"Amélie," the surprise hit movie about a daydreaming waitress in Paris, is 23 this year, and will be back in U.S. theaters on Valentine's Day. @IndieWire spoke to its director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, about how it became a cultural phenomenon, its distinctive color palette, casting Audrey Tautou, and turning down "Harry Potter."
It is often claimed that the French invented cinema. Dominating the production and distribution of cinema until World War 1, when they were supplanted by Hollywood, the French cinema industry encompassed all genres, from popular entertainment to avant-garde practice.
"Beaucoup de scènes d'amour, par exemple, ne sont pas simulées. Blier a d'ailleurs été l'un des premiers à l'exciter pour devenir ce voyou du cinéma.
Je me souviens, dans ce premier film "Les Valseuses", ils étaient à deux sur Brigitte Fossey, pour… lui titiller le bout des seins ; et Blier (dans une interview, écrite, que vous pouvez retrouver) dit qu'ils rigolaient vraiment tous, énormément."
🍷 Voici le Temps des Assassins / Deadlier than the Male (1956)
📽️ Julien Duvivier
🎭 Jean Gabin, Danièle Delorme, Gérard Blain
💬 A restaurant owner takes in his ex-wife’s daughter, unaware of a dangerous web being weaved around him…
📽️ Claude Chabrol
🎭 Michel Duchaussoy, Caroline Cellier, Jean Yanne
💬 In a quest for vengeance, a writer gets involved with an actress and her sinister entourage…
Classics of Pagan Cinema: Orphée ~ “The poet wrings a forever from Death, the only lover he will ever have who can really promise him that.” Meg Elison reviews Jean Cocteau’s 1950 classic ORPHEUS as part of our Classics of Pagan Cinema series.
last night I stepped outside for a minute then sat down because a haunting cello and violin piece was being played by people down the street and there's something magical about live music floating over to you on a night breeze so I stayed there becoming a little melancholy, probably one step away from imagining myself as the abandoned lover in a serious sexy french film when suddenly a bee all yellow fluff and orange pollen flew up my nose and this folks is how the universe keeps us humble
Tonight’s #cultmovie, Acenseur pour L’échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows), Louis Malle, 1958.
Can’t believe I’ve never seen this before what with the Miles Davis soundtrack… #frenchcinema #newwave #filmnoir
▶️ Spring, 1985, I took this shot at the #NuArt#LA.
I tracked the director down in Paris (with help from a friend at Columbia) and sent him a C-print of the image about 1988. Months later I got an obviously-from-Europe-size brown envelope. The director sent me a #Polaroid of the framed image in his home with a lovely note. Both lost.