Film – Monsieur Miller

2023-07-042023-07-04

Carcassonne Bulletin: a job offer and Sexygénaires

Happy Independence Day to one and all! No celebrations here, but I will partake in the French festivities 10 days from now.

I woke up to a wonderful email offering me a volunteer post at the Festival Avignon ! I’ll be helping out as a box-office assistant for one of the shows of the Festival OFF (think “fringe festival”). It’s the usual kind of box-office thing: selling tickets at the door, distributing Will Call tickets to folks who purchased in advance, answering basic information questions. I’ll be working for 60 or 90 minutes before each show, 6 days a week. It’s a very small job, and it’s unofficial, but I’m delighted to have the experience. I’ve already started practicing saying «Je vous souhaite un bon spectacle, Madame.»

The job came about through a combination of being in the right place at the right time and being relentlessly outgoing. Last year in Avignon I hatched the crazy idea of trying to bring a French play to perform in Boston. At the time I spoke with a number of companies, an agent, one or two playwrights. After I got home I did a bunch more legwork to develop the idea, created an LLC for the venture, threw together a basic website (www.frenchtheaterproject.com), spoke to a bunch of relevant French and American cultural players, and tried to make something happen. So the only concrete thing that has come out of it is the theater club at the French Library, but I’ve decided these things take time to build.

One of the companies that pursued this idea with the farthest is named La Ruche Musicale, producers of the show Contretemps. I saw the show twice, had breakfast with a production assistant and the company’s president, swapped several emails, and even developed a proposal with them. In the end, things didn’t come together (yet?) for a Boston engagement, but we stayed in contact. A couple days ago I sent an email reminding them of my plans to be in Avignon again this month and proposing we get together (they are reprising Contretemps this summer at Avignon). As an aside, I offered that if by any chance they could use an extra hand to help out with the show, I’d be happy to volunteer in any capacity they liked. And sure enough, today came the response that indeed they find themselves unexpectedly short-handed, and if I was willing to work the box office on the schedule outlined above, they’d be grateful for the extra staff. Absolutely made my day.

So I expect to have interesting insights this year from the other side of the desk, and perhaps will get to do some socializing with one or more members of their company. We will see. Last time I worked a retail counter was 1990 at Holy Cross College bookstore: it was a temp job I was able to do because they started a week or two before Harvard did, so I was available for their start-of-year rush.

Starting from that high-point, the rest of the day here was OK. After usual breakfast and conversation qua instruction, we headed out to the cinéma in Carcassonne to see a morning screening of a recently released film. Éliane selected something likely to have a lot of slang or familiar language, which is something I identified to her as an area I struggle with. We saw Sexygénaires, starring Thierry Lhermitte and Patrick Timsit, in a sleek but totally empty theater (11am on a Tuesday not being peak movie hours). The film was a mix of a broad comedy and a reflection on life in one’s sixties. Michel (Thierry Lhermitte), age 65, is a struggling hotel owner, grandfather, and widower in Bandol, 50 km southeast of Marseille. With the hotel on the brink of insolvency, he goes to Paris to ask his friend Denis (Patrick Timsit), also in his 60s, to buy out his share of their jointly owned Paris restaurant.

It turns out that Denis has been keeping Michel in the dark, but the restaurant didn’t survive Covid. This could happen under any management, one imagines, but it is completely believable that it happened to Denis, who is an unsympathetic and coarse clown, a low-class parasite of the first order. Harder to believe is that Denis now makes ends meet by working as … a model in television and print advertising ? Somehow the industry keeps hiring him even though he is an obnoxious schlump of a character. Michel accompanies Denis to one of his photo-shoots where an agent spots Michel and discovers his fine figure and handsome visage. Apparently 60 is the new sexy for advertising luxury goods like watches or tuxedos.

Michel stays in Paris for a few weeks while his windfall modeling career flourishes, Denis’s tanks, and the hotel limps along under the interim management of Jean-Claude, another sixty-year-old of their childhood friends. Michel has a couple of romantic interests – a thirty-something in Paris and a sixty-something long-time friend, recently divorced, in Bandol. Finally something happens to make Michel realize what’s important in life. He quits modeling, returns to Bandol, sells the hotel, pays off his debts, invests in a small ice-cream store, and pursues a relationship with the age-peer divorcée. Ah, to be sixty and sexy.

A pretty formulaic, mediocre film, one that can’t be rescued simply by the fact of being French. I’m not sure it was all that effective as a language-learning tool, either. I understood enough of the dialogue to follow the story with minimal difficulty, but at the same time I was missing easily 20% of the lines. There were no captions (in any language) and so if I heard a word or expression I didn’t understand, I had nothing to help me remember it later so I could ask Éliane. We couldn’t pause the film, of course, and even in a theater all to ourselves I didn’t find it attractive to pose questions for each mumbled line or slang expression that I missed. But a good reminder of how far I have to go in oral comprehension, and how big a difference there is between French audio books, read with professional diction, and French film or television, delivered in a more realistic manner.

We came back to the house and I read stories to Éliane’s daughter while her parents prepared lunch. The 18-month-old walks confidently, but doesn’t yet speak a word. So interacting with her is more of a one-way conversation than I was anticipating. Still, I think she’s taken a liking to me and I’m hearing in passing words that are particular to young childhood. I read her a version of Le Chat botté (originally written by Charles Perrault) and also a modern adaptation of La Poule aux œufs d’or (originally by LaFontaine). She smiled and giggled throughout as she sat next to me in her stroller, but was pretty much in her own world and not paying attention to the story. But I enjoyed myself.

After lunch I took a break to write and read, and then at 5pm we went to a nearby winery for a private wine tasting. I’ve done several wine tastings in France and in the US, and this one was fairly ordinary, both in terms of wine and in terms of narration / conversation. The winery is named Château de Pennautier and is part of a large group named Lorgeril. They’ve been operating since 1620 and currently produce over 3 million bottles of wine each year. I’m not particularly knowledgeable or discerning in wine, but it turns out I can distinguish between wines made at this scale and wines from small producers. Or maybe they simply served me unremarkable wines.

I went into the village after the wine tasting and picked up a few things at the grocery and the bakery (open today at 6:45p in the afternoon). Dinner was on my own, leftover pizza, some new fruit and some new cheese. I think I’ll post this, go have my chocolate croissant for dessert, and call it a night.

2022-10-03

Odds and Ends

I’ve read / watched to a lot of excellent English language books / movies / television. I’ve also consumed a lot of ordinary stuff, and more than my fair share of absolute junk: insipid novels, low-brow sitcoms, cringeworthy comic books or comic-book movies. In French, though, I’ve mostly read things recommended to me by someone, and that’s mostly good stuff. The past couple weeks, though, I’ve strayed from the recommendations path a bit, with the predictable result that the stuff I’ve consumed has … a range of quality. But it’s all part of expanding my cultural literacy, so it’s all good.

Le viandier de Polpette: L’ail des ours

Le viandier de Polpette is a quirky but charming volume of bandes desinées by Julien Neel and Olivier Milhaud. I picked it off the shelf of the French Library completely at random. It features Polpette, a former army cook who now runs the kitchen for the adult son of a nobleman in their mountain redoubt, Le Coq Vert. The book interleaves lovingly presented country French recipes with a vague plot about the Count’s father coming to visit. There’s a lot of running gags among the other denizens of the Coq Vert, including a retired British colonel and a stereotypical French proletariat. And there’s also a firebrand of a young woman who walks around with an entourage of unleashed pet ferrets. Oh, somewhere in there we encounter the rather large titular animal who may or may not be a bear, and who seems to have no relationship to garlic. The overall effect is off-beat, shall we say.

I did pick up a number of vocabulary words from this book:

capiteux – se dit d’un vin, d’un alcool qui monte à la tête, d’un parfum très fort.
la minerai – roche présentant une concentration élevée minéraux utiles (si inutiles, on l’appelle la gangue).
châtelain – propriétaire d’un château.
chaland (vieux) – celui qui achète habituellement chez un même marchand.
gargote (f) – restaurant où l’on mange à bas prix une mauvaise nourriture.
amenuiser – rendre quelque chose plus fiable, moins important. réduire, diminuer. Cf la menuiserie, «amenuiser une planche».
la guigne – (familier) malchance persistante; déveine, poisse. Avoir de la guigne.
ça barde – (populare) cela devient dangereux, en parlant d’une action; cela devient violent, en parlant d’une discussion.
être givré – (familier) être fou.
couver – entourer quelqu’un de soins attentifs et excessifs de tendresse.
d’ores et déjà – dès maintenant.
jaja – (populaire) vin rouge.
toupet – (familier) audace, effronterie. «Quel toupet !»
un encas – repas léger préparé pour être servi en cas de besoin.
un fantassin – militaire de l’infanterie.

Balle Perdue

The movie Balle Perdue (2020) is available on Netflix, and is in French, so I watched it. I haven’t seen any films from the Fast and Furious franchise, but I imagine they are similar. There’s a great deal of high speed car chases, various souped up vehicles with enhancements like hardened front grills, turbo thrusters, and sharpened forklift attachments. Inevitably, most of the cars crash, with the exception of our hero’s. It endures one non-fatal collision after another, yet somehow not only keeps functioning, it magically appears without dents or scapes just seconds later during the same chase. Not a great job of film editing. There’s also a lot of shooting, as there’s a lot of (corrupt) police officers involved. The plot, such as it is, involves a brilliant but wayward young car mechanic who enhances cars for a criminal gang, gets arrested and sent to jail, but is then paroled under the sponsorship of a police captain who wants his own fleet of enhanced police cruisers to catch the bad guys.

This works out great, until the police captain figures out too many bad guys are still getting away, and starts to suspect a leak in his department. Naturally, this being a French police movie, large parts of the brigade are corrupt and in the pay of the drug gangs. The police captain is murdered by his lieutenant, who then pins the crime on the wunder-mechanic, who flees and then has to clear his name and expose the corruption. This gives the film an excuse for lots of gun battles and dead bodies in addition to the high-speed car chases.

Not a lot of vocabulary here, but always good to hear rough accents and street language.

Skidamarink

Guillaume Musso is one of the best-selling French authors of the 21st century. He’s written over twenty books, primarily mysteries and thrillers, and sells more than a million copies a year. His first novel, entitled Skidamarink, appeared in 2001 and made very little impression. It sold a few thousand copies and got tepid reviews before going out of print. But it was re-published in 2020 with a new forward by the author, and was subsequently recorded as an audio-book. This is how I came to listen to it — I browsed Audible.com for French mysteries, saw this as a recent publication, looked up the author and found he was widely celebrated in French popular literature and clicked “buy”. Only when I listened to the forward did I learn that it was Musso’s first book and not a recent one.

The forward also had an interesting bit about the book’s place in the Musso canon. Apparently, Musso doesn’t think much of it: it was a first novel, he wrote it while he was teaching school, his editor for the book was his mother. But when his later works became popular, fans went looking for this early work. Prices for used copies skyrocketed on auction sites, and low-quality pirated scans circulated on the web. Musso writes that he held off from republishing the work because he thought he’d revise it first, but then kept prioritizing new works. So in 2020, he finally greenlighted the re-issuance of the book with its original text. In the forward, he notes “the faults in its quality, but also the quality of its faults.” He also notes the similarities with Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, but points out that his book was published two years before Brown’s blockbuster.

Skidamarink book isn’t terrible, but it’s pretty shoddy. The mystery is shoddy somebody stole the Mona Lisa painting, cut it into pieces, and sent them to four seemingly unconnected people. The thief also sent literary quotes from Victor Hugo, John Dunne, and the like and summoned the four civilians to a secret meeting in an Italian church. Subsequent events convince the four that their lives are in danger if they don’t work together to decipher a series of cryptic criminal threats that the thief issues through the media, like murdering prominent business leaders and poisoning gated communities. The whole thing is a bit too rococo and (as Musso writes in the forward) romanesque for my tastes.

But the audio book is in French, which is really all it promised to be. Listening is a bit of a challenge, not because of the clichéd expressions, but because of the narrators unfamiliar accents, especially as he tries to differentiate three Americain characters and one Italian.

Glenn, naissance d’un prodige

Glenn Gould was a Canadian classical pianist who lived from 1932 to 1982, dying of a stroke at the age of 50. His 1956 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations was one of the best-selling classical recordings of all time. He had an unusual style, crouching over the keyboard as he played and humming audibly to himself. After a short concertizing career as a young artist, he retreated to the studio where he made dozens of recordings right up to his death. He was a pop icon and a bit eccentric, but recorded interviews make it clear he was quite intelligent and could speak affably about his life and his music without difficulty.

I point this out because Ivan Calbérac’s play Glenn, naissance d’un prodige, paints the title character as far more eccentric, to the point of being paranoid and incoherent. Perhaps Gould was that way in private or in down periods, but there’s enough public footage and interview recordings of him being fairly normal that the play’s presentation rings hollow. The script is otherwise undistinguished, presenting a sequence of biographical sketches that offer little beyond the biography section of his Wikipedia page. There’s a homey portrayal of Glenn’s father, and a depiction of Glenn’s mother as both narcissistic and obsessive, but given the distorted presentation of Gould himself I put little stock in these as accurate characterizations of his parents.

But the play was featured in the September 2022 issue of L’avant-scène théâtre, so I read it. I noted several unfamiliar vocabulary words as I went, which are always valuable to me:

un brochet: poisson ésocidé des eaux douces [pike en anglais].
écueil (m): (litéraire) tout ce qui fait obstacle, met en péril; danger, piège. Litéralement, une tête de roche couverte par moins de 20 m d’eau.
espiègle: personne vive; malicieuse mais sans méchanceté. De Till Eulenspiegel. espièglerie.
voilage (m): Grand rideau de fenêtre en voile.
limace (f): mollusque pulmoné terrestre sans coquille externe [slug en anglais].
décoifant: surprenant; dérangeant les cheveux de quelqu’un.
dithyrambique: très élogieux, d’un enthousiasme emphatique, outré. Dithyrambe – cantique consacré à Dionysus.
clavecin (m): instrument de musique à cordes pincées et à clavier.
parti pris: opinion audacieux; idée fixe a priori.
fêlure (f): fracture incomplète d’un os.
luxation (f): déplacement des 2 extrémités osseuses d’une articulation.
convier: inviter
accaparer: occuper exclusivement quelqu’un, lui prendre tout son temps; absorber.
larguer: abandonner quelqu’un, quelque chose; s’en débarrasser.
foutoir (m): (populaire) endroit où règne un désordre extrême.
fiston (m): mot d’affection adressé à son fils ou à un jeune garçon [kiddo en anglais].

Other than that, I’ve been doing French crosswords and collecting vocabulary words from children’s books. But this post is long enough, so I’ll write about that in an upcoming article.

2022-01-18

Beaumarchais, L’insolent (Film 1996)

Over the weekend I watched the film Beaumarchais, l’insolent, a light-hearted picture of the historical figure Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799). The central character is played by Fabrice Luchini, which is how I happened upon the work, as I was searching for more Luchini films to watch online after Le Mystère Henri Pick and Un homme pressé. The real Beaumarchais is best known as the author of the trilogy of stage plays The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, and The Guilty Mother. The first two of these were adapted into even more well known operas (the central character Figaro is also the namesake of one of France’s major newspapers).

In addition to being a playwright, Beaumarchais was a member of the Court of Louis XV and was a spy in the king’s secret intelligence service. He was also an outspoken republican who supported the American Revolution actively, both with his own funds and those of the King. The tension between these three identities – royal spy, budding revolutionary, celebrated author – is what provides the movie with some semblance of a theme and coherent plot. But mostly it’s a fun romp through colorful episodes in the life of a late 18th century personality.

I liked the film. The language was largely accessible to me and I liked contrasting the younger Luchini with what I’ve seen of his modern career. The dialog was funny and the costuming pretty to look at. There were several scenes of gratuitous nudity which conforms to some French stereotypes. About 20 minutes of the film prominently features the historically real character Charles d’Éon de Beaumont, a French spy / diplomat / army officer best known today for being an overt transvestite. D’Éon has an interesting story all on its own.

In all, an enjoyable way to learn of some notable events and personalities in the closing days of France’s monarchy.

2021-12-10

Un Calendrier de l’Avent du Film

The French Channel, a branded bundle from the streaming service Roku, is featuring one movie each day during the month of December, conceived as an Advent calendar of French film. What the heck, I figured, I can try watching a film each day. Turns out that their editorial tastes and mine do not exactly align, shall we say. I could only bring myself to watch one of the films all the way to the end, and that one I later learned was roundly panned by the critics (in fairness, there’s another film from the week which I expect is quite good, but I skipped for lack of time). Still, an interesting expansion of my awareness of what the French film industry has been churning out for the past 30 years. Moreover, the exercise provided a good opportunity to exercise my vocabulary for negative criticism. Here’s an 800 word review of the collection that I dashed off in a bit over two hours.

Un calendrier de l’Avent du film

Il y a quelques mois, on m’a appris que le service de streaming Roku a lancé une nouvelle proposition: « France Channel ». Pour huit dollars chaque semaine, je pourrais regarder sans limite une sélection de films, séries, et reportages. Je me suis vite abonné, mais ne l’ai pas beaucoup utilisé. Pourtant, pour le mois décembre France Channel a composé un calendrier de l’Avent du film français: un film pour chacun des 25 jours amenant à Noël. L’idée de regarder un film par jour m’a attiré, donc j’ai démarré ce projet cinématographique.

J’ai sauté le film initiale Le Père Noël (2014), parce que j’ai entendu dire que le père Noël est une ordure, ou du moins il l’en était en 1982. Le deuxième film c’est Tout Le Monde Debout (2018), dans lequel Franck Dubosc incarne un gaillard qui prend l’occasion de la mort de sa mère pour séduire une auxiliaire de vie (Alexandra Lamy) en se faisant passer pour un paraplégique. Après avoir souffert pendant vingt minutes les répliques de l’écrivaillon responsable de ce navet, je l’ai abandonné.

Le troisième film sélectionné est Un Homme Pressé (2018) avec Fabrice Luchini. M Luchini joue le rôle d’un PDG d’une grande société qui est frappé par un AVC, face à Leïla Bekhti, qui joue son orthophoniste. À la surface il y a des possibilités, mais les chroniqueurs du Masque et la Plume de France Inter ont jugé le film « pitoyable et médiocre », l’un d’eux disant qu’il est « désolé pour la carrière de Fabrice Luchini ». Heureusement, j’ai regardé l’intégralité du film avant de me renseigner sur les avis des experts, et je l’ai trouvé un bon challenge à comprendre. En conséquence de sa crise, le personnage de Luchini fait beaucoup de lapsus. Il dit « au revoir » pour « bonjour », il dit « épouser » pour « écouter », et il dit « cermi » pour « merci ». Même le générique de fin continue cette blague, affichant « magie » pour « image » et « mistique » pour « musique », etc. La comédie tient, mais avec Luchini j’aurais espéré quelque chose de plus classique. Peut-être qu’on gagnerait à l’intituler Le parleur de verlan malgré lui.

Le quatrième film est Les Malheurs de Sophie (2016). C’est la troisième adaptation cinématographique d’un roman du même titre du XIX^e siècle par Comtesse de Ségur, dont les essais précédents datent de 1946 et 1979. Sophie, incarné par Caroline Grant, est une môme de quatre ou cinq ans qui doit être la fille la plus sou-surveillé du monde. Elle habite dans un grand château et reçoit tous les jours, peu importe qu’elle est méchante, menteuse, et désobéissante. Comme elle est mignonne ! Comme elle est adorable ! Est-ce que j’ai mentionné qu’il y a une écureuil animée ? Apparemment une vraie écureuil aurait été trop chère ou trop effrayante. Où peut-être le syndicat des écureuil empêche ses membres de jouer avec des petites-filles de peur que les gamines ne tirent pas la queue. En tout cas, ce film sans aucune intrigue vaut le nom m’a ennuyé après 30 minutes et je l’ai mis à côté.

J’ai sauté le numéro cinq (La Gloire de mon père (1990), une classique d’après l’oeuvre de Marcel Pagnol) pour ne pas basculer ce défilé d’échecs. Je ne l’ai jamais vu, mais j’imagine qu’il doit être dû qualité. Je n’ai pas non plus regardé le sixième service de ce repas douteux, Le Jumeau (1984). Il s’agit d’un coquin qui se trouve dans un casino avec deux jumelles, une paire des Aphrodites américaines, riches et charmantes. Pour séduire tous les deux, ce gaillard invente un sosie qu’il déploie comme nécessaire pour masquer ses infidélités. Ou bien, c’est ce que je comprends du synopsis. J’ai trop de respect pour mes yeux de les faire l’épreuve de ce film.

Enfin, pour boucler la première semaine des films terribles, on nous propose Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose (2003). C’est un film dans le tradition de OSS 117 : Le Caire, nid d’espions (2006) et ses suites, sauf que le premier film d’OSS 117 a paru trois ans plus tard. De plus, Pamela Rose se situe aux États-Unis et nous montre deux agents du FBI, un pitre qui se sent « cool » et un vieux professeur de l’Académie du police nationale qui n’a jamais travaillé sur le terrain. J’ai regardé les vingt premières minutes du film, puis capituler au conclusion inéluctable: les éditeurs de ce calendrier d’Avent du film pour French Channel ne mérite qu’un morceau de charbon dans leurs chaussettes de Noël. Quant à moi, je dois annuler mon projet de regarder tout ces films pour que je ne crève pas mes yeux.

Things I Learned

2021-08-14

Manual Entry: J’ai perdu mon corps

In addition to taking lessons this week, I’ve been watching a bunch of French movies. The latest of these is J’ai perdu mon corps, another from the list of films that Léo introduced me to on Tuesday. Released in 2019, it is an unusual and imaginative 80 minute animated feature voiced by a collection of actors unfamiliar to me. There is some dialogue, but also long uninterrupted stretches of music backing the animation. There are three principal characters: a young man, perhaps 20, born in Morocco but living in France; a young woman of the same age who works at a library and helps her ailing uncle; and a severed hand that has become active and escaped from a hospital lab freezer. Oh yeah, now might be a good time to translate the movie’s title: “I Lost My Body”. It’s based on a novel Happy Hand, published 2006.

The hand never interacts overtly with the other two characters, but spends a fair amount of time skittering around on five fingers, traversing floors, stairs, escalators, metro rails, building gutters, and a blind-man’s piano. The hand doesn’t speak, which partially explains the long scenes without dialogue. Other wordless scenes are reminiscences of better days: the young man was orphaned at age 10 and thinks of his parents often. The hand recalls when it ran through the sand, played the cello, or felt a snail. The story that plays out with all these scenes is not a happy one. How could it be when one character witnessed his parents death in a car crash, and the other witnessed its originating industrial accident, uh, first hand. But seeing all this tragedy playing out before me and learning eventually how the stories connect was unexpectedly heavy.

J’ai perdu mon corps won a slew of awards when it was released, including the 2019 Cannes Festival Grand Prize and 2020 César Prizes for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. The critics loved it, but it seems to have been a financial flop. It grossed just $1 million, while costing $5 million to make. Netflix picked it up and re-dubbed it with English audio (easy to do with animated features, I understand), which again makes me wonder about modern movie economics. There were no French closed-captions available, so I watched it on Netflix with French audio and no subtitles. The language was pretty easy to follow, and what I missed was not critical.

2021-08-14

Can’t Touch This !

You’ve likely heard of Omar Sy as the star of the Netflix series Lupin, and I just wrote a post about a recent submarine film he appears in, Le Chant du loup. But the film that really jump-started Sy’s career was Intouchables (2011), a blockbuster odd-couple story about Philippe (played by François Cluzet), a wheelchair-bound invalid , and Driss (played by Omar Sy), the home health-aid he hires for round-the-clock care and companionship. The two men come from different worlds. Philippe is an enormously wealthy, cultured, white, fifty-year-old Parisian who lost the use of all four limbs in a paragliding accident and then lost his wife to illness. Driss is a twenty-something jewel thief recently released from prison, Black, broke and living in the housing projects of the banlieue. He has no qualifications to be an aid, but shows up to interview for the post in order to satisfy some requirement to qualify for unemployment benefits. Philippe refuses to sign the relevant form (noting ironically his paralysis) but instead hires Driss for the job.

Philippe obviously likes Driss’s bluster, broad smile, and joie-de-vivre, but he later explains to a concerned brother that the main reason he hired Driss is that there was no pity in his gaze when he looks at Philippe. Driss doesn’t treat him like a fragile thing, a freak, or a benefactor to be indulged. Tending Philippe is just a gig that eventually becomes hanging out with a friend and pushing that friend back into the world. Philippe in turn has a chance to educate Driss and introduce him to music, art and literature. I can imagine a story like this falling flat, but this instance manages to avoid obvious tropes, is well paced, has funny dialog, and evolves multiple times to remain fresh.

Still, the film only succeeds because of Omar Sy’s exuberant performance of Driss. And succeed it has: it was the top film at the French box office for 10 weeks in a row in 2011, had an international release in 50 countries, and eventually grossed $440 million in theaters (annoyingly, there are no French closed-captions available in the Netflix version, and you can’t de-activate the English sub-titles. I had to block the bottom third of my screen to avoid being distracted). Its production budget was only $10 million, so it was a financial home run. Maybe that’s how the movie industry operates: they can’t differentiate in advance a film that will barely break even like Le Chant du loup from a film that will pay for itself dozens of time over like Intouchables. Funny business.

One last note about the title, «Intouchables». The word has two surface meanings, but I think there is a third irony hiding just beneath. The literal meaning of the adjective is “that which should not be touched.” You could imagine this applying to something fragile, possibly Philippe, or to something dangerous or odious, like Driss. The second meaning is “someone who is out of the reach of the law, who cannot be sanctioned.” This meaning is apparent in the opening scene of the film: Driss is driving a fancy sports car at night through the streets of Paris, speeding and ignoring traffic signs, while Philippe is in the passenger seat grinning madly with the thrill. When the cops eventually stop him, Driss asserts that his patient is having a seizure and needs to get to the hospital urgently. The cops are unconvinced, but between Philippe’s acting and the wheel chair in the trunk, they agree to escort them to the hospital. Uncomfortable, the police drive off once they’ve arrived, at which point our heroes laugh and drive off themselves. With a handicap like this (and a billion dollars in the bank), you can get away with anything!

But the third meaning is (only slightly) subtler. Driss only showed up and applied for the job because he needed to go through the motions in order to collect unemployment. The French phrase for this is «toucher des indemnités chômage», as «toucher» can mean “to collect”, “to draw” (e.g. a salary), or “to receive” (e.g. a stipend). So by hiring Driss instead of validating his form, Philippe prevented him from collecting unemployment funds, thus rendering them «intouchable». The first two meanings come across in the English title (“The Intouchables”), but the financial meaning likely does not.

See? Totally worth studying a foreign language to pick up on small details like that.

2021-08-14

Subwoofer: Le Chant du loup

I had a chance to watch one of the films that Léo introduced me to on Tuesday: Le Chant du loup a 2019 submarine movie starring François Civil, Reda Kateb, and Mathieu Kassovitz. Omar Sy and polymath Alexis Michalik also appear in supporting roles. I recognized Civil, as he plays Hippolyte Barneville in the series Dix Pour Cent. Le Chant du loup didn’t make much of a splash in France, and box office receipts only covered 60% of production costs despite being in theaters for 21 weeks. It didn’t have theatrical releases outside of France, though that might have been fallout from Covid. I watched it on Netflix; I wonder how much of the revenue for movies like this comes from post-theatrical streaming services.

I have an odd relationship with submarine fiction. On the one hand, I feel like I know the tropes by heart: close quarters, limited communications, critical sonar and radio operators, torn or tyrannical captains, mystery sounds, incomplete information about the ocean and its natural or man-made inhabitants. I must have seen this story a million times. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve seen enough submarine movies to exhaust the fingers on said hand. There’s Hunt for Red October, U-571, … uh, maybe that’s it? Maybe I’ve read a ton of submarine fiction? Patrick Robinson’s Nimitz Class, some scenes in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, … uh, the novel of Red October…

No, It’s not that I’ve seen or read lots of these. Just to be sure, I consulted Wikipedia’s list of 150 submarine movies, and indeed I’ve seen just the two. So why does Le Chant du loup seem so familiar? I think it must be that Hunt for Red October is so iconic that the other works can’t help but echo it with slight variations.

In any event, Le Chant du loup is OK, but extremely predictable to anyone who has seen or read Tom Clancy’s masterpiece. At first I tried watching the film with audio only, but found I was missing too many of the particulars and just relying on my guesses of how the story must be going. After 30 minutes of this I turned on the French closed-captions and restarted from the beginning. Smooth sailing from there, as the language is not difficult when read; some combination of the speed, the informal delivery, and the loud music/sound effects made it hard with no closed captions.

2021-08-12

Summer Lessons Day 10: Enchaînement and Bandes Annonces

Lessons with ILA continued today with Léonard, whom I worked with for the first time today. After a short get-to-know-you discussion, we moved on to an exercise (freely available) from TV5Monde centered around a short video sketch: Illustre inconnue (unrelated to a 2014 film of the same name). It’s a cute farce about an aspiring actress and a scheme gone wrong. It shared a lot of the vocabulary with Dix Pour Cent, which helped my comprehension.

Next we dove into a grammar topic I found extremely helpful, how to link ideas in an essay / speech / argument (l’enchaînement des idées). He presented these grouped by their function.

Expressions that mark an enumeration: d’abord, premièrement, en premier lieu; ensuite, deuxièmement, en second lieu; enfin, dernièrement, en dernier lieu, finalement; d’une part … d’autre part; en somme, pour conclure.
Expressions that add to or extend an idea: en ce qui concerne; non seulement … mais; de plus; en outre; par ailleurs; de même; ensuite; d’autre part; aussi (à l’intérieur d’une phrase); également.
Expressions that concede some ground in an argument: pourtant; toutefois; cependant; néanmoins; mais.
Expressions that introduce an explanation: en effet; car; c’est à dire.
Expression that introduce an example: ainsi; pour ce que est de; par exemple; quant à.
Expressions that place ideas in opposition: en revanche; au contraire; par contre.
Expressions that indicate a consequence: c’est pourquoi; en conséquences; d’òu; par conséquent; ainsi; alors; donc; aussi (au début d’une phrase).
Expressions that indicate a refutation: certes … mais; bien sûr … mais.

I’m tempted to create an analogous grouping of expressions in English without aiming for a one-to-one translation within each group

As a quick understanding check, we did a James Bond-themed fill-in-the-blank exercise from École Suisse. Then we dove a bit more deeply into ways to express opposition using expressions function as different parts of speech:

conjunctions: alors que; tandis que; si (+ indicatif).
adverbs: au contraire; à l’opposé; inversement; en revanche; par contre.
prepositions: contrairement à; à l’inverse de; à la place de; au lieu de.
other: quant à + nom/pronom; pour ma (ta / sa / …) part; de mon (ton / son / …) côté); en ce qui me (te / vous / les / …) concerne.

Whew! Lots of grammar. I will have to find ways to practice using these. Just having lists and categories won’t get me that far, I suspect.

From the rest of the lesson we covered lighter fare. First Léonard introduced four movie posters and asked me to speculate on the nature of each film based just on the poster:

It was a fun exercise. Next he had me watch the trailer of each film and then revise my opinion after each one. Here they are:

Finally, he asked me to write a paragraph or two comparing these four films. Given I had only 10 minutes remaining and only posters and trailers to go on, my writing was pretty junky. I’ll post it here to keep myself honest, but it’s full of mistakes:

Cet après-midi mon enseignant de français m’a proposé quatre films: Énorme, Le Chant du loup, Les Misérables, et J’ai perdu mon corps. C’est une collection tellement variée. Les deux derniers abordent des thèmes sérieux. En revanche, Énorme et Chant du loup sont ciblés vers des gens qui veulent seulement s’amuser sans refléchir. Énorme imagine une situation assez commune en couple: tandis que l’homme veut être papa, la femme s’oppose à l’idée. Il trafique sa pilule, ainsi une grossesse arrive.

Autant Énorme est drole, autant Chant du loup est intense….

That about wraps up Day 10. I have to confess, I’m starting to get worn out with these intensive lessons. But I’m sure I’m still learning, and I am enjoying myself, so onwards to Day 11!

2021-08-062021-08-06

Molière (2007): un compte rendu

More vacation equals more French films! Tuesday night’s selection was Molière (2007) starring Romain Duris and Fabrice Luchini. It was very entertaining, without any particular need to be more than an intelligent bit of fun. In concept, Molière is nearly identical to the American film “Shakespeare in Love” (1998), which I also liked enormously (that script was co-written by Tom Stoppard and brims with wit). Each film tells a fictional story of a real genius playwright during a period before he had achieved greatness, and retro-fits various episodes from their great works (Romeo and Juliette, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, or Tartuffe as the case may be) into the imagined early life of the author. Thus we see a tragicomic “dramatic pre-construction” of how these masterpieces happened to spring from the mind of the luminary to be. Assuming one doesn’t take the enterprise at all seriously, it’s a fun romp.

Molière is cleverly written, sumptuously costumed, and luminously filmed in various French chateau and historic streets of Le Mans (200km southwest of Paris) as well as the gardens of Versailles. The characters are sympathetic and charmingly portrayed, especially by the two male leads. Fabrice Luchini, to whom I was first introduced to via a guest appearance on Dix Pour Cent, is a perfect mix of buffoonery, humanity, and hard-edged bourgeois pride. The two share one scene for the ages in which Molière (Duris), who has agreed to serve as an acting coach for the rich M. Jourdain (Luchini), demonstrates the difference between impersonating a horse, and looking like a man who is trying to look like a horse. No understanding of French needed to appreciate this gem:

As part of this week’s French classes (now with a new teacher, Dominique) I wrote a substantial, though incomplete, review of the film which we then edited together. Outside the first paragraph, there were not a lot of changes. I’m not sure if that means my French writing is getting better, or just that Dominique had little interest in the exercise (which I proposed, as it was so rewarding the previous week with Virginie). In any event, here’s the before and after drafts.

Version originale

D’où vient le génie? L’Einstein, le Shakespeare, le Michel-Ange? Sont-ils nés, tout finis, prêts à luir sur nous pour toujours? Ou est-ce qu’il y a des enseignants, des formations, et des expériences critiques? Hormis les génies, quand il s’agit d’un quidam, est-ce que ses traits caractéristiques sont à lui dès sa première haleine, innés et immuables? Ou est-ce que la naissance d’une personne, dans une classe sociale aléatoire, avec une famille plus ou moins riche, n’a quasiment rien à voir avec sa moralité, sa gentillesse, ou ses accomplissements? Ce sont les questions que pose le film Molière de Laurent Tirard, sorti en 2007, avec Romain Duris et Fabrice Luchini.

Pour la majorité de ses scènes, Molière se situe en 1644, où Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (récemment nommé Molière et joué ici par Duris) avait 22 ans. Mais dès que le film commence, les spectateurs voient Molière et sa troupe de comédiens en retournant à Paris après avoir sillonné toutes les villes et les hameaux de France pendant treize ans. Molière avait attiré l’attention de Monsieur, frère du roi, qui l’avait invité à s’installer dans le théâtre du Petit-Bourbon en 1658. Molière souhait de monter un spectacle tragique, ayant marre de la comédie en tout sa forme. Il a ras le bol de la farce, de la romance, et de la drôlerie. Il affirme qu’il a des choses sérieuses à dire, et que la tragédie est le seul moyen de les exprimer.

Malheureusement, sa troupe (dorénavant baptisée «Troupe de Monsieur), lui rappelle qu’autant qu’il est maître de la comédie, il est nul en tragédie. D’ailleurs, Monsieur, frère du roi, attend une comédie dans les jours suivants et Molière n’a pas le courage de le nier. Désespéré, il se résigne à jouer encore une fois une bêtise inepte et fade. Mais tout à coup, une jeune femme arrive avec une lettre urgente d’une femme mystérieuse qu’elle appelle «Maman». Molière lit la lettre et se rue à la rendre visite. Il la trouve gravement malade, probablement affligée de la consomption (la tuberculose). À ce moment-là, l’écran se fait noir et on nous apprends une transition temporelle avec les mots «Treize ans plus tôt…»

Nous sommes encore une fois à Paris, mais maintenant en 1644, et c’est à cette époque que la vraie histoire du film commence. Molière est interrompu en plein milieu d’une représentation tragique, en plein air, par des huissiers qui le mettent en état d’arrestation pour les dettes impayées. De coup, il est vite libéré par l’intercession d’un Monsieur Jourdain (interprété par Fabrice Luchini), un bourgeois friqué qui a besoin d’un maître dramatique. M. Jourdain embauche Molière et l’amène à chez lui, pour faire une combine saugrenue. M. Jourdain veut que Molière le forme à jouer comme comédien dans une petite pièce qu’il a déjà écrite avec le but de séduire Célimène, une marquise veuve. Mais il éxiste aussi une Madame Elmire Jourdain (incarné par Laura Morante), sa femme, à laquelle cette entreprise doit être cachée. Donc, Molière est déguisé en prêtre et présenté par M. Jourdain comme «M. Tartuffe» le nouveau précepteur de leur fille cadette, Louison. Mme Jourdain est fortement anticléricale, mais n’a pas de choix sauf à s’accorder à la présence de ce jeune homme à la maison.

D’ici, l’intrigue devient un peu alambiquée. M. Jourdain continue à s’emballer avec son enjeu de séduction de la marquise Célimène, pour lequel il demande l’aide de Dorante, un noble roublard et sans scrupule. Entre-temps, Mme Jourdain découvre que M. Tartuffe est un imposteur, mais aussi que sa plume et son esprit sont sans pareil. Les deux tombent amoureuses et forment une liaison cachée. Enfin, il y a encore une histoire d’amour entre Henriette Jourdain, la fille aînée, et un jeune homme Valère qui n’est pas de la noblesse. En outre, Dorante fait des manipulations pour que son fils Thomas se marie avec Henriette.

Version corrigée

D’où vient le génie? L’Einstein, le Shakespeare, le Michel-Ange? Est-ce que le génie est inné ou a-t-il besoin de s’élaborer avec de la pédagogie? Ou est-ce qu’il y a des enseignants, des formations, et des expériences critiques? Hormis les génies, quand il s’agit d’une personne ordinaire, est-ce que ses caractéristiques lui sont propres dès sa première haleine, innés et immuables? Ou est-ce que la naissance d’une personne issue d’une classe quelconque, avec une famille plus ou moins riche, n’a quasiment rien à voir avec sa moralité, sa gentillesse, ou ses actes? Ce sont les questions que pose le film Molière de Laurent Tirard, sorti en 2007, avec Romain Duris et Fabrice Luchini.

Pour la majorité de ses scènes, Molière se situe en 1644, où Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (récemment nommé Molière et joué ici par Duris) avait 22 ans. Mais dès que le film commence, les spectateurs voient Molière et sa troupe de comédiens en retournant à Paris après avoir sillonné toutes les villes et les hameaux de France pendant treize ans. Molière avait attiré l’attention du duc d’Orléans, le frère du roi, qui l’avait invité à s’installer dans le théâtre du Petit-Bourbon en 1658. Molière souhaite monter un spectacle tragique, en ayant assez de la comédie sous toutes ses formes. Il en a ras le bol de la farce, de la romance, et de la drôlerie. Il affirme qu’il a des choses sérieuses à dire, et que la tragédie est le seul moyen de les exprimer.

Malheureusement, sa troupe (dorénavant baptisée «Troupe de Monsieur), lui rappelle qu’autant qu’il est maître de la comédie, il est nul en tragédie. D’ailleurs, Monsieur, le frère du roi, attend une comédie dans les jours suivants et Molière n’a pas le courage de lui refuser. Désespéré, il se résigne à jouer encore une fois une bêtise inepte et fade. Mais tout à coup, une jeune femme arrive avec une lettre urgente d’une femme mystérieuse qu’elle appelle «Maman». Molière lit la lettre et se rue pour lui rendre visite. Il la trouve gravement malade (probablement affligée de la tuberculose). À ce moment-là, l’écran se fait noir et on nous apprends une transition temporelle avec les mots «Treize ans plus tôt…»

Nous sommes encore une fois à Paris, mais maintenant en 1644, et c’est à cette époque que la vraie histoire du film commence. Molière est interrompu en plein milieu d’une représentation tragique, en plein air, par des huissiers qui le mettent en état d’arrestation pour des dettes. Du coup, il est vite libéré par l’intermédiaire d’un Monsieur qui s’appelle Jourdain (interprété par Fabrice Luchini), un bourgeois très riche qui a besoin d’un maître dramatique. M. Jourdain embauche Molière et l’emmène chez lui pour élaborer un stratagème. M. Jourdain veut que Molière le forme à jouer la comédie dans une petite pièce qu’il a déjà écrite avec le but de séduire Célimène, une marquise veuve. Mais il éxiste aussi une Madame Elmire Jourdain (incarné par Laura Morante), sa femme, à laquelle cette entreprise doit être cachée. Donc, Molière est déguisé en prêtre et présenté par M. Jourdain comme «M. Tartuffe» le nouveau précepteur de leur fille cadette, Louison. Mme Jourdain est fortement anticléricale, mais n’a pas le choix sauf de s’habituer à la présence de ce jeune homme dans la maison.

À partir d’ici, l’intrigue devient un peu alambiquée. M. Jourdain continue à s’emballer avec son enjeu de séduction pour la marquise Célimène, pour lequel il demande l’aide de Dorante, un noble roublard et sans scrupule. Entre-temps, Mme Jourdain découvre que M. Tartuffe est un imposteur, mais aussi que sa plume et son esprit sont sans pareil. Les deux tombent amoureuses et forment une liaison cachée. Enfin, il y a encore une histoire d’amour entre Henriette Jourdain, la fille aînée, et un jeune homme Valère qui n’est pas de la noblesse. En outre, Dorante fait des manipulations pour que son fils Thomas se marie avec Henriette.

A final word about the costuming for this film: it’s really amazing! You can find a full gallery of Molière costume photos on the site of Pirates Cave, a small Dutch company that sells a wide range of period costumes. I don’t know that there’s any connection between the shop and the film, as the costumes for the film are credited to Pierre-Jean Larroque. But Pirates Cave does seem to have an extensive collection of photos, and presumably garments. Here’s a taste of the photos:

2021-08-06

Le Prénom (2012): un psychodrame

Monday night I watched the 2012 film Le Prénom, directed by Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte. The title (literally “The First Name”, but translated as “What’s in a Name?” for its English language release) refers to the announcement by one of the lead characters that he and his wife plan to name their still in utero son … something awful. The rest of the family erupts in horror and disbelief at the choice, later revealed to be an elaborate practical joke. But the ill-conceived prank sets the tone for a fraught evening and lights the fuse for various true revelations, each one more explosive than the last, among this group of five adults with long, rocky, and intertwined histories.

The film is an adaptation of a successful play by the same name which debuted in 2010, and it’s not clear to me that anything has been gained by the transition from stage to screen. Not a bad play, but a cinematic psychodrame that doesn’t use any of the rich set of techniques that film enables (flashbacks, blurred images, crowded scenes, multiple camera angles, exotic settings, animation, …) feels underdeveloped, even bare. Add to that over-the-top performances by the actors, and I would not particularly recommend this film on its own merits. But certainly a decent exercise in understanding fast-spoken French in a familiar register.

The film is widely available on American streaming services with French audio and English subtitles (I had to mask the bottom of my television screen, as I couldn’t deactivate the subtitles).