Alain Corneau and noir.

To repeat myself in a few different venues: I saw Alain Corneau speak last night; he presented Police Python 357 starring the reasonably yummy and yet oh-so-French Yves Montand. And he said something (well, quite a few things) that interested me. Someone asked him how he felt watching his film on a large screen for the first time in x amount of years. His answer? "I wasn't there" (i.e., he didn't watch it with us). The reason? He states he rarely watches his films in theaters, 1) because he might look at this old film and say "My god, that was a good film, I've become much worse" or 2) he would watch it and wonder how he could have made something so terrible. These are his fears, and so he won't watch them.

As an aside, apparently Simone Signoret was aggravated by all the make-up and furs, and wanted to look natural, whilst he needed someone who looked the part of a bourgeois woman with a summer home and three cars. She was also quite perturbed by the way her character commits suicide in the film, and long negotiations between director and actress began. Granted, after the screening, a discussion ensued regarding Corneau's use of the "fantastique"...where men throw acid on their faces to avoid recognition; where a woman who's ill and can hardly leave her bed somehow manages to wrangle her legs enough to desperately drive to someone's house and beg them to kill her. Where the main character, in the end, blasts through a scene any modern-day action film director would be proud of.

Apparently he wrote the script in a rather feverish five days. The film was shot in 8 weeks with a "typical crew" of about 40 people. The amazing soundtrack is by Georges Delerue, and quite surprising for the time it was made; as Corneau says, it is full of discord and chorus.

Corneau was asked why he is so interested in loss of identity as a theme, and he said that noir isn't noir without that loss. You shouldn't be able to pinpoint who is good, or bad. If you can, it isn't a noir film.

Boy, I've been paraphrasing the hell out of poor Monsieur Corneau. Anyways...! Here is the LACMA link if anyone is interested in catching the rest of the French Crime Wave shows; and hey, give me a call if you're going! ^^



May 29 7:30 PM Série Noire
May 29 9:30 PM The Clockmaker
May 30 7:30 PM Police Python 357
June 5 7:30 PM Bob le flambeur
June 5 9:20 PM Le Doulos
June 6 7:30 PM Touchez pas au Grisbi
June 6 9:10 PM Rififi
June 12 7:30 PM Le cercle rouge
June 13 7:30 PM Purple Noon
June 13 9:35 PM Elevator to the Gallows
June 19 7:30 PM Classe tous risques
June 19 9:20 PM Garde à vue
June 20 7:30 PM Coup de torchon
June 20 9:45 PM Shoot the Piano Player