Screenwriter Marcel Duhamel (1900–77) and filmmaker Pierre Prévert (1906–88), who both would play an important part in French Poetic Realism during the 1930s, collaborated in the late 1920s on the production of Paris Express or Souvenirs of Paris. This travelogue takes the viewer on a journey starting at the Champs-Élysées and its well-to-do neighborhoods. Then the filmmakers take us to Les Halles and take a promenade on the fortifications on the Northern edge of the city between Montmartre and Clichy, followed by a stroll on the Grands Boulevards. The film continues with a visit to the Luna Park (near Porte Maillot), some views of the Seine and the XIIIe arrondissement. Subsequently, the film explores the canals (with shots similar to the ones in André Sauvage’s 1928 Études sur Paris), Place Maubert, Montparnasse, and some public gardens, concluding with some shots taken from the terrace of a building.
Tilted angles and camera movements evoke the hectic rhythms of the modern city, which is first and foremost explored from the viewpoint of the flâneur. Travelling shots accompany the metropolitan strollers, emphasizing their swiftness, speed, and spontaneity. Their movements are sometimes halted in front of a shop window or at a café terrace. This interest in flânerie reflects the filmmakers’ links to Surrealism, a connection that also helps to explain a number of other elements in the film, including the presence of Fantômas and Kiki de Montparnasse, the theme of the fortuitous encounter with the Woman, or the shots of the suicide bridge at Buttes-Chaumont.
Steven Jacobs
further reading
Juan, Myriam, “Le cinéma documentaire dans la rue parisienne,” Sociétés & Représentations 17, 1 (2004): 291–314.
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