Reviews of Under the Roofs of Paris
Displaying all 2 reviews
SAYONARA BUNKA!! (Formerly Corbeau)
14Jan11
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… High up in the sky we float. We turn to observe the neighbourhood. But wait, no: we are drawn towards them, more than a dozen people. And so we go, down, down, down to the earth. All because of that sweet tune, we are so eager to explore this fresh world beyond. And so goes sound’s first great crane shot (I love it, and I suppose I’m a very bad poet). From the very man who opposed the new technology came France’s first internationally successful talkie, Sous les Toits de Paris. “It is not without a shudder” wrote Rene Clair in 1927 “that one learns that some American manufacturers, among the most dangerous, see in the talking picture the entertainment of the future, and that they are already working to bring about this dreadful prophecy”. It wasn’t the primitive technology that worried him, it was the mere suggestion of merging sound and image. After all, imagine if you came to a museum to admire a painting that had only been made in order for a film to be projected onto it.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
CriterionRefs
19Jan09
I blogged about this film here: http://criterionreflections.blogspot.com/2009/01/under-roofs-of-paris-161.html
An excerpt: In its narrative structure, acting performances and subject matter, I don’t think any fans of the movie would feel insulted by my summation that we are not dealing with “great art” here. The story is slight, breezy and fairly conventional – and after what I’ve been watching over the past couple weeks, I’m quite thankful for that! A pretty young woman, Pola, has arrived in Paris from somewhere in Romania. She quickly catches the attention of a few bachelors: Albert, his best friend Louis, and Fred, a tough guy who considers Pola to be his for the taking. A rivalry develops between the three as to who will win Pola’s lasting favor and she flits from one to the other over the course of the film. Songs are sung, comic escapades provide pleasant diversions and viewers enjoy a charming escapade through the cobblestone streets and picturesque watering holes of late 20’s Paris. I found the whole thing nicely amusing and laugh-out-loud funny in several places: the restless night that Pola and Albert spend at his apartment, negotiating who will or won’t sleep in his bed; the various tensions that develop between the leading male characters as they carouse, posture and gamble with each other to determine who has the next shot at wooing Pola, and finally a chaotic and intriguingly filmed fight scene near the end of the picture that creatively applies sounds create atmospheric details apart from what is seen on the screen. It’s helpful to remember that we are seeing this combination of media being used together for practically the first time, and it provides some interesting material to reflect on the development of sound/image vocabulary ever since.
- Currently 4.0/5 Stars.