Paris qui there
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Paris qui there (Paris sleeps) |
| Original title | Paris qui there |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1925 |
| length | 35 minutes or 61 minutes in a later version |
| Rod | |
| Director | René Clair |
| script | René Clair |
| production | Henri Diamant-Berger |
| music | Jean Wiener |
| camera |
Maurice Desfassiaux , Paul Guichard |
| cut | René Clair |
| occupation | |
| |
Paris qui there (Eng .: "Paris sleeps") is a French silent film by René Clair from 1925.
action
A young man named Albert works and lives as a guard on the Eiffel Tower . When he went to the observation deck one morning and lit a cigarette, he realized that it was already 10 o'clock. However, the streets of Paris are empty. He finally gets dressed and walks down the steps of the Eiffel Tower in amazement. Occasionally he meets a few people who all seem to be asleep. On the banks of the Seine he sees a man standing and he thinks the man wants to jump into the river and kill himself. Albert tries to stop him, but notices that the man is frozen in place. Albert finds a suicide note in the man's jacket pocket, from which it emerges that the man can no longer bear the hectic pace of modern times. Before Albert goes on, he puts a pack of cigarettes in the man's hand.
On the way, Albert meets a motionless man in a car. He gets behind the wheel, drives off and a little later meets four men and a woman named Hesta who, like him, are conscious and also wonder about the sleeping Paris. They tell him that they arrived on a plane from Marseille that morning . Already at the airport everyone was in a deep sleep. You are now wondering why, unlike everyone else, they are conscious. Since the phenomenon must have started at 3:25 a.m., they conclude that they were spared because they were all in the air at that time - the four men and Hesta on the plane and Albert on the Eiffel Tower.
One of the men, a wealthy trader, wants to meet a woman he wants to marry. When he knocks on her door, she doesn't open it. Another man can finally open the door and they find the woman unconscious with a strange man. Her fiancé gets angry, so the others take him out of the house. They spend the following night on the Eiffel Tower. The next morning they go to a restaurant for breakfast. They later play cards on the Eiffel Tower. However, they soon start to get bored. The men finally discover that Hesta is the only woman around them who has not frozen. They begin to court their attention and begin to fight out of jealousy. A woman's voice suddenly speaks to them over the radio, asking them to come to number 2 rue Croissy. Albert and the others set off immediately.
When they arrive at said address, they open a window, whereupon a young woman appears. Your uncle is a scientist and has discovered a new type of radiation that brings the world to a standstill, but only reaches a certain level. Together they go into the house and attack the scientist. He admits that he hadn't thought of waking people up from their artificial sleep. He spent several hours trying to come up with the right formula. At 3:25 a.m. he activated the lever of his radiation machine, whereupon everyone woke up again. The scientist then sends the uninvited guests out of his house. His niece should also go. Albert joins them. When they realize that they urgently need money, they go back and use the jet machine to turn Paris into a sleeping city again, and then steal money from the pockets of passers-by. However, as the scientist throws the lever on the machine one more time, Albert and his companion are arrested and taken to a police station. There they try to explain the events of the last few days to the officials. You are eventually led to a doctor to whom Hesta and her four companions have already told the same story. They are eventually released together. While Hesta and the four men are leaving, Albert and the scientist's niece go to the Eiffel Tower. You enjoy the view and Albert kisses the hand of his companion.
background
Director René Clair shot the science fiction film as early as 1923 on original locations in Paris, where the Eiffel Tower in particular was a frequent location for the film. Paris qui there was finally premiered in France on February 6, 1925 . Clair, however, was not satisfied with his first cut, which is why other cut versions were later also in circulation. The Cinémathèque française had the film restored in 2000, resulting in a version with a running time of 61 minutes.
Reviews
Contemporary critics saw the film primarily as a study of movement. According to the author and film critic René Bizet, René Clair “knew how to draw amazing effects from this movement study”. The result was "comical, dramatic surprise effects" that would make cinema what it was: "Everything is a picture, and nothing but a picture, without useless intellectuality."
In retrospect, Kage Baker described the film as a “surrealistic little confectionary” whose “slapstick icing covers the disturbing interior”. It is a "remarkable achievement by a still young director".
Web links
- The Crazy Ray in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b cf. karlsruher-stummfilmtage.de ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ “Yet Paris Qui Dort is […] a surreal little confection, slapstick frosting over a disturbing center. It's a remarkable maiden effort for a young filmmaker. " Compare Paris qui there . In: Kage Baker, Kathleen Bartholomew (Eds.): Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Trainwrecks of the Silent Screen . Tachyon Publications, San Francisco 2011.