Paris vu par… (1965)
One of the documentaries from the DVD’s bonus section makes the claim that this Barbet Schroeder-produced film is the last representative of the nouvelle vague. Interesting, even though I cannot offer an informed opinion on this statement, one way or the other. What I found more intriguing, however, was Jean Douchet’s remark (in one of the interviews included in the bonus) that when planning for the film, the group decided to treat Paris as a collection of little ‘villages’ (as opposed to the more traditional division of the city by ‘arrondissment’), aiming to show the spirit of each one of these enclaves within the metropolis.
Having just spent three months in Paris, watching the film gave a boost to my understanding of the class dynamics of this urban conglomerate — from the high end bourgeois alienation seen in Rohmer’s Place de l’Etoile and Chabrol’s La Muette (both in 16th), to the working class protagonists of Jean Rouch’s Gare du Nord (which includes a brilliant Barbette Shroeder appearance) and Pollet’s Rue St. Denis (both in the 10th), with the addition of other types of stratification shown in Godard’s segment on Montparnasse and Levallois. Things have not changed profoundly today, and the same class divisions persist along the same demarcation lines.
Jean Rouch, seated near the site of the old Cinematheque, discussing his episode, Gare du Nord.
In his review of the film, Ed Howard describes the collection as a ‘terribly uneven lot’, ‘flawed and mediocre’, attributing most of the film’s achievements to Godard’s involvement. This is a verdict that could be passed on to most similar efforts, from Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1962) to Montreal vue par…. (1991). And while he may have a point about some of the not particularly original dramatic turns here, I would think that a lot of the subtlety and the social commentary, on the relationship between people, architecture, and urban ambience, escapes to outsiders. Had I seen the film at an earlier point, before living in Paris, I probably would not have been able to appreciate many of its aspects. The favorable comparison of the film to Paris as shown in Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962) and its contrasting to what a French reviewer calls ‘pseudo poetics’ of the city, found in Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (1956) only makes sense when one is familiar with the social structure of the metropolis.
The DVD of Paris vu par… does not have English subtitles, which is generally the case of French films in local shops: unlike domestic films sold in other European countries, French cinema does not come with subtitles, you are expected to be fully fluent in French in order to view and understand it. Dommage, as one would say in French, as even with the best efforts to follow the (sometimes intense) conversations, many of the subtleties of the dialogue were lost for me (as they would inevitably be for many foreign viewers whose French may not be at the level of native fluency). New Yorker video have released a subtitled version many years ago, it is a rarity in a format that is rapidly becoming obsolete, a few copies of which are still available on Amazon and EBay.
© Dina Iordanova
15 June 2008
Tags: French cinema, Paris in film
June 18th, 2008 at 12:50 am
[...] provided the accompaniment to an event hosting Charlie Chaplin. Like the creators of the classic Paris vu par (1965), Alain Roulleau thinks and talks of Montmartre as a village, and of his intention to keep [...]