Bertrand Tavernier

[domino harvey]

There's undeniably something overly familiar about Des enfants gâtés, but I was surprised at how invested I was in the story of Michel Piccoli playing Bertrand Tavernier and renting an apartment in a Paris apartment complex and being distracted from the screenplay he's supposed to be writing in favor of getting radicalized for tenant rights in order to get laid. I actually found the cry of the middle class landlord warfare here interesting precisely for the same reasons it's lampshaded within the film itself-- it's not typically "high interest" like the plights of the very poor or the very wealthy, but that's what makes it novel here. I also liked the supporting cast of apartment dwellers, who are shaded in enough to feel real but not interesting enough to praise beyond that! i don't hate landlords like the current leftwing chic dictates (and I truly feel like I missed a fucking meeting with some of the ridiculous rhetoric I've encountered from people I otherwise generally agree with), but I think those who do would probably like this film even more than I did

Also, the jovial theme song is sung by Jean Rochefort and Jean-Pierre Marielle for some reason!

[domino harvey]

Finished working my way through the UK Studio Canal box set of eight films, having only seen Que la fete commence already from the selection, and found it a great value as I liked all of the films included save one (and the outlier was still mediocre at worst)-- Tavernier showed great instincts for action-oriented in-camera movement in Capitaine Conan (sadly not included in this box), but those talents are nowhere to be found in La princesse de Montpensier, in which the swordplay scenes come off as awkward and the melodramatics too familiar and muted. This is a film that suffers from the memory of the gripping chaos and bloodshed of La reine Margot, as it is set in the same period with some of the same historical players but has none of that film's ambition and gall.

Speaking of not included, Une semaine de vacances has a fun cameo appearance by a character from L'Horloger de Saint-Paul but you'd not know if you hadn't watched it too outside of this set, as the first film isn't here either (Kino Lorber released it in an excellent Blu-ray however with two nearly hour long interviews with Tavernier as bonus content).

The real discovery in the set for me was Ca commence aujourd'hui, the description of which made it sound like a film I never wanted to see but in execution I think it may be my favorite of the set. While I don't love the extent to which this film allows Philippe Torreton to fall on his sword as the Noble Teacher, the sheer sprawl of hopelessness and despair and lived-in details of poverty is quite impressive, and along with L.627 one wonders if Tavernier ever saw the Wire, because he has a compelling argument for having planted the seeds with a similar approach a decade plus prior (though L.627 is ultimately a lot of great little details in search of a story it will never find). Was stunned to learn afterwards that Ca commence aujourd'hui made Wes Anderson's Sight and Sound ballot, but perhaps it's fitting, because I can find none of the film in any of Anderson's movies, but it is impossible to not notice after having marathoned Tavernier's two lengthy French cinema docs that the films he makes don't much resemble the movies he loves either!

As a side note, Studio Canal seems to have hired Kino Lorber's subtitling sweatshop for some of these discs, as there are glaring typos and grammatical errors on several of the discs, and also once more we learn the peril of having non-film people subtitle movies about films as we the reader are subjected to much discussion of Clouzot's "The Crow" in Laissez-passer

[MichaelB]

I still treasure a reference to "Rossellini's film about the doctors" in the subtitles of the Taviani Brothers interview on the Cohen Taviani set. Because it's actually a completely accurate translation if you're not aware that "i medici" (i.e. "the doctors") should be capitalised as "i Medici" (i.e. the Florentine Renaissance family) and they're actually talking about Rossellini's The Age of the Medici (1973), as corrected in the equivalent Arrow set.

But I might not have spotted that myself if I hadn't gone "sorry, which film about the doctors? What doctors?" and listened carefully to what they were saying.

[diamonds]

one wonders if Tavernier ever saw the Wire, because he has a compelling argument for having planted the seeds with a similar approach a decade plus prior [...]

As a side note, Studio Canal seems to have hired Kino Lorber's subtitling sweatshop for some of these discs, as there are glaring typos and grammatical errors on several of the discs, and also once more we also learn the peril of having non-film people subtitle movies about films as we the reader are subjected to much discussion of Clouzot's "The Crow" in Laissez-passer

Tavernier was indeed an admirer of David Simon's work; it's true their approaches are simpatico. Reportedly Soderbergh is a fan of L.627, and it isn't hard to imagine the influence on Traffic as well.

A shame to hear about the subtitles on the Studio Canal set. Tavernier is a great favorite of mine and I've been hoping Criterion might take more of an interest in porting some (all) of those films over. They did great work on the recent Round Midnight release.