Forgive my French films

Fmff : summer break, now.

2008-04-28T00:38:13+02:00

I hereby declare fmff summer break open.

God -and others, including myself- willing, fmff will return on Tuesday, September 2.

Happy silly blockbuster season.

« Madame du Barry » : the harder the fall. (5/5)

2008-01-14T01:29:01+01:00

Though less irrevocably linked to each other than their characters’ destinies, both « Madame du Barry » and « Marie-Antoinette » are visually splendid period pieces, which brilliantly recreate life in Versailles and solve the challenges of their overlapping chronologies in similar fashion.

Both are happy films with tragic endings, which speed through or ignore the increasingly unhappy times met by their heroines, and, despite their tiles, no biographies.

Most of « Madame du Barry » takes place between 1765, when Jeanne Bécu enters Louis XV’s bedroom, and 1774, when Louis XIV dies and she is exiled from Versailles, first to a convent, then to the Louveciennes castle her royal lover had offered to her : less than a decade in a life which filled exactly five.

Most of « Marie-Antoinette » happens between the Austrian teenager’s arrival in Versailles for her wedding, in 1770, and the birth of her first son, in 1781.

Both characters later followed the same path from the king of France’s bed to the scaffold. Both were equally reviled and libelled, one as « la putain du roi » -the king’s whore-, the other as « l’Autrichienne », accused of debauchery or adultery and of bleeding the kingdom to its ruin by their extravagant expenses.

Adversity would eventually bring them together, off screen and if historians are to be trusted : after Madame du Barry helped Marie-Antoinette in a real estate transaction, some form of affection supposedly developed between them.

Nearly as soon as Louis XV dies, « Madame du Barry » takes us back to the fair in revolutionary Paris : there, the film started its story ; there, we return to hear, but not see, how it ends.

Louis XVI was beheaded in January of 1793, Marie-Antoinette in October. We are now in December, though the studio setting seems to bask in a never-ending spring. Madame du Barry is led through the fair to her date with the executioner, but we shall not see her : the camera shies away from tabloid reporting and chooses to stay with a woman and a young kid.

When we last saw her, entering disgrace, Madame du Barry was young, beautiful and defiant. This is how the film wants us to remember her, as if the happy days she lived more than made up for the last tragic one.

According to History books, Marie-Antoinette faced death with the dignity that became a queen and Madame du Barry was taken to the guillotine screaming.

According to the same History books, Madame du Barry’s heart never let out her famous desperate last line : « Encore une minute, M. Le Bourreau », « One more minute, executioner », but what can History books do against a legend ?

Not much more than Christian-Jaque’s film, which does not repeat its title character’s apocryphal call for a time-out, probably less in deference to historical accuracy than to Henri Jeanson, never one to grant the last word, particularly a memorable one, to a competitor.

« Madame du Barry » : paparazzi dreams come true. (4/5)

2008-01-17T20:58:23+01:00

In « Madame du Barry », politics is made of the stuff of « people » magazines, except that the « people » magazines of the times were not for the « people », but for aristocrats only and particularly the « happy few » in Versailles, who followed each minute and step of the king’s life.

Court « etiquette » looks like it was designed for a population of paparazzi and to make their life easy : each moment in the monarch’s life is accessible subject to the proper pass and even Versailles chimneys gladly assist gossipmongers in their smear-gathering efforts.

More than any Republican palace or celebrity’s life today, Versailles was transparent to eyes and ears.

Christian-Jaque’s « Madame du Barry » and Sofia Coppola’s « Marie-Antoinette » chronologies overlap each other : Arch-duchess Marie-Antoinette came to Versailles to marry Arch-locksmith Louis not yet XVI, while Madame du Barry reigned over the king’s nights.

In Sofia Coppola’s film, Madame du Barry was played by dark, ominous-looking Asa Argento.

True to History, both films portray Marie-Antoinette like a fifteen-year old teenager, who arrived in Versailles innocent of both French Court’s « etiquette » and lax moral standards ; shocked to discover that her grand father in-law had a mistress, she refused to speak one single word to her.

This was the second time in two years Martine Carol was snubbed in Versailles : in Sacha Guitry’s « Si Versailles m’était conté », she played la Duchesse de Bouillon, born Mancini, one of prime minister Mazarin’s nieces, who had groomed fabulist Jean de la Fontaine for success ; all of her scenes were later deleted and the experience was all the more humbling that the edited film ran for no less than one hundred and sixty-five minutes.

The attrition war between the two women came to an end when, under strong pressure from both her Austrian reigning grand-mother and Louis XV, Marie-Antoinette acknowledged Madame du Barry’s existence long enough to utter these words : « Il y a du monde aujourd’hui à Versailles », « There is a big crowd today in Versailles »...

One easily imagines Christian-Jaque’s and Henri Jeanson’s sardonic smiles, as they staged these words of utter banality like a climax of wit in a movie graced with so many memorable one-liners.

Marie-Antoinette’s remark reminds of Paul Valery’s derogatory comment about the art of the novel : how to take seriously a literary genre allowed to open on such a dismal sentence as « La marquise est sortie à cinq heures », « The marchioness went out at five » ?

Adding to the irony of the scene, Marie-Antoinette is played by Isabelle Pia, whose character, one year before, in « Le bon dieu sans confession » prepared to become a single mother and live in an apartment her father had initially bought -unbeknown to her- for his -platonic- lover.

« Madame du Barry » : wit, power and aphrodisiacs. (3/5)

2008-01-14T01:27:09+01:00

Martine Carol is Madame du Barry. A sensuous blonde actress, she was French cinema sex goddess of the 1950s, until birth of Venus Bardot put an end to her reign.

Before Madame du Barry, Martine Carol had been Lucrèce Borgia and showed as much flesh as times permitted. One year later, she would be Max Ophüls’s « Lola Montès » : today, her most celebrated part ; then, the biggest flop in her career.

She was also « Caroline chérie », « Nana » and « Nathalie » : she and producers were partial to films named after her character.

Martine Carol was also, for a few years, in respectable « bourgeois Régime » fashion, Christian-Jaque’s wife rather than his mere « favorite », but hopefully simultaneously both.

Though she started her career on stage, Martine Carol was not the most gifted of actresses, but her Madame du Barry displays so much energy, peps, spontaneity and charms that she progressively wins us over, though not overnight like the king.

While Danielle Darrieux was given « Le bon dieu sans confession », Martine Carol embodied the seductions of the flesh and showcased a watered down version of Arletty’s street « gouaille » or cheek : Martine Carol was Madame du Barry, Arletty had been Madame sans Gêne.

« Madame du Barry » is directed by Christian-Jaque and nearly co-directed by Henri Jeanson, who wrote the film dialogues, as he had for « Un revenant » : his one-liners take so much space on the soundtrack that they nearly fill the screen.

It has been said, not unfairly, that Jeanson wrote his dialogues for the actors playing the characters rather than for the characters themselves.

In « Madame du Barry », he sometimes fails -or more likely refuses- to harness his talent and launches Louis XV, « le roué », Jeanne, into rambling monologues, which waste wit like a Hummer gas : Henri Jeanson displayed none of the ecological conscience today championed by Luc Besson, to whom wit is an endangered species he refuses to deplete further.

The dialogue writer is nevertheless excusable : the French 18th century remains known as « le siècle des lumières » and probably was the golden age of wit. Voltaire was the uncontested quipping champion of his times : Jeanson is careful not to invite him to the story.

« Madame du Barry » is one more film about the « Ancien Régime » in which wit, sex and power are words and realities that go together well : an ageing Louis XV, rejuvenated by Jeanne’s skills, demonstrates it with eloquence ; the young Dauphin and future Louis XVI proves it negatively : his slow mind -Jeanson nicknames him the « Arch-locksmith »- and inaptitude to satisfy his young wife, Austrian Arch-duchess Marie-Antoinette, in bed, foretell the French revolution better than any scholarly report.

How not to draw a parallel with Sacha Guitry’s « Si Versaillles m’était conté », released one year earlier, in which the filmmaker, wit master and serial husband played the most absolute of French absolute rulers, Louis XIV ? In an ironic twist which, if true, Sacha Guitry probably deplored but did not fail to find amusing, the playwright and filmmaker was rumoured to be sexually impotent.

How also not to think that Christian-Jaque’s film inspired Bertand Tavernier’s « Que la fête commence » (1975), which took place a few decades before, during « la Régence », right after Louis XIV’s death, when Louis XV was too young to reign in person over his kingdom ?

Tavernier scripted his film in tandem with Jean Aurenche, another successful graduate of the same « qualité française » school as Christian-Jaque and Henri Jeanson : like them, they produced a delightful tale of debauchery, sexual freedom, free-wheeling amorality, religious hypocrisy and huge fun.

The stand-up entertainer to whose stage « Madame du Barry » several times returns will one year later morph into Peter Ustinov’s « Lola Montès » master of ceremony, while the studio-shot fair sequences evoke some of the atmosphere of the similarly recreated « Les enfants du paradis » « boulevard du crime » and the deliberate artificiality of Jean Renoir’s 1952 « Le carrosse d’or ».

« Madame du Barry » : Historytainment. (2/5)

2008-01-14T01:02:21+01:00

Christian-Jaque carefully wraps his film in many layers of artificiality, like a beautifully dressed and made up actress, to prevent any misunderstanding about what we are about to see : « Historytainment », rather than a scholarly lecture in colour about the roots of French Revolution, though we shall witness the joyful deliquescence of a « Régime » which, before the century ends, shall have become « ancien », or past.

In this film of make believe, all the Paris scenes, including the fair sequences, make no effort to hide they are shot in studio, while the palace in Versailles provides the only real location, as if the heart and symbol of the Ancien Régime had withstood the test of times while nothing was left of the city about to seize power by revolution : could the political changes have been as much a « trompe-l’oeil », an optical trick, as the film studio sets ?

« Madame du Barry » is nevertheless no Alexandre Dumas’s tale in « Les trois mousquetaires » style : the film is faithful to basic historical facts, even as it slightly twists their arm for our indisputable pleasure.

Madame du Barry was indeed born Jeanne Bécu, from an unknown father. She worked in fancy « La toilette » fashion shop on rue Saint-Honoré, had few qualms about trading her charms to the best of her interests, but was no street prostitute. She became the lover, and partner in tricks, of Comte du Barry, a gambling aristocrat always on the verge of ruin ; nicknamed « le roué » for his cynical cunning, he in turn brokered her to rich beds to the best of his, and eventually their, interests.

In one of his daring schemes, du Barry had tried to put one of his former « lovers » into the King’s bed, but the candidate had not passed the preliminary health exam.

As he tries again with Jeanne, who now bears his name, though not by marriage, because « le roué » already has a wife, who refuses to die, he will succeed, but only after pulling himself and Jeanne out of several tricky situations, which should have led them to jail or worse.

As Court « etiquette » required that the king’s mistresses be of aristocratic condition, at least by name, Jeanne was hurriedly forced to marry du Barry’s older brother whom she would never meet again after their wedding and one first and final kiss ; her husband was promptly dispatched back to his far-away Languedoc, a substantially richer man, though not as much as his « roué » brother.

When the film veers from historical accuracy, it is because History does not fit the requirements of a clear and speedy narrative or paints some of its characters in excessively dark tones : the Queen was not quite dead yet, when Madame du Barry completed her first excursion to the King’s bed ; the 1950s cinema audience might have had stricter moral rules than the 1760s Versailles Court : why run the risk that they hold their carnal hurry against the film leading couple ? and why not take a short cut rather than bother with a boring death scene ?

« Madame du Barry » : on our way to the king’s bed. (1/5)

2008-01-14T01:10:23+01:00

Summer break is looming, but there is still time for one final History lesson. No worry : it will be light.

Talleyrand and Fouché invited us to their power brokers’ «Le souper » in the aftermath of the Waterloo battle. Blandly true to its title, « La révolution française » taught us the basics of its topic and preciously little else. We extensively toured Versailles on the heels on Sofia Coppola and her « Marie-Antoinette ».

Is it time to know more about the Empire, pick up where « La révolution française » left us and follow the Imperial eagles to Waterloo and Talleyrand’s dining room ? « The judgment of Paris » already made us familiar to a few of Ernest Meissonier’s painstakingly accurate, if not moving, pictures of the Napoleon era.

Instead, let us keep moving backward to the years before « Marie-Antoinette » or rather Louis XVI, when the reign of his grand father, Louis XV, was drawing to a close and Madame du Barry was the latest, and the last, of the royal mistresses : the king’s « favorite ».

Christian-Jaque’s « Madame du Barry » tells a piece of History, but History is only a raw material which reaches the screen after a long transformation process, under many layers of narration.

« Madame du Barry » sees History through « le petit bout de la lorgnette », i.e. the smaller end of a spy-glass, in truth the smaller end of several successive spy-glasses..

« Madame du Barry » first sees History, obviously, through the lens of cinema : the film is even in « couleurs », as the opening titles feel necessary to inform us, probably less by fear that we would otherwise not notice than because, in 1954 French cinema, a colour film still seemed a promise of prodigality, frivolity and gaiety, if not of slight on screen debauchery.

« Madame du Barry » is a film, but opens like a book, the pages of which the opening credits slowly turn.

This film and this book immediately take us to a Parisian open-air fair during the French Revolution : on a stage, a « sans-culottes » entertainer is teasing his audience with the promised scandalous tale of « la du Barry ».

The film and the book close in on the cardboard characters on stage and bring them to life and us to Paris in the 1760s.

In a fancy shop of fashion, a young and attractive Jeanne Bécu works as a saleswoman and receives pointed attention from several rich and often aristocratic customers.

But Jeanne soon takes her back to the very fair we come from, « foire Saint-Germain », only three decades earlier : she and her work colleagues come there on their free time, looking for entertainment and chance encounters. Another Monsieur Loyal is on stage, already teasing his audience, today with the tale of life at Louis XV’s Court in Versailles.

The film again falls for the entertainer’s smooth talk and we are promptly transported from the populous fair to the Versailles palace and the bedroom of a gloomy but witty king, who, at sixty, is left, figuratively, nearly on his own, after the death of his son, the Queen and, last but not least, his long time « favorite », Madame de Pompadour.

These many detours, successive narrators and time travels eventually introduce us to the heart of the matter, and one more stage : the king’s court, where Jeanne Bécu, still only a star-struck young woman dreaming of it as she watches the show at the fair, shall soon become the leading actress.

Luc Besson : the alchemist. (2/2)

2008-01-06T01:45:50+01:00

The characters in Besson’s signature film, « Le grand bleu », set records by diving deeper and deeper and exactly describe their creator’s ambition : film after film, as a scriptwriter, director, producer, to achieve new cinema lows that will translate into box office records.

Luc Besson, like Paolo Coelho, is a true alchemist and, in that respect, again a genuine ecologist : he routinely transmutes « navets » -i.e. turnips, i.e. French turkeys- into gold, when scientists struggle to produce ethanol from corn at acceptable economic and environmental costs.

Though « Les anges de l’apocalypse » is extraordinarily bad, the film could still have been worse and Besson, who is a manner of perfectionist, no doubt blames himself for not having been even less inspired.

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » script is mercifully short on sentimentality : we are spared all clichés about scarred heroes, no good guy dies a corny death, we do not have to stomach the requisite love story the addition of a female specialist in religions to the pair of « commissaires » seemed to sentence us to.

With Besson certainly aware of these limitations, we shall not feel safe from a third instalment in the projected trilogy : temptation is strong to build on the second film to manage an even worse one, bathed in sentimentality.

There are hints in « Les anges de l’apocalypse » that, if the film had actually told a story, it would have been of a misdirected quest. Luc Besson too is on a possibly misdirected but sincere quest.

Some scientists spend their professional life coming nearer and nearer to the « absolute zero » : minus 273,15 Celsius degrees, the temperature where everything stands still.

« Le grand bleu » heroes were on a similar quest, swimming always further into darkness and silence.

Luc Besson aims for the absolute zero in filmmaking : the movie with zero cinema content, which the filmmaker’s paradox will translate into infinite box office gross. Luc Besson is an utopian and a business genius.

Contemporary research requires huge funding. To fund his quest, Besson created Europacorp, a publicly traded company, which finances, produces, distributes, exports films.

Luc Besson’s paradox works better for the filmmaker than for his investors. In the course of 2007, Europacorp shares went down by more than 40%.

But, if you hold some, stick to them : the day Besson fulfils his quest of cinema absolute zero -and he will-, your shares will hit the roof and reach for the stars.

Luc Besson : sustainable cinema. (1/2)

2008-01-06T01:27:35+01:00

Faced with a terrible film, a resourceful viewer, and irrepressible positive thinker, mines it for hidden reasons that may give it a hint of interest.

In such a perspective, even « Les anges de l’apocalypse » is not an absolute waste of time : the film provides clues about Besson’s amazing success, if not as a scriptwriter or a filmmaker, as a business man.

« Le dernier combat », Besson’s first film despite its title, was already apocalyptic, but also a film about ecology, like, later and more openly, « Le grand bleu » and « Atlantis ».

Though not a film about ecology, « Les anges de l’apocalypse » is a true ecological film : nothing in it is original, everything is recycled, from previous movies, books, History, religions...

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » is a triumph in waste management and sustainable cinema : as raw materials, i.e. original ideas, become increasingly scarce, the film shows how to produce movies which consume none of them.

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » is the economic demonstration that more efficient recycling is the financial future of cinema.

While films have routinely been based on books, one single novel shall now « inspire » at least a trilogy of films ; after producing a ready-made film about a real-life band of urban stunts men, you shall recycle them as a brand of Shaolin-style Christian monks in an unrelated movie ; instead of drilling your brains for original ideas, you shall take public domain myths and religions, twist and copyright them in your own name.

True, the latter strategy has been, for decades, Disney’s, then Spielberg’s, recipe for success, but the first reel of « Raiders of the lost ark » is still packed with enough original action and surprises to overfeed a dozen of Luc Besson’s trilogies.

Luc Besson only throws away a property after he has fully squeezed it : his « Taxi » trilogy has run on increasingly little gas, he shall never produce a Hummer of a film. Luc Besson is where Hollywood meets ecology.

His lack of humour is another key factor in Besson’s success. Whenever « Les anges de l’apocalypse » attempts at comedy, the film manages to sink even lower.

Besson’s lack of humour implies a total absence of self-derision : the self-made-success-story cannot doubt himself ; otherwise, like Jean-Christophe Grangé, he would have admitted his lack of inspiration and given up on « Les anges de l’apocalypse ».

Instead, his ecological sense could not stand that a property with financial potential go to waste and wrote a no-story by which he stood : cinema was one film « richer » and the world creativity reserves none the poorer.

Luc Besson is a remarkable paradox : he achieves the heights of success by exploring the depths of filmmaking. The anti-Icarus, he is not fascinated by the sun and flying, but by the underground and diving. Icarus’s fate suggests this is a sensible choice.

In « Les anges de l’apocalypse », Besson’s taste for underground locations and his recycling urge combine to rehabilitate « la ligne Maginot ».

A costly historical symbol of uselessness, said defensive line had been built in Eastern France against German invasions : it succeeded so well as a deterrent the Nazis instead cut through Belgium.

Thanks to « Les anges de l’apocalypse », the « Ligne Maginot » endless tunnels at last reveal their true purpose : they were meant to be film sets.

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » : one, two... three ? (3/3)

2008-01-06T01:16:07+01:00

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » first five minutes are entertaining : night, storm and mayhem in a mysterious abbey. This early promise of a good yarn of pleasantly silly filmmaking is quickly and badly broken.

The opening sequence showcases Olivier Dahan’s visual style, the remainder of the film suggests he is no long distance filmmaker : a graduate of video clips, he quickly tires and runs short of original ideas. While the script goes berserk, his direction stutters.

The film first five minutes are good, because much work has been put into them : the whole sequence was no doubt story-boarded and planned to the last detail.

The film remaining ninety four minutes are dead boring, due to a parallel lack of work. The laziness of Besson’s script writing contaminates Olivier Dahan’s direction : stews can be good, if properly cooked.

The film script and direction suffer from a similar lack of attention to details : Luc Besson is not one to embarrass himself with them, how could Olivier Dahan not emulate his screenwriter, co-producer and possible role model, whose success speaks so eloquently for the excellence of his work ethics ?

Film direction turns progressively lax and gives up on the movie, perhaps because it has given up on the script.

Olivier Raoux is credited for the film « conception visuelle ». So-called « visual conception » boils down to a few unsubtle « leitmotivs » : the promised apocalypse announces itself by recurring shots of a full moon emerging out of a cloudy night sky, many rain showers, a wide collection of usually bloody crucifixes, burning candles and fires, dominant red and black colours and painfully overexposed shots of blinding white light.

Last but not least, ubiquitous faceless hoods sum up Besson’s and Dahan’s, and possibly their viewers’, interest in, and understanding of, Christian religion. Monks are fashion models and forefathers of today street gangs : like them, they belong to close-knit communities, take vows and hide their face.

Alain Goldman wanted to turn Jean-Christophe Grangé’s novel into a film trilogy. Mathieu Kassovitz’s « Les rivières pourpres » came out in 2000. « Les anges de l’apocalypse » is a 2003 release. We are in 2008 and have so far been spared opus three.

Are we safe or is the threat of a third film still hanging over our heads like Damoclès’s sword ? What if Luc Besson’s inspiration strikes again ?

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » : beyond bad and worse. (2/3)

2008-01-06T01:25:05+01:00

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » is marketed as a sequel to « Les rivières pourpres » for all too clear reasons, but the trilogy concept did not appeal to everybody : Mathieu Kassovitz and co-lead Vincent Cassel passed on it ; they will live not to regret it.

A different writer, a different director, a different co-lead. What remains of the original ? « Commissaire » Niemans, again played by Jean Reno. How could the actor not have returned to the part after Luc Besson became involved in the project ? What did Jean Reno’s career look like before « Le grand bleu » ?

Calling « Les rivières pourpres II, les anges de l’apocalypse » a bad film is such an understatement that it could pass for a lie.

How bad the movie is shall not fail to amaze even the most thick-skinned viewer. « Les anges de l’apocalypse » is so bad it forces you to update your definition of a bad film.

You thought « Les enfants du marais » was bad, then watched « L’équipier », then saw « 36, quai des Orfèvres ». And now comes « Les anges de l’apocalypse » and your opinion of the former films is suddenly upgraded to stupefying heights : you consider apologising for your rash criticisms and would gladly shower stars upon them.

How low can French cinema free fall ?

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » is about very little and a little of everything. According to the on-screen credits, the film is no longer « based on » Jean-Christophe Grangé’s novel, but « inspired » by it.

Jean-Christophe Grangé’s « Les rivières pourpres » was an effective piece of writing by pulp fiction standards, Luc Besson’s script is a derivative and overpopulated stew, in which he overcooks the novel’s main character and dark aesthetics, « Da Vinci Code » and « Indiana Jones » reminiscences, a hint of « The name of the rose », borrows action scenes from his own productions (the « Taxi » trilogy, « Yamasaki ») for the action scenes, and spices his melting pot with a stale neo-Nazi plot.

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » is a second hand movie assembled from disparate parts stolen in a junk yard of sometimes beautiful vehicles.

Though also credited to Besson, the dialogues are strictly public domain : exhausted veterans from countless movies and « cafés ».

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » negatively proves no film can be built without the cornerstone of a script : there exist great movies without great scripts, but very few passable ones with no story at all.

Even action scenes fall flat, and the script, not Olivier Dahan’s direction, is to be blamed : how can you thrill a viewer who does not give a damn about what is happening on screen ?

The actors are left as impotent as the director : they have nothing to work on, their characters’ only recognisable feature is their name.