It’s always fun to get tapped for a list of favorites, since it’s a good way to indulge in a bit of vanity and make yourself sparkle with the help of a few well-chosen cultural coordinates. Hey – most blogs are basically random lists of current faves. Listing your 30 all-time favorite films for a European underground magazine for cinéastes is a challenge of course. You don't want to be too pretentious, can't be too pedestrian. Somehow I ended up listing mostly American films from the 70s and the last five years. Plus a few 60s French films.
"Tirez sur le pianiste" (“Shoot the Piano Player“) was on my list. The signature tune is one of those melodies you'll never ever get out of your head again. Same goes for French jazz piano player Martial Solal’s soundtrack to Godard’s „À bout de souffle“ (Breahtless"). Which is probably the ultimate slacker film - somehow 60s Nouvelle Vague managed to way outcool Hollywood cool on it's own turf. Belmondo using his legendary thumb swipe across the lips to put some sensuality into his Humphrey Bogart idolization. Bogart and Seberg hanging out in her appartment talking forever about seemingly nothing, foreshadowing Tarantino dialogues by 30 years.
One of the best French films ever couldn't make the list though. Mainly because it’s barely ten minutes long. It’s Claude Lelouch’s "Cétait un rendez-vous“, which he shot in one single take one early morning in the summer of '76. There are a lot of legends and myths about the film. Supposedly Lelouch had one roll of film left over from his shoot of "Si c'était à refaire" ("Second Chance“), which he used for a bet. He said he could make the roughly six and a half miles from Boulevard Periphérique to Montmartre in under ten minutes.
So he strapped a camera on his new Ferrari 275 GTB and hit the gas with a admirable disregard for red lights and personal safety. At some strategic intersection he had look-outs posted with walkie-talkies, but mostly he just went for it. He made it in 7:57, just in time for the climactic Montmarte bells ringing in 6:00 AM. After the first screening Lelouch was supposedly arrested, although some sources say that he just got a ticket, that was later revoked by the mayor of Paris himself. There is some debate now, if it was really a Ferrari or a Le Mans Matra 67, an Alpine A110 or even a motorcycle with overdubbed Ferrari sounds.
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Watch - „Cétait un rendez-vous“
6 comments:
You might be interested to know that Criterion has just released a 2-disc version of "Shoot the Piano Player" complete with an audio documentary on Georges Delerue, the score writer for that marvelous film to which so many directors are indebted.
Wow that "c'etait un rendez-vous" short is incredible! :)
Georges Delerue is amazing - beautiful scores for some of my favorites films. His score of Le Mpris (Contempt) is absolutely haunting! I would recommend - if you haven't already -checking out the French cinema soundtrack series which was re-masterd and re-issued a few years ago on the the Sunnyside(? have to check) label. Tower used to keep them in stock - fairly inexpensive and easy to order as well. Also check out antoine Duhamel - Pierrot le Fou, weekend, etc. - also beautiful work.
Enjoy your site much!
Skunkeye,
There was life after New Wave cinema for Georges Delerue--although his greatest scores were written for Truffaut and Godard. I still have my French Philips EP of music from "Jules and Jim." Try to find the magnificent sound track to "True Confessions," the 1981 film about a 1940's Catholic Church sex scandal that teamed Robert DeNiro and Robert Duval. In my opinion, it's the most memorable of all his Hollywood
film scores. By the way, BMG's Milan label reissued all of Delerue's music for Truffaut's movies in the mid-1990s. Alas, they're now out of print.
À bout de souffle is one of my all time favorite films and it is the one film that made me get into filmmaking.
Thanks for the link by the way.
Matt from P&S
Great blog.
And thanks for the Breathless music, which I've always loved, but never had in my collection.
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