morrison-dylan-fan
Not living in a major city,the opportunities to watch classic films on the big screen become limited,with it being possible for a few years to go by without one getting shown. Aware of the "Cinema Time Machine" screenings held at The Electric Cinema in Birmingham, (the oldest cinema in the UK) I have sadly missed out on all the showings, due to not wanting to miss the last train home. A fan of auteur Marcel Carne,I was taken aback when looking at the Electric's listings and finding that they were screening Carne's epic (which I've never seen before) at a good time. This led to me finally meeting the children of paradise.View on the film:Raising the curtain on the 18th century, auteur director Marcel Carné takes his graceful stylisation of Film Noir's Port of Shadows and Le Jour se Leve to a vast costume Drama canvas. Sending every man to the siren-call like beauty of Claire Reine, Carné & cinematographer Roger Hubert make her stand out like a mirage in each frame,with Carné continuing to expand on his distinctive tracking shots,that run across the bustling streets of Paris, (the largest sets,and most expensive French film ever at the time)and find Reine in the middle of the crowd. Stepping out onto the stage, Carné reveals a surprisingly humorous side,where the mines at the Funambules theatre are played with a delicate touch highlighting the quirks in Baptiste's on-stage performances.Unveiled across the screen like an epic novel, the screenplay by regular Carné collaborator Jacques Prévert makes the 3 hour run time feel as light as a feather,by Prévert wisely focusing on the personal,rather than spectacle. Introducing Reine to four major lovers in her life, Prévert uses the figures to give the film four distinctive moods,as Baptiste's love twists from flirting Comedy to sweeping romance, Frédérick's jealousy spirals the title with a vengeful edge, Lacenaire's thieving glazing the brittle desire they each have for her and Count de Montray grips Reine with an unrelenting darkness. Made,but not landing until the Occupation was finally over, Prévert's poetic dialogue brilliantly goes behind the scenes of the stage,and radically connects the romantic tale with the allegorical,in each of the men having a possessive love,which surrounds Reine, until she drops each of them and gains (temporarily) liberty.Shining as the cast member whose become the most entwined in Prévert and Carné's legacy, Arletty gives a mesmerising performance as Reine,whose given a sophistication Arletty that gives her an unshakeable allure. Finding Reine held back from looking at the stage for a number of years, Arletty elegantly conveys the heaviness from the passage of time,with Reine's reunions of former lovers losing the romantic innocence they each shared. Duelling for Reine's affections with Marcel Herrand's devilish charms as Lacenaire,the stern glance Louis Salou injects Montray,and the flamboyance Pierre Brasseur dresses Lemaitre in, Jean-Louis Barrault gives a magnetic performance as Baptiste,whose mime stage shows Barrault plays with incredible ease,and expressively casts desire across Baptiste face,from seeing Reine in the crowd of the children of paradise.
ElMaruecan82
Love is made of cruel irony, but as sweet as a pearl of honey … feelings never imitate, never deviate, though the shortest way between two hearts is never straight. Love can take many disguises, always commands and never compromises. Love is the true master of our ill-fated lives, and when it perishes through jealousy survives, for the flame of hate in an indecent symmetry, is only the rotten fruit falling from love's tree ~~~~~~~~~~ Love is a theater when only hearts can talk, love is a tightrope on which only souls can walk ... when guided by their feelings' purity, or a friendly smile haunting for eternity. Born from a surprising encounter, an innocent flower or an eternal thunder, love is the ultimate soul-player, its sources are infinite and damages definite, it erases in one instant all the life's meanings, and paints the truest words with the most painful feelings. What a glorious portrait that love is, floating in the air like an innocent breeze ... but roaring like the most ferocious storm, when it takes its deepest, sincerest form ~~~~~~ There was once a pretty flower, smelling like the most hypnotic power, her name was Garance, a lady whose first glance, melted your heart or tore it apart. There was Frederick Le Maitre aka the Master Fredrick, the greatest actor who knew every trick, as an actor, he was not just the one but the only one, but as an actor, he was also both anyone and everyone. His life was a never-ending play, a game he'd got to win anyway, except for Garance, beautiful Garance, who belonged to anyone and everyone, and "when a woman belongs to no one, jealousy belongs to everyone". Now to Lacenaire, incarnation of fear, anger and frustration in his heart he nourishes, and everything he touches he inevitably tarnishes, more than anyone, the society he loathes, and he turns the words like he slits the throats, with an immaculate ruthlessness and a flawless precision, he's only distracted by one blinding vision, the only light of beauty in the ugliness of France, the one and only, the beautiful Garance. But only one word with Garance could rhyme, it was the silence, the silence of the mime. It was Baptiste who was given the rose, the true meaning of love, he finally knows, he can't get Garance off his mind, a treasure he'll never, never, ever find. But love is made of cruel irony, the most priceless treasures can be bought with money, bought when she needed one person to count … on, and she found De Montray, the Count, who rhymed Garance with the word 'Providence' through one of these cruel ironies of fate, but Garance knew the way was never straight ~~~~~~ And here begins the glorious tragedy, of the purest soul of silent comedy, and Garance, romantic, joyful and street-wise, in the French masterpiece "Children of Paradise" ~~~~~~ They belong to the lowest class of French society, they are as young as the new romantic century, for their bodies' comfort hardly matters, they sat on the highest spot of popular theaters, whose unlikely name was "Paradise", the place from which the greatest laughs rise, costing less than a worthless dime, even covering the 'noise' of the pantomime. Always sincere and never silly, these are the hearts pounding of Vox Populi, real people who don't need words so the passion can touch their sensitive chords ... that's entertainment in its pure simplicity, that's entertainment in its simple purity. Theatre is love, it's the velvet glove, on the hand of life, that can carry a knife ~~~~~~~~ One could kill you in your deepest core, love was a play with no encore, and everyday was an eternal premiere, maybe written by the villainous Lacenaire. Or life was an eternal self-parody, where you could make a star out of anybody ... or it might be a tragic pantomime, a bleeding heart for an timeless time ... or did it need all the excess, when love was simply a need to possess, a need to be, to win, to conquer, to find the eternal question's eternal answer, an answer that desperately shut its name ... love is anything and never the same, one victory for a thousand defeats, one little smile emerging from the streets. Baptiste won that smile, in the theater of reality, and relived its loss as an eternal tragedy, stage was the theater of a never ending mourning, a cruel and painfully silent feeling … and even a beautiful family, or the true love of poor Nathalie couldn't erase one simple night's remembrance, the one that rhymed with the beautiful Garance ~~~~~~ Spectacular, stellar, than life bigger and love stronger, epic, frenetic, noisy and rowdy, witty and wise … this is the inner beauty of "Children of Paradise", prodigious, glorious, sumptuous, miraculous, this is a miracle like only Cinema could have provided, an epic tale in two parts divided : "Boulevard of Crime" where the flower meets the Mime, and "The Man in White" or the finale of the fight. One of the most endearing cinematic romances, served by a colorful gallery of magnificent performances, on every level it reaches perfection, delightful experience of a poetry in motion, Garance, Frederick, Baptiste or Lacenaire, with immortal lines from Jacques Prevert, open your hearts' doors … like "Paris is small for those who share ... so great a passion as ours." It's Marcel Carne's epic of passion, call it "Gone with the Wind", the French Version, that speaks to the heart and defies the reason, in every world's part and in any season ~~~~~~ The Greatest Film ever made in France … the most universally emotional romance … the love story of Baptiste and Garance … that I salute with a respectful reverence. And now that I used up all my prose … the big curtain I can finally close ~~~~