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Is Paris Burning | Year: 1966 Classification: Drama Actors/Actresses: - Jean-Paul Belmondo - Charles Boyer - Leslie Caron A passionate history lesson... The great director, Rene Clement, put his angst to rest with this empowered version of the French Resistance in 1944. Most icons of the French Cinema appeared, including the great Charles Boyer, as well as modern idols Delon, Trintignant, Belmondo and the radiant Leslie Caron. This film was originally made with subtitles all around, except for the few scenes with Americans Kirk Douglas (as Patton via Spartacus), Anthony Perkins, Robert Stack, Glenn Ford and a particularly powerful performance from Orson Welles as Swedish consul Nordling. I was also very impressed with the performance of Gert Frobe (Goldfinger), as the German general with a serious dilemma. The DVD doesn't offer any features, and the entire film is dubbed, which is a great reason to try to get your kids to watch this as a valid history lesson. (I learned more about history from movies than I ever did in a classroom...) It's interesting that the film was written by Americans Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola. Director Clement never failed to show impassioned moments, and all very well played. Terrific crowd scenes were mixed with archival footage. The war-torn Paris scenes were Oscar- nominated for Art Direction, and the seamless photography was also up for an Oscar. ("Virginia Woolf?" won in both categories, though these sets were stunning!). A great wide 2.35:1 Letterbox showed off some wonderful panoramas. Maurice Jarre's score was the icing on the cake! It is another feather in his epic cap (Lawrence, Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter). One line that moved me a bit was when the resistance fighter finally made it to Patton and said "The French people would never forgive the Allies for not coming to their aid." Well, we did. Why do they hate us so much? Vivid but Difficult to Follow - in Tradition of Longest Day I loved watching this movie. It deftly splices documentary and fictional scenes to create an emotional, uplifting story of the individuals involved in the liberation of Paris (the greater emphasis is on the Parisian resistance). It is very much in the tradition of The Longest Day - many stars in cameos, a hundred short stories of bravery and resistance - among the French, Americans and Germans; it's often humorous. The music is superb (I have it going through my head now - 2 years after renting the movie). It's also fun to see virtually all the French male stars of the 1950s and 1960s in one movie - Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, Jean Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, Alain Delon - the French casting for the movie pulled out all the stops. The wonderful emotional impact aside, the movie is actually difficult to follow. The primary reason is that the filmmakers apparently didn't want to offend anyone (except Nazis) so were not explicit on the Communist/Gaullist rivalry that is at the heart of the book (bottom line - the Gaullists elbowed out the Communists). Instead, the movie viewer watches a large resistance group that seems to fissure, but has no idea why, sees jealousies and rivalries without explanation. You'll see some French resistance members upset that others have captured the Police Headquarters, but have no idea why. The book gives you a sense of DeGaulle's understanding of the French, amounting to genius (and of why any American or Englishman in command would have found him outrageous to deal with). So, I'd suggest a truly CAREFUL read of the short, wonderful and fascinating book on which the movie is based - THEN watch the movie, which is glorious in its emotional impact. A Very Very Enjoyable Film "Is Paris Burning?" (In France: "Paris brûle-t-il?") (1966) tells the story of the liberation of Paris at the end of World War II, as related by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins in their book of the same title. This book was extremely popular, especially in France, and to date has sold more than 20 million copies in more than a dozen languages. Apart from some dramatic liberties, the movie follows the book closely, and the documentary style of the book is taken over by the film. As a result, the film is episodic in nature without a single hero dominating the story. In that respect, and also because of its large mega-star cast, it is reminiscent of "The Longest Day," about the D-Day invasion, which preceded the events in this film by two-and-a-half months. This reviewer finds "Is Paris Burning?" the more interesting film. The title of the book and the film comes from Hitler's order that Paris be defended to the end and that the city be completely demolished before it can be recaptured by the Allies. While this threat certainly pervades the film, it is the story of the Liberation itself, mostly by the French Resistance, which is the dominant story. The film has a multi-national cast, with American actors playing Americans, French actors play Frenchmen, and German actors playing Germans. Unfortunately, the American producers of the film insisted on larger-than-life American stars for the American roles, which detracts slightly from the film. The French and German stars, who have always been much more low-key than their American counterparts, do not present as great a distraction for the audience. Fortunately, with the exception of Orson Welles, who is one of the few actors with a persistant role in the film and whose acting is wonderfully understated, the American movie stars make only cameo appearances. The French actors too appear for the most part in only a single episode and then disappear for the rest of the film, but, unlike the American stars, their scenes are much longer. This is essentially a French movie, with a French director (René Clément). It is probably much the better for it. What is truly unfortunate is that the French and English soundtracks on the DVD are monotonously monolingual with non-English or non-French speakers overdubbed according to the language of the soundtrack. I remember having seen this film in a trilingual version with subtitles for the French and German dialogue. In many cases, the English dubbing on the DVD was done by the original actors. Leslie Caron's and Simone Signoret's voices, for example, are unmistakable. English dubbing was not a possibility for Gert Froebe (as General von Chotlitz, the German commander of Paris), whose command of English was only slightly better than that of my neighbor's cocker spaniel. When the original foreign actors were not fluent in English, the English dubbing was done sometimes by Americans and Britons, so that many French and Germans sound inauthenti Buy Is Paris Burning at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Is Paris Burning Search with the Priority Search Engine on Is Paris Burning This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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