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Under the Roofs of Paris
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Wikipedia article
'Under the Roofs of Paris' is a 1930 French film directed by Ren Clair. The film was probably the earliest French example of a filmed musical-comedy, although its often dark tone differentiates it from other instances of the genre. It was the first French production of the sound film era to achieve great international success.
Plot
In a working-class district of Paris, Albert, a penniless street singer, lives in an attic room. He meets a beautiful Romanian girl, Pola, and falls in love with her; but he is not the only one, since his best friend Louis and the gangster Fred are also under her spell. One evening Pola dares not return home because Fred has stolen her key and she does not feel safe. She spends the night with Albert who, reluctantly remaining the gentleman, sleeps on the floor and leaves his bed to Pola. They soon decide to get married, but fate prevents them when mile, a thief, deposits with Albert a bag full of stolen goods. It is discovered by the police, and Albert is sent to prison. Pola finds consolation with Louis. Later mile is caught in his turn and admits that Albert was not his accomplice, which earns Albert his freedom. Fred has just got back together with Pola who has fallen out with Louis, and in a jealous fury at Albert's return Fred decides to provoke a knife fight with him. Louis rushes to Albert's rescue and the two comrades are re-united, but their friendship is clouded by the realisation that each of them is in love with Pola. Finally Albert decides to give up Pola to Louis.
Cast
*Albert Prjean as Albert
*Pola Illry as Pola
*Edmond T. Grville as Louis
*Bill Bocket as mile, the thief
*Gaston Modot as Fred
*Raymond Aimos as "un gars du milieu"
*Thomy Bourdelle as Franois
*Paul Ollivier as the drunken customer in the caf
*Jane Pierson as the fat woman with a purse (uncredited)
Background
The arrival of synchronised sound in the cinema in the late 1920s provoked mixed reactions among French film-makers, and some of the masters of silent film technique were pessimistic about the impact it would have. In 1927, even before 'The Jazz Singer' had been shown in Paris, Ren Clair wrote: "It is not without a shudder 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"."On n'apprendra pas sans frmir que certains industriels amricains, parmi les plus dangereux, voient dans le cinma parlant le spectacle de l'avenir et qu'ils travaillent ds maintenant raliser cette effrayante prophtie": quoted in Jean-Pierre Jeancolas, '15 ans des annes trente'. Paris: Stock, 1983. p.55. Elsewhere he described the talking picture as "a redoubtable monster, an unnatural creation, thanks to which the screen would become poor theatre, the theatre of the poor".Pierre Billard, 'Le Mystre Ren Clair'. Paris: Plon, 1998. p.154: "...cinma parlant, monstre redoutable, cration contre nature, grce laquelle l'cran deviendrait un pauvre thtre, le thtre du pauvre." It was therefore an irony that it was Clair who would produce the French cinema's first big international success with a sound picture in 'Sous les toits de Paris'.
Clair accepted the inevitability of the talking picture but at first retained very specific views about the way that sound should be integrated into film. He was reluctant to use dialogue or sound effects naturalistically, and maintained that the alternate use of the image of the subject and of the sound produced by it - not their simultaneous use - created the best effect.Roy Armes, 'French Cinema'. London: Secker & Warburg, 1985. p.74.
In 1929, the German film company Tobis Klangfilm (Tobis Sound-Film) established a studio at pinay near Paris which was equipped for sound production. This studio inaugurated a policy of making French-speaking films in France rather than importing French performers to make French versions of films in Germany. The company concentrated on prestigious productions, and they recruited Ren Clair to undertake one of their first French projects with 'Sous les toits de Paris'.Alastair Phillips, "Migration and Exile in the Classical Period", in 'The French Cinema Book'. London: British Film Institute, 2004. p.104. Other early French sound films were 'Prix de beaut' ('Miss Europe') and 'L'ge d'or'.
Production
Ren Clair filmed 'Sous les toits de Paris' at pinay between 2 January and 21 March 1930.Jean-Pierre Jeancolas, '15 ans des annes trente'. Paris: Stock, 1983. p.72. Pierre Billard, 'Le Mystre Ren Clair'. Paris: Plon, 1998. The setting of the film was defined by the elaborately realistic yet evocative set which Lazare Meerson devised to depict a street of Parisian tenements, populated by familiar archetypes of 'ordinary life': the young newly-weds, the pickpocket, the street singer. The film begins with a long crane shot (engineered by cameraman Georges Prinal) which starts among the rooftops and then descends along the street closing in on a group of people gathered around a singer, whose song (the title-song) gradually swells up on the soundtrack. (A reversal of this shot ends the film.) This is the first of many ways in which Clair affirms his loyalty to the style and techniques of silent cinema while creating a distinctive role for the new element of sound. Elsewhere, a conversation is cut off by the closing of a glass door and then has to be followed in dumb-show; the hour of midnight is indicated by the sound of a mere three chimes - and the superimposition of a clockface; and a knife-fight is first seen but not heard as a passing train drowns out all else, and then the fight's continuation in darkness is conveyed only by its sounds until the headlights of a car illuminate the scene. Such devices are not only imaginative but amount almost to a satire of the sound film.Georges Sadoul, 'Le Cinma franais, 1890-1962'. Paris: Flammarion, 1962. p.55.
Among the other members of Clair's team on the film were Georges Lacombe as assistant director and Marcel Carn handling script continuity ("secrtaire de plateau").Pierre Billard, 'Le Mystre Ren Clair'. Paris: Plon, 1998. p.158. During the last weeks of filming, the art director Lazare Meerson hired a 23-year-old Hungarian as a replacement in his team, Alexandre Trauner, who went on to work as designer on many major French films of the following decades. 'Sous les toits de Paris' was the first of four successful sound films that Clair made for Tobis, all in collaboration with Meerson and Prinal. It was also the sixth and last of Clair's films which featured the actor Albert Prjean. When it was shown in Paris, the cinema gave Prjean star billing in its advertisements which led the two men to fall out. Clair commented: "I think that the star system is immoral and unjust for everyone, the artists and technicians, who work on a shared project".Patrick Prjean, 'Albert Prjean'. Paris: ditions Candeau, 1979. Quoted in Pierre Billard, 'Le Mystre Ren Clair'. Paris: Plon, 1998. p.165: "Je trouve que le systme de la vedette est immoral et injuste pour tous ceux, artistes et techniciens, qui travaillent une uvre commune". The future film director Edmond T. Grville appeared as an actor in the role of Albert's friend Louis.'Dictionnaire du cinma franais'; sous la direction de Jean-Loup Passek. Paris: Larousse, 1987. p. 182.
When the film first came out, it began with a five-minute sequence outlining the relationships of the main characters, before the spectacular travelling shot that descends from the rooftops. In later versions this introduction disappeared, perhaps reflecting Clair's second thoughts, and the symmetry of the film's beginning and end was allowed to stand out.Pierre Billard, 'Le Mystre Ren Clair'. Paris: Plon, 1998. p.166-167.
Reception
The film was first presented at the Moulin Rouge cinema in Paris from 2 May 1930, advertised as "100% talking and singing in French","Cent pour cent parlant et chantant franais": Jean-Pierre Jeancolas, '15 ans des annes trente'. Paris: Stock, 1983. p.73. but it did not at first have more than a modest success in its own country. In fact only about one quarter of the film could be described as 'talking', and this may have contributed to the disappointment with which it was greeted by many Parisians, eager to experience the new medium.'Dictionnaire du cinma populaire franais'; ed. Christian-Marc Bossno & Yannick Dehe. Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2004. p.720 Among the other criticisms which were made by French reviewers were the slowness of the narrative, the conventionality of the characters, and the systematic emphasis on the Paris of hoodlums and the underworld.E.g. mile Vuillermoz, in 'Le Temps', 24 mai 1930: "Le lenteur du rcit, le caractre arbitraire et conventionnel de la psychologie des personnages, l'usage constant du lieu commun et du poncif rendent plus insupportable encore ce parti pris de prsenter ternellement Paris comme le paradis des pierreuses et des apaches." ["The slowness of the narrative, the arbitrary and conventional style of the characters' psychology, the constant use of platitude and clich make even more unbearable this determination to show Paris always as the paradise of streetwalkers and gangsters."]
The director of the French branch of Tobis, Dr Henckel, had given Clair complete freedom to make the film, but after the Paris opening he told Clair that it was now clear what others thought of his methods, and that in future he would have to resign himself to giving the audience what they wanted - talking pictures that really talked.Georges Charensol & Roger Rgent, '50 ans de cinma, avec Ren Clair'. Paris: ditions de la Table Ronde, 1979. p.77: "Vous avez fait ce que vous avez voulez, et vous voyez ce que l'on en pense. Pour notre prochaine production il faudra vous rsigner offrir aux gens ce qu'ils veulent - du parlant vraiment parlant".
However a gala screening of the film, attended by Clair, was arranged in Berlin in August 1930, and there it was greeted as a triumph. Its run in German cinemas continued for several months. This success was repeated when the film appeared in New York and in London (both in December 1930), and it was also well received in Tokyo, Shanghai, Moscow and Buenos Aires.Georges Sadoul, 'Dictionnaire des films'. Paris: Seuil, 1983. p.294.
After its international acclaim, 'Sous les toits de Paris' was released again in France and this time it enjoyed a real success on its home ground. Early defenders of the film's warmth and charm, such as Jacques Brunius and Henri-Georges Clouzot,Jacques-Bernard Brunius, in 'La Revue du cinma', 1 juin 1930: "Voici le premier film 'humain' de Ren Clair. Je ne sais pas dire pourquoi humain. Il suffit d'aller le voir en toute bonne foi pour tre touch par des accents populaires trs simples et que pourtant on n'avait jamais restitues des spectateurs de cinma." ["Here is the first 'human' film of Ren Clair. I can't say why human. You only have to go to see it in good faith to be touched by its popular tone, very simple, yet something which has never been presented to filmgoers."]. Henri-Georges Clouzot, in 'L'Opinion', 11 octobre 1930: "Rarement l'auteur du 'Chapeau de paille d'Italie' et des 'Deux timides' a t mieux inspir que dans ce film lger, primesautier, profond sans en avoir l'air. Nulle part il n'a sacrifi l'image, ni l'motion qui s'en dgage." ["Rarely has the author of 'Un chapeau de paille d'Italie' and 'Les Deux timides' been better inspired than in this film that is light, spontaneous, profound without seeming to be. Nowhere has he sacrificed the image, nor the emotion which emerges from it."] found greater support, and the originality of the approach to sound was better appreciated. Ren Clair later recalled that the profits were such that the cost of the film, which was considerable, was covered by the returns from a single cinema.C.G. Crisp, 'The Classic French Cinema, 1930-1960'. Bloomington: Indiana U.P., 1993. p102.
During the following decade, the film's creation of a colourful working-class neighbourhood as the setting and source of a contemporary drama found an echo in such films as 'La Rue sans nom' (1934), 'La Belle quipe' (1936) and 'Le Crime de Monsieur Lange' (1936).Raymond Chirat, "Et la parole fut...", in 'L'Avant-Scne Cinma', n.281, fv. 1982. p.6.
Modern judgments of the film, while acknowledging its importance for its time, have tended to find it limited by its nostalgic portrayal of the "little people" of Paris and by its "studio artifice"; in the words of one critic, it tends to "smother cinematic interest with the sheer cleverness of the conception and the technical mastery of the execution".David Thomson, 'A New Biographical Dictionary of Film"; 4th ed. London: Little, Brown, 2002. p.160. There are hesitations in its continuity and pacing, and uncertainty in some of the performances as they try to adapt to the spoken word.Pierre Billard, 'Le Mystre Ren Clair'. Paris: Plon, 1998. p.165. On the other hand, questions which Clair was addressing about the appropriate use of sound in an essentially visual medium continue to be valid, and his film remains a witty exploration of some of the possible answers.Jean-Pierre Jeancolas, '15 ans des annes trente'. Paris: Stock, 1983. p.72.: Clair "s'tait interrog sur ce qu'on pouvait faire avec du son, en le traitant comme un matriau aussi mallable que la lumire ou le comdien. 'Sous les toits de Paris' est le premier fruit de ses rflexions". ["Clair had asked himself what could be done with sound, by treating it as a material as malleable as the light or the actor. 'Sous les toits de Paris' is the first fruit of his reflections."]
References
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