LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS

France, 1945, 181 minutes, Black and white.
Arletty, Jean Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur.
Directed by Marcel Carne.

Les Enfants du Paradis is considered one of the great classics of world cinema. It was nominated for an Oscar in 1947 for its screenplay by Jacques Prevert.

The film is a tragedy in two parts. It focuses on a character who is a theatre mime, Baptiste, and his attraction to a woman of the city, Garance. However, Garance is courted by three men, an actor, a thief and a count. There is also another central character, Natalie, an actress who is in love with Baptiste.

The story is complicated when Garance is accused of stealing. She then enters the protection of the count and again is implicated in crimes. Both Garance and Baptiste marry but the marriages have little love in them. As the years pass, each of the characters begins to create a new life. When Garance and Baptiste meet again, Natalie tries to intervene and the thief murders the count. The two are able to meet – but the build-up is to a disastrous ending and Baptiste goes through the crowds pursuing Garance.

The film was written and directed by the team of Marcel Carne and Jacques Prevert. They worked together in the 1930s for a series of classic films including Quai des Brumes, Hotel du Nord and Le Jour Se Leve. They continued to make films during World War Two culminating in Les Enfants du Paradis. They made the film Les Portes de la Nuit in 1946, a very ambitious film, which failed at the box office and was not well received critically. Each went his own way after this.

The film has a strong French cast especially with classic actress Arletty and Jean- Louis Barrault as Garance and Baptiste.

1. The reputation of the film as a classic? Impact in its time? Over the decades? The writer-director and his place in the pre-war French industry? His working in the atmosphere of World War Two? His presenting a microcosm - the past to be interpreted in the present? The French atmosphere, history, feeling?

2. The setting of the film: the 1840s, the introduction and the explanation of the Paris of Dumas and Hugo? Romantic drama? The theatre? Melodrama and mime? Paris and the streets? Manners, morals, codes? The rhetoric, postures, romantic philosophising, cynicism of the Paris of the 19th. century? Its relevance to 20th century Paris, France, the world?

3. The choice of the world of the theatre and its role as a symbol for the real world? All the world's a stage? Theatre and entertainment, rapport with the audience, the verve of exhibitionism, the range of display, movement, colour, song, dance, drama? Theatrical presence and interaction? The importance of the ordinary crowds and their place in the 'Gods'? The title with actors as the children of the gods? The comparison with the audience closer and taking the entertainment more seriously? The importance of the curtain at the beginning and end of the film? The references to Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet. Othello? Playing and representation of real life? The plays in the film as plays within plays? Life dreams? Mimes and their poetry in movement signifying life and dream? Fun, art, commercialism? The realism of the film and the audience being distanced and asked to reflect?

4. The romanticism of the period: the dreams and ideals and ambitions of the main characters? The men and their goals,, their putting women on pedestals? Their goals as larger than life? Strengths and heroisms, weaknesses and foibles? The relationship between the head and the heart? Passion. fate, inner drive,. love., hate, hurt? Winning and losing? The Boulevard as the street of all times?

5. Technical credits: black and white photography.. elaborate sets especially of the streets and the theatres. of the mansions? The countryside? Light and shadow. day and night, sun and moon, stars. theatrical lights? The score and its spirit?

6. The theatrical structure of the film: the two acts? The first hour devoted to a day in the life of the characters? The half-hour of the next sequence three weeks later? The short interlude of the next day before interval? The almost hour-and-a-half of the days in the second act? The screenplay showing the street at beg-inning and end? The characters glimpsed at the beginning, the beginnings of their interaction and interweaving? The plausibility of the plot and its contrivance and stylised nature? The characters and their control and freedom, impulsiveness? The resumption of the action six years later and themes of fate and control and the open-endedness of the film?

7. The joyful opening of the film: the theatre, the street, the crowds, the variety of acts in the street, Garance and the mirror and the bath, the dancing, the strong man, the funambles and the clowns, the dancing girls, the acts inside with the mime, the fights, the lion? Baptiste as the retarded mime? His watching the people and their watching him? His mime of the robbery of the watch and its effect on the police, on the people? The importance of especially by Jean Louis Barrault - the story of the statue and its coming to life? Pierrot wanting to hang himself - and the comic uses of the rope. e.g. skipping and hanging out the laundry? The ball and the dramatised killing of Old Jericho? The finale with the crowds of Pierrots in the street? Frederic and his miming of the lion, the troubadour, Othello? The comparisons with the 'legitimate' theatre, the melodrama - cheer the hero, hiss the villain and the send-up of plays? The culmination of the drama of Othello? Audience participation, admiration, spurning,, critical etc.?

8. The title and its reference to the theatre and the ordinary audience? The irony of the relationship to heaven and the gods? Themes of fate? The indication that the actors themselves are performing for the gods - emotions, passions? The main characters as representing ideas and types and the fateful interplay of these?

9. The character of Frederic: his ambition, his wanting his name in prominence, his encounter with Garance and the charm and the phrases, his following the other girl? His entering the theatre, his chance to act the lion? Drinking with Baptiste and sharing views, finding a room, his reading Othello? The chance new encounter with Garance and his enticing her to his room? His participation in the mime - and its dramatising what was happening in reality with Garance and Baptiste? His wanting to talk? His living with Garance, his incessant chattering and joking - and her desire for silence? Her leaving him without explanation? The transition of the years - his success in the theatre, the entourage of girls and his bringing them to his dressing room, keeping the director and the authors waiting, his sending up the rehearsal, his skill at farce? The success of the play and his bringing the authors on stage? His skitting around in the theatre boxes, etc.? The fellow actors having to cope with his farce? The chance encounter with Garance and his talking to her, his talking to Baptiste - praising his success, telling him about Garance, his own learning jealousy in his reaction with her? The visit by Pierre François and Avril, his lending the money and his life being spared, the fighting of the duel and Pierre Francois and Avril backing him? The encounter with Edouard, the success of Othello, Edouard trying to pick a fight? His willingness to duel with him - and his finally being let off by Pierre Francois' murder? His concern for Garance? Frederic as the ebullient survivor, a man of pride and verve? Depths and shallows?

10. The contrast with Baptiste: the introduction to him as the white painted fool with the floppy hat, the denunciations of his father? His own story about his relationship with his father and his father's severity? His skill in miming with the story of the stealing of the watch? Nathalie and her devotion and love? Parallelling his unrequited love for Garance? Parallelling Edouard's unrequited love for Garance? one-sided passion? Friendship with Frederic, finding the room for him? His walk in the city and the encounter with the blind man and what learnt - especially when he discovered his sight? Seeing Garance with Pierre Francois at the tavern? The dance? Avril throwing him through the window and his returning and his kicking him? Garance in the rain, the moon? His holding back? Unfulfilled passion? The success of his mime, his unwillingness to face the truth about Frederic and Garance? The mime and his wanting to hang himself in the mime - and Nathalie's fears? His smashing Edouard's gift of flowers? The passage of the years, his success, marriage, the little boy? The mime with the symbolic killing of old Jericho and his stated loathing of him? His father's pride in his success? The discovery that Garance had come each night to watch him? Passion, the leaving of the stage? His return to the rooms with Garance? The sexual fulfilment of their passion? His going to Othello? The party and the revelation of their kissing by Pierre Francois? The night together, the visit of Nathalie and her previous concern knowing where her husband was, the little boy waiting outside the rooms, Baptiste and the crowds of Pierrot at the carnival, Garance's leaving and his ultimately being lost in the crowd?

11. Garance and her beauty in the bath, a stately and majestic person, her putting off Frederic, his putting her on a pedestal, her friendship with Pierre Francois yet her boredom, the stealing of the watch and Baptiste's mime, her dancing with him in the tavern, the rain, the room, the seduction by Frederic and her allowing this? Her insistence that she was an ordinary woman, the sordid background of her story, reality and not dreaming? Others dreaming of her? Her place in the mime as statuesquely beautiful? Edouard and his going to see her, the gift of the flowers, Frederic and his chatter. Baptiste and his passion, the irony of the arrest of Pierre Francois and Garance's disappearance? The passing of six years, her wealth, beauty, imposing herself but the object of adoration by the men? Her future?

12. The contrast with Nathalie and her ordinary day-by-day love for Baptiste? Her being unrequited? Her worry about his mime? Her father and his ownership of the theatre? Six years and her marriage, her son? Jericho making her jealous by telling the truth? The little boy and his speech to Garance? Nathalie’s concern about Baptiste and the help of Madame Hermine? The confrontation with Garance and her final pain?

13. Nathalie's father and his theatricality, running of the theatre, the fines, his desperation for Frederic to be the lion, his relationship with Baptiste's father? Managing the theatre over the various years? The various players - and the clash where the actors walked out and went to the theatre opposite, etc.?

14. The sketch of Madame Hermine as the landlady, middle-aged, flattered by Frederic's charm, kind to Baptiste? The police and the arrest? Her help to Nathalie at the end? The sketch of the blind man and his encounter with Baptiste in the street, at the inn, his evaluating the stolen goods, his applause for Baptiste in the theatre?

15. The importance of Pierre Francois - as letter-writer, his relationship with Avril? The self-made man, his almost Nietszchean views, plans, a success in crime, his plays and farces, receiving stolen goods, Jericho warning the tavern owner, his behaviour in the tavern, jealousy towards Garance but not wanting to be attached to women? His plans and his crimes? The unsuccessful murder? The stealing of the watch? His being the cause of tragedy? The six years and his jail in the provinces? His return, confrontation with Garance, with Edouard, his getting the money from Frederic and supporting him in the duel? His hatred for Edouard and what he stood for and his murdering him in the baths? His helping Frederic? Avril and his violence, murder, the tavern and Baptiste, the murder of Edouard and its being reflected in his face? The killing sequence in Othello and Pierre Francois' theory of exquisite pleasure? His killing and waiting to be taken away for execution?

16. Avril as the bully, his sensitivity yet his violence?

17. Edouard and his infatuation? Going to the theatre day by day? The flowers and their lavishness? His giving his card to Garance? His control of her, Garance singing when he was not there, the story of his duels, his presence at Othello and his despising Shakespeare and the play? His trying to bait Frederic and his jealousy of him? His being unaware of Garance's love for Baptiste? His death at the baths?

18. Themes of true love and mistaken love? Undeclared love? The violent consequences of people not expressing what they really felt?

19. The picture of the police, especially in the investigation of the attempted murder and the insults to Garance?

20. The contribution to the mood of Frederic's send-up of the three authors and their play? The humour of the duel?

21. The film as an elaborate period piece? As a drama comedy of the world of the theatre? Its insight into human nature - good and evil, forgiveness and redemption, love, tragedy?