dir. Eric Rohmer
France, 2002
See also: Claire’s knee, 1970
IMDB 6.8
Viewed at Carleton Cinemas July/Aug 2002, on a date, finally, with Stephanie Swatkow, first date after meeting at Jamie’s party. Drinks first at the Courtyard hotel and later on a lovely patio on Yonge St. Kissed by the trees outside subway station further north, sent her home by taxi.
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A period film about the French revolution. Over 2 hours, subtitles. Effective use of computer generated graphics in a way to make them tasteful and unrecognizable. Colored etchings from the time period are shown on screen and then begin to move, starting the scene. Long-distance “mise-en-scene” is established with these moving plates, interspersed between the regular scenes and dialogue.
As Stephanie said, “I’ve never seen the French revolution from the side of the aristocracy.”
And thank goodness that is the approach (i.e. no bleeding hearts). A young woman is being hidden by her friend from the revolutionists, who search the house daily and run madcap through the streets, in a terror. Hiding between mattresses, and a plot I cannot remember. Like the other Rohmer film I saw, too much relies on dialogue, and it is slow (and very long), but very good. Stephanie liked it which was impressive, with the subtitles, small theater and dry content.
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Having written all of the above a while ago, I’d like to say a little more about the film. First of all, it’s 2002. It could be from 1971. Or 1959. Except that it attempted, and succeeded marvously at, an integration of computer CGI graphics into a beautifully shot film – into a period historical film, no less. More wonderful, he did so by having ink and watercolor drawings open the scenes, and then ahving them ‘come to life’ and turn into moving, live actiors, in a quick transition. This means that the CGI was being used to fuse the ’scene-set-up’ – the mise-en-scene – with the regular flow of the film. We’re so used to seeing how CGI is over-extended, so that the ability to have an entirely synthetic (and impossible) camera angles ends up overwhelming any gain from the CGI. In addition, it makes the CGI so blindingly synthetic that it ruins continuity. So continuity with regular film is lost, and mise-en-scene is pretty much abolished through the use of absurd close-ups, impossible camera angles, and the general mayham of the ‘camera without a cameraman’.
But Rohmer – uses the CGI to bridge the ’scene set’ (the watercolour) to the flow of action. Therefore the CGI becomes the enabler of mise-en-scene. He’s not only used CGI well, and made it look nice, but also made it into the very device which enables that valuable artistic element which – apparently – CGI has been destroying for all these years. It turns out it was not the CGI, but the directors, or the lack thereof. One need only glance at Lucas’ digital additions to Star Wars to see how CGI can be used to utterly demolish established camera work procedured (particularly in the cantina band sequence). Then one can luxuriate back in the Rohmer film, marvel again that it was filmed in 2002, and go home happy.
****
BBC says “distilled from Grace Elliott’s autobiographical account ‘Ma Vie Sous La Révolution’.”
