THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED

France, 2005, 105 minutes. Colour.
Romain Duris, Niels Arestrup, Gilles Cohen, Jonathan Zaccai, Linh Dan Pham, Aure Atika, Emmanuelle Devos, Anton Yakovlev, Melanie Laurent.
Directed by Jacques Audiard.

An impressive drama. Jacques Audiard has made only a few films but they have been striking (A Self- Made Hero, Read My Lips, Un Prophete). He has an intense visual style with lighting, close-ups and editing pace. This is to his advantage here as he draws a portrait of a complex young man.

Audiard sets the tone with a pre-credits discussion about father-son relationships, especially how antagonism can change to love, even dependence, when a strong father has to be cared for in every detail by his son. This conversation becomes more relevant as we see Tom, the protagonist, and his relationship with his own father. Both are in ‘real estate’, Tom and his cronies doing deals by ousting tenants and, especially, African squatters, from derelict sites that they want to buy and sell. His father is virtually a loan shark who wants his son to act as a tough collector (which he brutally does).

Tom’s dead mother, however, was a concert pianist and Tom has inherited some of her talent. Could he break through the thug side of his life to live for music and beauty? He tries, with the help of a recently arrived pianist from China. She speaks no French, but she manages to train him and develop his skills and his emotions. This cuts little ice with his colleagues. And, because, Tom is so self-absorbed, he elicits little sympathy from them. The climax-crunch for Tom is whether he is murderously vengeful for an attack on his father or whether he can be another kind of person.

Romain Duris (Exils, Arsene Lupin) gives a performance that brings to vivid life the complexities and contradictions of Tom’s character. Niels Arestrup is his father.

Remake usually means an American version of a European or Asian film. This time, Audiard has re-made an American film that influenced him when he was young, James Toback’s Fingers (1977) with Harvey Keitel as Tom and Michael V. Gazzo as his father. Toback’s film immersed us in a violent, even sleazy New York world, with a stoned Tom having to make his decisions. Audiard has broadened the screenplay, eliminated several of the sleazy characters but has re-produced some of the scenes exactly, especially Tom’s piano audition and his first and his final confrontation with the Russian mobster in a stairwell – but has altered the plot and character decision. With Toback we first see Tom playing the piano and are shocked when he turns out to be a thug. Here we see Tom’s brutality first and then are surprised to find he has a soul with his music.

This is an intelligent and challenging drama.

1. The reputation of the film? Praise for the film?

2. A remake of the American film, Fingers? The adaptation of the plot? The characters? Transferring to France? Parallel issues?

3. The themes of good and evil, the contrast between petty thuggery and the possibilities for musical greatness? Free choice? Thomas and his outlook on life, his behaviour, his choices?

4. The opening with the conversation about father and son, caring for the father? Thomas and his own father, his father’s influence, working for his father, the pressures, the background of strongarm tactics? Violence? His father, his age, wanting to marry again, the meals with his father, the jobs for his father, his comment about Chris and his father’s marriage? His antagonism towards Chris? His doing the job for his father and the violent response?

5. Paris, the setting, apartments, the streets, the building sites, restaurants, banks and finance? The contrast with the world of music and concerts?

6. The role of music, Thomas and his listening to electro music, his father’s reaction? His love for classical music, the training by his mother, his mother as a pianist? His auditions? His lessons? His achievement?

7. Thomas and his friends, sharing their life, covering for Fabrice and his deceiving his wife? The clash with the human rights campaigner, the fights, bashing?

8. Thomas in himself, his age, his career, his choices, his skills as a thug? His mother’s and father’s relationship, the effect on him? His mother’s death? Her music, her playing the piano, her concerts? Going to the concert, the audition? The tutor? The discussions at the audition, the interrogation, the criticisms of his attitude? Listening to the tapes of his mother and her lessons? The Asian student and his recommendation? Going to see Miao Lin?

9. The lessons, his mother’s tapes, his frustration in playing, the Chinese woman and her not speaking French, the strong character, language, tensions, training him?

10. His father’s attitude towards his music, not supporting it, memories of his wife?

11. The Russian, the international gangsters? Money deals? Thuggery? The Russian’s girlfriend, the relationship with Thomas?

12. Fabrice and his wife, her criticisms of Thomas, going out with him, his advances, the relationship?

13. The musical background, the audition, his going to confront the Russian, the fight and his injuries?

14. Thomas’s future – the possibility of changing? Under the domination of his father? Or making some achievement in music?