Amelie
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Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain), or Amélie, its English title, is a quirky French romantic comedy directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. It was written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant. The film is a whimsical and somewhat idealised depiction of contemporary Parisian life, set in touristy areas of Montmartre.
The film was released in France, Belgium, and French-speaking western Switzerland in April 2001, with subsequent screenings at various film festivals followed by releases around the world.
Amélie won best film at the European Movie Awards; it won four César Awards (including Best Film and Best Director), two BAFTA Awards (including Best Original Screenplay), and was nominated for five Academy Awards. It received other awards and recognitions.
Cast and crew
- Audrey Tautou - Amélie Poulain
- Mathieu Kassovitz - Nino Quincampoix
- Serge Merlin - Raymond Dufayel
- Rufus - Raphaël Poulain, Amélie's father
- Yolande Moreau - Madeleine Wallace/Wells, the concierge
- Arthus de Penguern - Hipolito, the writer
- Urbain Cancelier - Collignon, the grocer
- Jamel Debbouze - Lucien
- Dominique Pinon - Joseph
- Isabelle Nanty - Georgette
- Maurice Benichou - Bretodeau
Synopsis
Amélie is the story of the titular protagonist, Amélie Poulain, a girl who grows up isolated from other children by her taciturn father, a doctor, due to his mistaken belief that she suffers from a heart condition (a mistake in fact resulting from the increase in her heartbeat caused by the rare thrill of physical contact by her father, who only ever touched her during medical check-ups). Her mother (who is as equally neurotic as her father) dies when she is young, victim of a freak accident involving a suicide from a Quebecan who threw herself off the top of Notre Dame Cathedral and landed on Amélie's mother, causing her father to withdraw even further (and devote his life to building a rather eccentric shrine to his late wife). Left to amuse herself, Amélie develops an unusually active imagination.
When she grows up, Amélie becomes a waitress in a small Montmartre café, The Two Windmills, run by a former circus performer and staffed / frequented by a gang of eccentrics. By age 22, life for Amélie is simple; having spurned romantic relationships following a few failed efforts, she has devoted herself to simple pleasures, such as cracking crème brûlées with a teaspoon, going for walks in the Paris sunshine, skipping stones across St. Martin's Canal, trying to guess how many people in the world are having an orgasm at one moment ("Fifteen!", as she tells the camera), and letting her imagination roam free.
Her life changes on the same day that Princess Diana dies. Following a series of circumstances resulting from her shock at the news, behind a loose bathroom tile she finds an old metal box of childhood memorabilia hidden by a boy who lived in her apartment decades past. Fascinated by the find, she resolves to track down the now-grownup man who put it there and return it to him, making a deal with herself in the process; if she finds him and it makes him glad, she will devote her life to goodness. If not, too bad.
After numerous wrong-guesses and a bit of detective work (assisted by the reclusive Raymond Dufayel, a painter known as 'the Glass Man' because of his brittle bone condition), she tracks the former occupant down, and places the box in a phone booth, ringing the number as he passes to lure him there. Upon opening the box, the man has an epiphany as long-forgotten childhood memories come flooding back. She trails him to a nearby bar and observes him but does not reveal herself. On seeing the positive effect she had on him, she resolves from that moment on to do good in the life of other people. This results in Amélie becoming a something of a secret matchmaker and guardian angel, as she persuades her father to follow his dream of touring the world (with help from his garden gnome and an air-hostess friend), her co-workers and friends (two of whom she sets up), the concierge of her building, and Lucien, the boy who works for the bullying owner of the neighborhood vegetable stand (whom Amélie delights in taking vengeance upon).
But while she is looking after others, no one is looking after Amélie. In helping other people achieve happiness, she is forced to examine her own lonely life - made ever more apparent and painful by her relationship with Nino Quincampoix, a quirky young man who collects the discarded photographs of strangers from passport photo booths, whom she has fallen in love with. Although she intrigues him through her various roundabout methods of attraction (including something like a treasure hunt for one of his forgotten photo albums), she is painfully shy and incapable of actually approaching him. It will take Raymond's friendship to teach her to pursue her own happiness whilst still ensuring that of her friends and neighbours.
Criticism
The film was a critical and commercial success, but it was attacked by critics such as Serge Kaganski of les Inrockuptibles for its depiction of a largely unrealistic and picturesque vision of contemporary French society, a postcard universe of a bygone France with few people from ethnic minorities — some kind of latent lepénisme. http://www.chez.com/dubreucq/amelie/presse/presse.html#Lib%E93 Paris is an ethnically diverse city, and there is next to Montmartre an area (Barbès-Rochechouart) that includes many black residents, few of whom are visible in the film. If the director was trying to create an idyllic vision of a perfect Paris, the critics argued, he seemed to think that it was necessary to remove nearly all black people from the scene in order to do so. It is interesting to note that the only time blacks do make an appearance in the film is during a scene in which a gang of three are walking behind Amélie through the train station, seemingly to antagonise her.
Others, such as David Martin-Castelnau and Guillaume Bigot, contended that such criticism was unwarranted and was rather the sign of a sick contempt of some of the "elite" for the common people represented in the movie. http://www.chez.com/dubreucq/amelie/presse/presse.html#Lib%E92 Jean-Pierre Jeunet responded to the criticisms by pointing out that Jamel Debbouze, who plays Lucien, is of North African origin.
One may also point out that, given the current gentrification of the Montmartre area, a young waitress like Amélie probably does not have the financial means to live close to her work. The film does depict an improbable universe where Amélie lives close to her work (without the need for lengthy métro or other transportation) and has plenty of free time outside her job.
Awards
The film was a critical and box office success, gaining wide play internationally as well. It was nominated for five Academy Awards:
- Best Art Direction, Aline Bonetto (art director), Marie-Laure Valla (set decorator)
- Best Cinematography, Bruno Delbonnel
- Best Foreign Language Film, France
- Best Original Screenplay, Guillaume Laurant, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
- Best Sound, Vincent Arnardi, Guillaume Leriche, Jean Umansky
It also won the People's Choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Crystal Globe Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
In 2002, in France, it won the César Award for:
- Best Film
- Best Director
- Best Music
- Best Art Direction
It has a prominent place on IMDB's list of top 250 films hovering around the positions of 26-28
Clips used in the film
- A TV performance by the manic guitar-playing gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe;
- An excerpt of the documentary Born for Hard Luck, by Tom Davenporthttp://www.folkstreams.net/film,1
- An excerpt of the 1998 documentary Seventeen Seconds to Sophie by Bill Cotehttp://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/atom_147http://www.bcvideo.com/fmom20.html (entire 56-second film is downloadable)
- Three clips from François Truffaut's French New Wave film Jules et Jim:
- * Jules, Jim and Catherine running across an overpass.
- * A "kissing scene" during which a bug, apparently unnoticed by the fillmmakers, crawls across the screen behind the two lovers and appears to enter the woman's mouth. This clip is specifically discussed by the narrator of Amélie, and during the clip a circle is superimposed around the bug to highlight its travel.
- * A brief excerpt of Catherine singing her song, Le Tourbillon.
- The painting which Dufayel is copying is Luncheon of the Boating Party (Le Déjeuner des canotiers) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
- Images of animal cloud-shapes from the book "La tête dans les nuages" ("The Head in the Clouds") by Marc Solal and François David, Éditions Motus (1998). (see Trivia section below).
Other trivia
- In English-speaking countries, the film was first released as Amélie from Montmartre.
- The film made use of computer-generated imagery and a digital intermediatehttp://www.variety.com/ac2005_article/VR1117915901?nav=lenser&categoryid=1804.
- Jeunet originally wrote the role of Amélie for the British actress Emily Watsonhttp://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/emily%20watson%20turned%20down%20amelie; in the original draft, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Watson's French was not strong, and when she became unavailable to shoot the film, owing to a conflict with the filming of Gosford Park, Jeunet rewrote the screenplay for a French actress. Audrey Tautou was the first actress he auditioned #redirect [[Template:Fact]].
- Amélie was not screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Jeunet decided not to release it after the cold reception of his previous film, The City of Lost Childrenhttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900EFDA1E39F937A35755C0A963958260. The film selector, Gilles Jacob described the film as "uninteresting"http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22708, although the version Jacob had seen was an early version without music. The absence of Amélie in the French festival caused something of a controversy because of the warm welcome by the French media and audience in contrast with the reaction of the selector.
- In one scene, Amélie is visiting the former concierge of the building in which she lives, and she passes a new model Volkswagen Beetle in the street. This car was not in production at the time the film is set. Jeunet acknowledges this in the director's commentary, saying that he wanted to keep the car anyway to reflect the personality of Amélie.
- In the English subtitled version the concierge, Madeleine Wallace is renamed Madeleine Wells. In the original French, she mentions that she is destined to cry because of her surname Wallace, comparing it to Wallace fountains of Paris. The English version does the same, comparing Wells to water wells.
- One of the most memorable scenes from Amelie was her visions as a child of animal shapes forming in the clouds. This visual imagery was drawn directly from the best-selling children's book "La tête dans les nuages" ("The Head in the Clouds") by Marc Solal and François David, Éditions Motus (1998). This imagery forms the backdrop of the Éditions Motus website. http://www.editions-motus.com/ The site is an extension of the Amélie experience with an animated backdrop of the clouds. If you click on one of Amelie's clouds it opens a window on a book. To hear readings from "La tête dans les nuages" you should visit the section of the website entitled Inclassables ("unclassified"), The teddy bear cloud and the heart-shaped cloud both open windows to pages from the book which inspired the scenes of Amelie's childhood.
- A still from Amélie has become part of an internet hoax [link].
- The film features the artwork of Michael Sowa.
See also
References
External links
- [Reviews of Amélie] on Metacritic
- [Amélie Poulain Society], a University of Florida society inspired by the film
- [Jean Pierre Jeunet Discusses the Film]
- [Éditions Motus, publisher of "La tête dans les nuages"]
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