Rendezvous With Lelouch
Claude Lelouch’s From One Film To Another opens with what
could be called a Godard shot: an extraordinary nine-minute-long take hurtling
through the streets of twilight Paris at 6 a.m. It was filmed in 1976 by
Lelouch himself, driving at impatient speed in his own car with a camera
mounted on its hood. It’s a real-time, subjective POV thrill ride like that
famous roller coaster in This Is Cinerama.
It demonstrates and extends a basic movie stunt because, well, just because Lelouch
can.
From One Film To Another (showing March 5 & 6 as part of Film Society and Unifrance’s
Rendez-Vous With French Cinema) was made by Lelouch to celebrate his 50th year
in making films. His longevity has occurred without the kind of prestige Godard
commands. In fact, in the film, Lelouch admits, “I’ll always be the
anti-Godard, anti-Truffaut,” as if boasting of his exclusion from the
artsy-intellectual Nouvelle Vague clique. But many of the delightful (and
sometimes not) retro clips that From One
Film to Another picks from his plainly commercial filmography reveal a
distinguished career that always paralleled Godard’s productivity and
commitment—differently, but with no need for false modesty.
Lelouch clearly
knows his worth—as when recalling his acclaim “from the specialists” (the
Cannes Palme d’Or in 1966) and “from the public” (setting box-office records in
France with 2001’s Bolero), wishing
all filmmakers could know both flattering extremes. His opening one-take gambit
traversing Paris in From One Film to
Another deliberately challenges Godard’s historic audacity. Specifically,
it defies Godard’s Band of Outsiders
stunt where Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy and Claude Brasseur ran through the
Louvre in one minute.
That heady moment
when Lelouch and Godard sent oscillating currents from different poles of
French cinema has passed, which is why From
One Film To Another is such a welcome highlight of this year’s Rendez-Vous
With French Cinema series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. With this
film’s personal daring and thoroughness, Lelouch goes on the record. He
attempts to establish his own artistic reputation in lieu of sycophantic
journalist-biographers who write books about popularly esteemed filmmakers. If
you aren’t already familiar with Lelouch, this one-film retrospective should
spark new interest.
Its premiere (along
with Lelouch’s newest feature Ces
Amours-l) confirms and legitimizes the Rendez-Vous With French Cinema
series’ annual survey of new French movies. It is Lelouch’s brand of romantic
storytelling (“like airport novels,” is his own description, as in his 2007
film Roman de Gare) that speaks for
the primary international appeal of French movies.
Starting with the
1966 A Man and a Woman (starring Anouk
Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant)—and Lelouch’s biggest international hit—sex,
but especially romance, confirmed the fact of foreign film appeal. Over the
years, Lelouch’s unapologetic romanticism brought chic to popular emotions; A Man and a Woman’s atmospheric
windshield canoodling and 360-degree pans around a couple’s embrace used 1960s
photography to idealize romance. He created cinematic equivalents to the same
high style and sophistication accepted in couture design and fragrance in parfum.
It is only in recent years—with the breakdown of film culture into elitism—that
this global appeal has been denied or perverted. (Case in point: If not for
Lelouch’s sexy example, there would be no established audience for Wong
Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love and 2046). Lincoln Center’s rendezvous with
Lelouch this year helps to restore that fundamental reason for foreign language
filmgoing.
Lelouch is worth
knowing for his flair and casual depth. Though not one of the Nouvelle Vague
innovators, he’s one of the last remaining adept-masters; the kind of glib,
inventive virtuoso that Steven Soderbergh and Danny Boyle try to be (they too
flash style and conceit, but without Lelouch’s intelligence). From one film to
another, Lelouch has earned respect for being one of a kind.
Directed by Claude Lelouch
Walter Reade Theater March 5, 3:30
p.m.; IFC Center March 6, 11 a.m.
Runtime: 104 min.