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The cinema du look is one of the self-established styles which came to the world movie industry by the 1980s and still remains one of the very influential styles in French cinema. It is well known not by any ideological background or outstanding storyline but by technical creativeness of the films as a medium, a cinephile tendency to make cultural references from other movies and a vivid visual style. Successfully begun by French director Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva (1980) this style received many applauds and critics. The following French directors are grouped to this ‘New New Wave’: Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva, 1980; La Lune dans le caniveau (1983), Luc Besson (Subway (1986); The Big Blue (1988), Leon (1994) and Leos Carax (Boy Meets Girl (1984); Sans titre (1997)[1]. They have been accepted as a movement because of a perceived similarity in visual style and a subject matter. Their movies received controversial reaction either from audience or cinema classics. When one said that it was the new style, the others claimed it had a lack of plot and psychological deepness. Some claimed that they very much like a television, music video, advertising and the comic strip.
The other director who can be added to this group is Jean-Pierre Jeunet, a self-taught French director who came to cinema from animation. Born in 1953 in Roanne, in the beginning of his career he was well known as a director of television commercials and video clips such as Julien Clerk in 1984[2]. In his interview with Laurent Tirard Jeunet declares the animation helped him to understand cinema from very different standpoint:
‘I personally never studied cinema in the classical sense. I come from a fairly modest background, where studying at a film school was out of question. Therefore, I discovered it all by dong things instinctively. I started at the age of twelve with a view master, a machine that allows you to view three-dimensional images. I’d record sound effects, dialogue, and music that would give a dramatic tone to these sequences of banal images when they were played at the same time. After that, I turned to animation, which was a huge step toward filmmaking… I think animation taught me the most about directing films, because when you work in animation, you control everything and do everything yourself: costumes, sets, lighting, framing, and even in a way actor direction’[3]
Later Jeunet met designer and drawer Marc Caro with whom he produced two short animation movies L'Évasion (1978) and Le Manège, (1980). Le Manege won Cesar for the best short movie. After this success Jeunet and Caro spent one year working on the details of their third short movie Bunker de la dernière rafale, Le (1981) which combined the elements of science fiction and heroic fantasy. This essay will focus on the thematic and cinematic details of his following movies: Foutaises (1989), Delicatessen (1991), A city of lost children (1995), and Amelie (2001).
Foutaises (‘The things I like, the things I don’t like, the UK title’, 1989) is one of the Jeunet’s short movies written and directed together with Marc Caro. Released in 1 January in 1989 Foutaises won one Cesar award for the best short film-fiction[4]. Starring Dominique Pinon this nine minute comedy tells the story of ‘likes and dislikes’. The film was shot in muted sepia black and white and camera pans and zooms with close ups dominate during the movie. It opens with a butchers shop window and camera moves from one food to another: a tray of eyeballs, then a tray of chicken heads, then chicken legs with signs giving us the titles and credits. And the butcher’s big silver hatchet in the end of the sequence reminds ‘Delicatessen’. During the movie we see Dominique Pinon telling us what he likes and what he dislikes. The sequences of ‘likes and dislikes’ in the movie are shown in controversial way: ordinary and extraordinary, simple and odd. For example, the actor says he likes the trains coming alongside the station, but he does not like the words ‘Trans-European express’, ‘Trans-Orient express’ and ‘Trans-Siberian express’. The another example is when Dominique Pinon tells he likes to pull his socks, but does not like to pluck the hairs from his nose. Later this shot continues with the actor’s facial contortions and the images of destruction which serves as an exaggeration of character’s unbearable pain. There is another scene where the actor tells he does not like his brother’s collection (nail bites, hair tufts, whiskers, and appendix and tear drops) which continues with close ups to every detail of abovementioned things. In one of the scenes actor says he likes the park in public holidays. Then we see two controversial shots picturing two women supposedly walking towards each other with their dogs. In the first scene Jeunet depicted a walking woman with her dog in the carriage. Then the next scene shows another woman who is supposedly disabled and her dog pulls her carriage. The interchanging sequence of simple and odd, usual and unusual is also strengthened with unusual camera angles, wicked sound effects and cuts from cartoons and animation[5].
Delicatessen (1991) was the debut feature of Jean-Pierre Jeunet co-directed and co-produced with Marc Caro. The film was released in 17 April 1991 in France. Delicatessen is set in a decaying post-apocalyptic city where food is so rare and so valuable that it is used as a currency. Using the situation the local butcher (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) has started to sell a human meat for a food in change. In order to keep his business going, he hires the young people and afterwards murders them selling their meat to his neighbours. Later Stan Louison (Dominique Pinon) arrives to the butcher’s apartment to get a job there. Stan Louison a young former circus performer whose chimpanzee has recently been killed and eaten. He goes upstairs to do his work and meets Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac), the butcher’s short-sighted daughter and they fall in love. The butcher’s plan was to kill Stan after he finishes his work but his daughter pleas him to leave Stan. After the butcher’s rejection, Julie goes underground and asks ‘les Troglodistes’, the underground network of vegetarian terrorists, for help. After the climax featuring blood, violence and enormous destructions, the butcher died and Julie and Stan were rescued by underground and started a new life together.
Featuring the extraordinary fantasy of the pairing Jeunet and Caro, Delicatessen won Cesar awards in 1992 for the best writing, the best production design, the best first work and the best editing[6]. There are several suppositions where Jeunet got this idea for the cannibal butcher. Some sources say that he got the idea when he lived in the USA and the meat there was so awful and tasted life human flesh. Other sources claim he got the idea when he lived in an apartment above the butcher’s shop. Each morning at 7am he was used to hear the metallic clash of knives and the sounds of meat chopping. But it does not matter where he got that idea unless it was extraordinary and controversial for the cinema-going audience and the cinema critics. Many films critics received Delicatessen as a reinterpretation and a fantasy version of German occupation of France in the Second World War[7]. There are several unusual elements supporting this idea. Firstly, the visual elements are outstanding. The movie was shot in a sepia tone which is characteristic to Jeunet’s style as we saw in ‘Foutaises’ which lets the viewer to see the specific visual colour warmth of the movie. The decorations and architectural style of the settings are thoroughly developed in details. So every detail and every element of mise-en-scene in this movie is crucial. The decorations, the costumes, the brown tones, impressive set design, impressionist lighting and other elements evokes the 1940s architectural style. Secondly, several narrative elements such as an underground resistance movement, clandestine radio devices and the black market represents us the tough time of the Second World War. Thirdly, the image of central figure – the butcher – has its ideological meaning behind. According to Guy Austin, the butcher functions as an embodiment of war criminals such as Klaus Barbie who was well known for his nick name ‘the Butcher of Lyons’.
Delicatessen emphasises Jeunet as a self-established director with his specific viewpoint of the aesthetics of filmmaking. The film, depicting the extraordinary fantasy, has several elements to be considered. The use of camera is one kind of masterpiece characteristic for Jeunet. Crazy camera angles make the viewer to look at the picture from different point. The facial expression is the next element which featured Delicatessen as one of the prominent fantasy films. The facial distortions were also exaggerated by extreme close ups to the faces of heroes. The presence of unusual and bizarre characters such as a man who lived in a smile-filled room with frogs and snails, and a woman who tried to commit suicide and always failed in a ridiculous way is the next part of Jeunet’s unusual style. And all of these are exaggerated by sound effects. The use of sound comes in a unique synchronicity with the actions of actors, movements of the set details such as in the scene when Stan paints the ceiling in the corridor. In that sequence we see the scene of painting, sex, music, pumping and sawing which happens simultaneously but they are combined by the sound of the same rhythm.
Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) or so called Amelie is the next movie written and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The movie was released on 25 April 2001 in France and 12 August 2001 in UK[8]. Starring Aundey Tautou as Amelie this movie tells a story about innocent and naïve girl who was brought up in slightly dysfunctional family. Her father was a doctor and her mother was a teacher in ordinary school. Both of the parents had some strangeness which influenced their daughter too much. Because of her father’s mistaken concerns of heart defects Amelie was recommended to stay at home and instead of attending the local school she was taught by her mother. As a result of isolation the girl becomes entrapped in her own world of fantasy and dreams. When she grows up, she moves to the centre of Paris and works in a cafe shop. One day, the day when Princess Diana died in a car crush, the life of Amelie had changed ultimately. When she watches news about the accident with Ladi Di she suddenly drops a bottle cap which rolls and cracks the pane on the wall. It attracts her attention and she finds a lost treasure belonging to the former occupant of her apartment. That day she came to the luminous idea – return the hid treasure to its former owner. After some failures she could find the former owner of the treasure which made Amelie to change her mind and start helping people around her. That was the beginning of the story and her future love. According to the movie reviews, Amelie was an extraordinary hit in France when it was first released. Four million people went to watch it in two month[9]. It was the most commercially successful movie made by Jeunet. One of the outstanding visual elements of Amelie is the bright colours and warm tones. Analysing Amelie it is difficult to say which genre it belongs to: it’s a marvellous mixture of fiction and fantasy with a little bit of animation in it which turns movie into modern fairytale allowing either adult or child to screen it. According to The Observer film critic Stuart Jeffries even the President of France Jacques Chirac invited Jeunet for the special screening. Jeunet did not take the limousine and arrived on his bicycle to the Elysée Palace.
Anyone who watches Amelie considers about the visual part of the movie and unusual storyline. Film is prominent with bright colour and warm tones supported with unusual camera angles and movements. It is also worth to analyse the thematic continuity concerned in this movie. Here comes the logical question: what did Jeunet want to show? Screening Amelie we see the inhabitants of Montmartre – the everyday people with everyday problems. The film consists of several stories happening simultaneously and combined into one in which Amelie is the main hero. The film begins with a story about a fly which comes to Montmartre. Then we see the glasses on the table being waved by wind simultaneously. At the same time we see old man erasing his friends name from the book and then we see how Amelie was born. So, in this picture Jeunet wanted to show different world of different people in one world living parallel lives. In Amelie’s story we screen several little stories: the story of the staff in café shop, the story of a man who found his treasure, the story of an old man with crystal bones, the story of an old woman who lost his husband in airplane crash in 1960s, the story of Amelie father and etc. It makes sense as if Jeunet wanted to show the viewer a defragmented world combining very different life stories in one big story. This was supported by the colours used in the movie. Also the reference to Renoir supports this idea. Renoir was the French expressionist of 1860s and expressionist was famous for use of visible brushstrokes and open composition. Nino’s (Matthieu Kassovitz) photo album is another example for Jeunets idea as well. In that album there were photos of a repairman who repaired photo machines then took photo in it in order to check does machine work well or not. Then he was used to tear his photos and Nino was used to collect them. He collected the photos in one album so the presence of that album was the other way of expressing the idea of deconstructed world. The scene when Amelie creates a new letter with the pieces of other letters is the next proof for this idea.
According to movie review made by The Observer, when picture was first released it arouse a big debate due to its controversy. For example, the first debate started when Amelie was found unsuitable to compete in Palme d’Or and Cannes Film Festival. At that time other five French movies – none of them as popular – has been selected for the competition. Amelie has also been criticised for its nationalistic ideas. According to Stuart Jeffries Serge Kaganski, an editor of art-and-listing magazine Les Inrockuptibles criticised Jeunet for the false depicting of Paris because there were not any ethnic groups in Amelie except white Frenchs.
The next film featuring the unusual fantasy style of pairing Jeunet and Caro is The City of Lost children (1995). Released in 1 September 1995, according to Roger Ebert, it is an expensive, high-tech French production which used more special effects that any other French film ever[10]. The story takes place in somewhere in the future but we even cannot say whether it is future or not because the setting looks like a sort of parallel time zone where the recognizable elements of different times are randomly mixed. The director seems got the idea from Jules Verne. The movie take place in an undefined city and in a rig where lives Krank (Daniel Emilfork), a monster who cannot dream. Because he cannot dream he steals children from the city and steals their dreams. One of the victims was Denree (Joseph Lucien) whose elder brother is One (Ron Perlman), a strongman and former harpooner. After the disappearance of his brother, One tries to find him and in the way he meets nearly ten years old girl (Juliet Vittet). The film is became well known for the abnormal situations, unusual sets characteristic for Jeunet. We see memorable characters such as a brain which lives in a fish tank, Cyclops with computerised hearing device instead of one eye, several cloned orphans (Dominique Pinon), some wicked insects and Siamese twins.
Some critiques state The City of Lost Children is not just a simple story about lost kid. For example, Ted Prigge in his review claims this is the story created by its writers when they were kid but only now they are able to make into a lovely film[11]. According to him, it’s an adult humour genuinely mixed with kiddie humour that all of us fully enjoy. What makes the movie memorable is the story told in unusual way with a pinch of wacky humour and unusual style of settings.
After screening all of the abovementioned films we can define Jeunet’s directorial style which partly derives from the directors of cinema du look and partly comes from his own fantasy. Firstly, the unusual colours and tones are the main elements in Jeunet’s films which define his style of filmmaking. The part of his film story is already narrated by the colours. Secondly, a set design and mise-en-scene is thoroughly developed in details with Marc Caro. In Jeunet’s movies we see how the role of mise-en-scene is important, how it can define the world which director wanted to show the viewer, how it can contribute to the storyline. Thirdly, the usual stories told in unusual way being wrapped in a fantasy with a pinch of wicked sense of humour. Fourthly, a presence of memorable characters in his film defines his style as well. At last the same actors casting in his movies underpin his style. He mostly casts actors like Dominique Pinon (Jeunet’s favourite actor), Audrey Tautou and also includes other stars of French cinema.
Bibliography
Books
· Austin, Guy. 1996. Contemporary French Cinema. An Introduction. Manchester University Press, Mancester and New-York.
· Tirard, L. 2002. Moviemakers’ master class. Private lessons from the world’s foremost directors. Faber and Faber. New-York/London.
The Internet
· The Internet movie database. www.imdb.com
· Youtube. Foutaises Jean-Pierre Jeunet (eng sub). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDnVcLdu1C8&feature=related
· Ebert, R. The City of lost children. Chicago sun times. 15 December 1995. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19951215/REVIEWS/512150301/1023
· Prigge, T. 1998. THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995). http://www.imdb.com/Reviews/133/13383
· Stuart Jeffries, The Observer, June 24, 2001. http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,511694,00.html
[1] The Internet movie database. www.imdb.com
[2] Ibid. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000466/bio
[3] Tirard, L. 2002. Moviemakers’ master class. Private lessons from the world’s foremost directors. Faber and Faber. New-York/London. P 113-114.
[4] The Internet movie database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080755/awards
[5] Youtube. Foutaises Jean-Pierre Jeunet (eng sub). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDnVcLdu1C8&feature=related
[6] The Internet movie database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101700/awards
[7] Austin, Guy. 1996. Contemporary French Cinema. An Introduction. Manchester University Press, Mancester and New-York. P 137.
[8] The Internet Movie database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/releaseinfo
[9] Stuart Jeffries, The Observer, June 24, 2001. http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,511694,00.html
[10] Ebert, R. The City of lost children. Chicago sun times. 15 December 1995. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19951215/REVIEWS/512150301/1023
[11] Prigge, T. 1998. THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995). http://www.imdb.com/Reviews/133/13383
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