experience love and betrayal on the Champs Elysées and surrounding streets.

An education

Martin Prevost is another Frenchman in love with his hometown. Director of the award-winning, wonderful Seraphine, he is a filmmaker for whom our international actress Carmen Maura, produced and performed in Tortilla and Cinema, and, later Le ventre de Juliette. Maura has starred in many films shot in Paris and thereabouts, the latest two being Chicas, directed and written by Yasmina Reza, the famous author of the play ?Arte?, in which she plays the long-suffering mother of three non-conformist daughters, one of which is Emmanuelle Seigner, and Las Mujeres de la Sexta Planta, a retelling of the stories of the Spanish women who went to live and work in Paris years ago; accompanying her in the cast are Lola Dueñas and Natalia Verbeke.

What?s more, Victoria Abril has worked on emblematic films like The Moon in the Gutter, by Jean-Jacques Beineix, accompanied by Gerard Depardieu and Nastassia Kinski, and Max My Love directed by Nagisa Oshima, in which she plays a maid who shares a house with the enormous ape with which Charlotte Rampling is in love, which causes her to develop a strange disease.

Roman Polanski, the controversial Polish director born in Paris, made Frantic, with Harrison Ford and Emmanuelle Seigner, an enthralling thriller, filmed almost entirely on real Parisian sets.

Famous filmmaker Alain Resnais made Muriel, a strange, heart-wrenching drama for which the heroine Delphine Seyrig won an award for her sensitive performance at the Venice Festival.

Before sunset

Richard Linklater is a Texan director enamoured of France and Paris in particular. As Oscar Wilde once said, ?When good Americans die they go to Paris.? Here Linklater made two wonderful films, entitled Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, which relate, in two separate episodes, the love story of two young people: an American, Ethan Hawke and a Frenchwoman: Julie Delpy. The first film portrays the train journey during which they first meet and the second a subsequent encounter in Paris, which they proceed to explore from corner to corner.

Many other great and beautiful film stars have passed through Paris: Audrey Hepburn, in Funny Face, Paris ? When it Sizzles and Love in the Afternoon; Elizabeth Taylor, in The Last Time I Saw Paris and Rhapsody; Greta Garbo in Ninotchka and Camille and Audrey Tatou in the box-office hit Amelie, to name but a few.

And even more fantastic films from the past have portrayed the great capital, like The Gates of Paris, The Man on the Eiffel Tower, >Arch of Triumph, Is Paris Burning?, French Can Can, Quay of the Goldsmiths, Sous le ciel de Paris, Bastille Day, the much more recent The Da Vinci Code and so many more which have made enticing Paris into a luxury backdrop for hundreds of films we will never forget. This is the city which only the Big Apple, i.e. New York, the city which never sleeps, could overshadow.

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