Directed by Agnès Varda, Cléo From 5 to 7 was a hugely influential French New Wave film when released in 1962. Like François Truffaut's The 400 Blows screened yesterday, Cléo From 5 to 7 was shot in the streets of Paris among passers-by, giving it a special documentary realism. And because Varda was among the few female French directors of the era, the film centers on women as adults with their own set of complex issues, not as toys for male characters to play with or slap around.
The film stars Corinne Marchand as Florence "Cléo" Victoire, an emerging pop singer who, at 5p.m. on June 21, the first day of summer, fears she has cancer and must wait until 6:30, when she will learn the results of a test. During the interim, Cléo kills time by traveling around Paris, providing us with a look at the city in 1961, when the film was shot. The film combines bustling activity with an inner quiet and stillness as Cléo struggles with her dread and the unknown. Mirrors play a key role in the film as Cléo admires herself while wondering how failing health will affect her looks. "As long as I'm beautiful," she tells herself in the film, "I'm alive." [Photo still above of Corinna Marchand, right, and Dorothée Blanck in Cléo From 5 to 7]
The film's glorious music is by Michel Legrand, who appears at the piano in the film as Bob in a delightfully playful scene. Also tucked away in the movie is Jean-Luc Godard and American actor-singer Eddie Constantine, as the men in the silent film Cléo watches with a friend. Anna Karina plays the woman in that film within a film. Interestingly, the short is about seeing things incorrectly through a pair of sunglasses. [Photo above of Michel Legrand and Corinne Marchand]
Earlier in 1961, Marchand appeared in Jacques Demy's Lola as Daisy, one of the cabaret dancers. I screened the film here several days ago. While Marchand's leading role in Cléo From 5 to 7 was her big break, she preferred to remain in France working intermittently as a film actress until 2017. She recently turned 89. The film was entered in the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. [Photo above of director Agnès Varda, front left, and Corinne Marchand in Cannes, France, in 1962]
Interesting how the film was directed. For the distance shots, Marchand was placed on the streets without a glance from those walking by. But when a handheld camera was used for close-ups and intimacy, curious pedestrians looked directly into the lens. Varda used their unavoidable stares to give us Marchand's perspective, as if her eyes were cameras catching people starring at her beauty as she walked along. In effect, Varda used the public intrusions as she did the mirrors—as a means to show off Cléo's beauty and vanity. [Photo above of Corinne Marchand]
Here'sCléo from 5 to 7, starring Corinne Marchand...
François Truffaut's The 400 Blows marked a turning point in French cinema. Up until 1959, French film was rigidly traditional—more novel-like with screenplay stories formally crafted and resolved. The 400 Blows was the first French film to neatly break from this model. It incorporated the director's perspective rather than adhere to a tidy, formulaic storyline. Best of all, Truffaut left space in the film for the viewer's imagination to fill in the blanks. Handheld cameras were used to blend actors into actual street scenes, and Truffaut shot with the new French Dyaliscope anamorphic system, allowing for wide-angle cinematography. The result was a new sense of authenticity and journalistic immediacy. The camera's devotion to movement and speed gave the film urgency, and the film's restlessness and documentary realism ushered in the French New Wave.
The 400 Blows follows the hard Parisian life of Antoine Doinel (above), a confident if unfeeling 12-year-old whose serial lies in school and at home lead to petty thievery, adult disgust and physical abuse. Eventually, his life of poverty and reckless disregard for discipline land him in hot water. The film remains a poetic study of a wild child slipping slowly through the cracks, leaving him somewhat baffled by his predicament and the ensuing fuss. All of the adult figures in the film are self-absorbed or exasperated with the new generation of post-war youth as they struggle to make ends meet. As Antoine's life unspools, you feel as if you're witnessing a child drift slowly downstream toward a waterfall without an adult bothering to pull him out.
Through Truffaut's direction and screenwriting skills, not everything is clear. Cliches are abandoned as Truffaut explores real-life dilemmas. For example, Antoine's decline isn't a plunge. There are moments of hope as he returns a stolen typewriter rather than tossing it off a bridge or when he calmly and rationally explains to the police why he made bad choices. The film's final scene is poignant, so I won't give it away. I'll only say that Truffaut brilliantly captures Antoine's wonderment and excitement when he comes face to face with something he innately understands—nature's wild energy. It's as if his character for the first time looks in a mirror or meets a twin brother.
The 400 Blows' title is meaningless. It's an English-language interpretation of Les Quatre Cents Coups. But the original title was an adaptation of the French expression, "Faire les quatre cents coups," meaning "to live a wild life." At the time, all of the English-translation ideas were flat or not quite right. Then someone suggested The 400 Blows, which clicked for Truffaut. [Photo above of Claire Maurier, who plays Antoine's mother in The 400 Blows]
The movie was Truffaut's (above) first film and the start of a series of five films starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, who plays Antoine at different stages in life. Watch carefully for Jeanne Moreau, at 38:42, as a woman looking for her dog, and for the director himself, who appears in the gravity-defying fun ride in a pea coat at 22:32.
Here is François Truffaut's masterpiece, The 400 Blows. The print's resolution is great, so expand the film to full screen...
In 1961, three years before Jacques Demy directed Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), he wrote and directed Lola. As with Umbrellas, Michel Legrand wrote the music, which largely consisted of variations on his Recit de Cassard, or Watch What Happens. As fans of Umbrellas know, this song also plays a dominant and recurring role in Umbrellas. [Above, the Polish poster for the 1961 film]
Lola centers on a group of aimless escapists who are eager for love and a new location where they are certain their luck will change. The title character, Lola, is played by Anouk Aimée (above), who is stunning and suitably upbeat and vulnerable here. Co-starring is Marc Michel as Roland Cassard, a handsome loser, who went on to play the same character with the same name in Umbrellas.
Also starring is Alan Scott, who plays the blonde American sailor (above) who had a brief affair with Lola, and Jacques Harden as Michel, Lola's long-lost love and father of her son who abandoned them seven years earlier. The three men orbit Lola in the French seaside town of Nantes, where she lives and works as a cabaret dancer, without ever meeting each other.
Demy referred to Lola as a musical without music, which is apt. One might also think of the film as the black-and-white demo for Umbrellas of Cherbourg, right down to Legrand's theme. Also coincidental, three of the characters in Lola wind up in Cherbourg. In all, Demy and Legrand worked on eight films together. Lola was their first. [Photo still above of Marc Michel and Anouk Aimée]
Here's Anouk Aimée in Lola. Please note that in three different places, the sound disappears for about 30 seconds. Just read the subtitles until the sound returns...
The JazzWax Film Festival continues with the French portion of our cinema journey. Today, I'm screening Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons). Directed by Roger Vadim and released in 1959, the film stars Jeanne Moreau, Gerard Phillipe and Annette Vadim. The movie is loosely based on the 1782 novel of the same name by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, except it's set in France of 1959. To tell you what the film is about, even in summary, would spoil it.
The film was massively popular in France and the first to expose Moreau (above) to an international audience (Jules and Jim in 1962 would make her a star). Jazz fans know that the Dangerous Liaisons soundtrack features the music of Thelonious Monk. He was to have composed original music for the film but health issues and a time crunch resulted in Monk recording existing material. He was backed by Charlie Rouse and Barney Wilen (ts), Sam Jones (b) and Art Taylor (d). Monk's music was recorded in July 1959 but wasn't released until 2017. For more on the story behind Monk's inclusion and why the recording took so long to surface, go here.
Additional music for the film was recorded by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Recorded on the same day, the musicians included Lee Morgan (tp) Wilen (ts,sop), Bobby Timmons and Duke Jordan (p), Jymie Merritt (b) Blakey (d), Johnny Rodriguez (bgo) and Tommy Lopez and Willie Rodriguez (cga). The year 1960 was added to the film's title when it was released in the U.S. with subtitles. Even a French film sounds more sophisticated with Monk and Blakey as a backdrop.
But the music by Blakey has a story behind it. Here are Doris Parker's liner notes to the music re-issued on Charlie Parker Records in 1962, with Duke Jordan (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Sonny Cohn (trumpet), Eddie Kahn (bass) and Art Taylor (drums):
It was 10:30 a.m. on the morning of January 12, 1962. I saw Duke Jordan relive something that occurred just months short of three years ago, when Duke first played this music and this morning he repeated it in hopes of this time claiming his due recognition as composer and artist. A man of Duke Jordan's talent and distinction as an artist is not easily hampered or disillusioned by the acts of others, as as was the case when his music was misused and the credit denied him three years ago. We hope that this album of Duke Jordan's music will live as a symbol of patience, faith and endurance to all who have gone before and to those who aspire music as a profession and art, in the future.
The feeling of this performance is one of true musicianship. Art Taylor and Charlie Rouse, two of the original members of Duke's group when he first recorded this music, are heard here. Also present was Ray Abrams, who worked on the original music. For this performance, we added Eddie Kahn on bass and Sonny Cohn on trumpet. The original compositions were four as recorded in 1959, but through misuse by other persons, the melodies became separated, and acquired different titles.
Here's the irresistible Jeanne Moreau in Dangerous Liaisons...
This week at WSJ.com, I interviewed Katie Ledecky, who at 23 is perhaps the most powerful and fastest female Olympic swimmer in the world (go here). Katie took to the pool as a child, just as her mother did before her. As for goals, Katie focuses on beating world records, many of which she has already topped in earlier races. Now she's hoping to compete at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in July. And yes, she gave me a bunch of great swimming pointers that I included in a box. [Photo above of Katie Ledecky courtesy of NBC]
Here's Katie in action during the 2019 FINA Swimming World Championships in the 800-meter freestyle race, running neck and neck with Italy's Simona Quadarella...
Mom. As readers know, I tend to steer clear of personal stuff. But when Craig, who writes the U.K.'s Fishink blog, asked me to interview my mom for a post, I couldn't say no. Mom is 95 and a celebrated children's book author and illustrator who helped pioneer the modernist style in the 1950s and early 60s. She just published Dog Meets Dog, (Holiday House), most likely her last book as a writer-illustrator. For my interview with Mom featuring Craig's questions and Mom's artwork, go here. [Photo above of Bernice Myers with Marc Myers in 1957, courtesy of Bernice Myers].
Mike Stoller, of Leiber & Stoller fame, the songwriting duo who set the pace for rock 'n roll in the early and mid-1950s with Hound Dog, Kansas City,Jailhouse Rock and many other hits, was at 92Y in 2013 for an 80th birthday celebration concert. Now 92Y, the New York cultural institution, is featuring the concert online for free on New Year's Eve at 7 p.m. (EST). Performances by Karen Akers, Brenda Braxton, Dee Dee Bridgewater, the Coasters, Mary Bridget Davies, Corky Hale, Maria Elena Infantino, Chuck Jackson, Sally Kellerman, Ben E. King, Bettye LaVette, Melissa Manchester, Ryan Shaw, Billy Stritch, Tommy Tune, Steve Tyrell, and more. [Photo still above of Mike Stoller at the piano and Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock]
To register to watch the concert for free, go here.
Greetings from Parma, Italy. Following my film post last week on Girl With a Suitcase, I received the following from Corrado Barbieri in Parma, Italy [photo above of Claudia Cardinale]:
Dear Marc, I was pleased to see your coverage of La Ragazza con la Valigia (Girl With a Suitcase). The night of the film's premiere in 1966 at the Teatro Regio here in Parma, I was there, at age 14. After the screening, we went to another historical building facing the theatre—the Casino di Lettura (once owned by Maria Luigia, Napoleon’s wife, at the beginning of the 18th century), where there was a dancing party. I remember it very well, as I danced near Claudia, which was quite an event for a teenager. The evening also was special because the music was New Orleans jazz provided by the Roman New Orleans Jazz Band, the first Italian classic-jazz ensemble that had played with Louis Armstrong. I wanted to share with you my joy that night and to thank you for reminding me of that evening. Many compliments for your blog. A wonderful idea on your part to cover the cinema. Happy New Year!
"Breakfast Dance." In a post last weekend, I wondered aloud what a "breakfast dance" might be. I heard from Claiborne Ray:
Marc, the most famous breakfast dance was the one Count Basie performed live from a DJ convention at which the first of several late sets actually started at 2 a.m. It was a sort of an after, after-hours jam session and dance. There's also an Ellington piece by that name. According to bassist Milt Hinton in an interview with Billy Taylor, it was an unsanctioned early-morning jam session at which black and white musicians could play together at a time when they couldn’t do so officially and onstage:
Billy Taylor: You just mentioned something in passing, two things: the first was the places where you could hear music. From what you were saying, music was everywhere. Milt Hinton: It was.
Taylor: Name some of the places. You played nightclubs, you'd hear it in the theaters, where else could you hear it? Hinton: Well the breakfast dances, the breakfast dances were a big thing. It went from late Saturday night until noon on Sunday. These were clubs on the South Side of Chicago, black clubs where black people went. The Sunset was a club where black people could go, even though it was owned by Joe Glaser's mother.
Taylor: A breakfast dance was held after they played all night? Hinton: They already played all night.
Taylor: Already played all night so you'd hang out. Hinton: All the musicians and all the entertainers from all the other clubs came over to play and hang out, and these went on until noon on Sunday.
Revolving door.Here's Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts in a bit from a short called The Soilers (1932)...
Montreal big-band jazz. Last week, I received the following Stan Kenton tribute from Ted Piekarz in Montreal. Recorded in November, faculty at the University of Montreal were socially distanced...
Hammond B-3 tribute. Chris Cowles, host of Greasy Tracks at WRTC-FM in Hartford, Ct., devoted a recent two-hour Saturday show to the organ, including interviews with organists Brian Auger, Zoot Money and Matt Zeiner. For the best fidelity, Chris suggests using the Chrome browser. You can listen for free here.
JazzWax Film Festival. For the weekend, here's Dead of Night (1945), a rare favorite that used to give me chills as a kid. The gentle and charming British horror film featured a series of individual tales directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. Look for actor Michael Redgrave as the unstable ventriloquist in The Ventriloquist's Dummy. Here'sDead of Night...
Actually, Julie London never recorded a holiday album. Just one side of a 45. So several years ago, I assembled all of her seasonal tracks for a Julie London holiday album that never was. London is a favorite of mine. She had a cool, sultry singing style that never felt forced. Her sophisticated phrasing was deeply nocturnal and consistently relaxed. And she loved off-beat songs and aced them with a beckoning delivery backed by seemingly effortless vocal power.
I've long wondered why London resisted recording a holiday album. Her sole holiday side—I'd Like You for Christmas (1957)—was written by her husband, Bobby Troup. Did London keep the Yule at arm's length because she thought recording a holiday album would be square? Or did her label, Liberty Records, decide to avoid one to preserve her with-it image? Or maybe she recorded one but it's lost among dozens of other forgotten reels in some vault.
Several years back, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I created a London holiday album by assembling her winter-themed recordings. I playfully named it Julie London Wishes You a Merry Christmas. This year, it's only fitting once again to revisit my phantom London Christmas classic using the seven seasonal songs plus a new one I uncovered last year as a bonus:
In 1965, Margaret Foster published Georgy Girl, a novel about the narrow options open to a heavy-set, homely, love-sick, English working-class girl as Swinging London was taking hold. For young women in London then, thin was in, as was high-pop style, colorful fashion and sports cars. Georgy's roommate, Meredith, is completely in sync with the times, though she's bitter, spoiled and callous. Despite Meredith's good looks, it's Georgy who attracts the attention of two men—Meredith's eccentric boyfriend and an older wealthy suitor who happens to be her father's employer. A classic tale of personality shining brighter than icy beauty.
Almost immediately upon publication, the novel was optioned for a movie. Cast for the roles were Lynn Redgrave (above) as the 22-year-old Georgy, Charlotte Rampling as her swinging roommate, James Mason as the older socialite and Alan Bates as Meredith's beau. The film shows off two Londons—one still rooted in the stuffy 1950s and the other winding its way through the sexually liberated '60s.
The movie's opening and closing theme song, Georgy Girl, was composed by Tom Springfield, Dusty's older brother, with words by Jim Dale. It was recorded by the Seekers, a lovely Australian pop-folk quartet. In the U.S., the song was a huge hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart. For those who remember the British Invasion of the mid-'60s, the song and the movie in '66 stirred up notions of what Swinging London must be like, with its chatter and cheery charm. Interestingly, the film's exterior shots seem to drop the actors into actual street scenes, giving us a glimpse of what London felt like back then.
Note: For my WSJ "House Call" interview with Charlotte Rampling in 2017, go here. [Photo above of Alan Bates and Charlotte Rampling]
Here'sGeorgy Girl, elegantly directed by Silvio Narizzano, with a sterling cast and a fanciful score by Alexander Faris...
Girl With a Suitcase is one of my favorite Claudia Cardinale films. There's a unsettled quality about her that haunts. The post-neorealist film was directed by Valerio Zurlini, a lesser-known but superb Italian director. Among his best films are The Girls of San Frediano (1955) and Violent Summer (1959). But I chose Girl With a Suitcase because of Cardinale's childlike innocence and the gentle quality of the 16-year old (Jacques Perrin) who falls for her.
With the success of Sophia Loren in the U.S. after Two Women, Cardinale's fame in Italy grew. In 1963, she crossed over to Hollywood, appearing in The Pink Panther opposite David Niven. From there, she appeared in a string of American films in the '60s. In the 1970s, she returned to Italy where her career soared in Europe. In Girl With a Suitcase, you cannot take your eyes off of her, and it's hard to imagine the film holding together without her performance. [Photo above of Claudia Cardinale and Jacques Perrin]
As a side note, toward the end, there's a beach scene with a recording of Italian pop vocalist Mina singing Il Cielo in Una Stanza in the background. Written by singer Gino Paoli and originally recorded by Mina, the song was first released in June 1960 and became a runaway hit. [Photo above of Claudia Cardinale]
Mina's version appeared initially in two films, in Appuntamento a Ischia, directed by Mario Mattoli, and then in Girl With a Suitcase. Later in 1990, Mina's recording appeared as a backdrop during a bar scene early in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.
After Vittorio De Sica's Two Women was released and favorably reviewed in 1960, two things became clear. First, Italy still had a stomach for revisiting the horrors of World War II that ended brutally less than 20 years earlier. To its credit, Italy had been wrestling with its fascist role and outcome since 1945, when Roberto Rossellini's Open City appeared in cinemas. Second, Sophia Loren had become the country's most remarkable and bankable actress, winning an Oscar for her performance in Two Women and vaulting Italian neo-realism onto the world stage.
The film stars Loren (above) as a mother trying to protect her pre-teen daughter (Eleonora Brown) from the barbarity of war following the vacuum left by the Germans' retreat and the Allies' liberation of Rome in June 1944. It's a harrowing study in defenselessness, normalcy v. lawlessness, and survival v. hopelessness. The film also stars Jean-Paul Belmondo.
The following year, the actresses nominated by the Academy for Best Actress were Audrey Hepburn (Breakfast at Tiffany's), Piper Laurie (The Hustler), Geraldine Page (Summer and Smoke), Natalie Wood (Splendor in the Grass) and Loren for Two Women. When Burt Lancaster (above) tore open the envelope and read Loren's name, she wasn't there.
Instead, Greer Garson (above) came up and accepted and delivered an elegant and brief thank-you on Loren's behalf. Amusing, since Garson years earlier had delivered the longest acceptance speech in Oscar history, clocking in at 5 minutes and 30 seconds when she won for Mrs. Miniver (1942). A bit of a twist, since she had won for the portrayal of an English wife coping at the start of World War II in Britain. The Garson podium filibuster led the Academy to set a time limit for acceptance speeches that's still in force today—45 seconds.
In 1991, when asked about her no-show in '61, Loren (above) said, “I didn’t think I was going to win. No one had ever won for a foreign-language performance, so I didn’t come.” An excuse that rang a little hollow, but that was her story and she stuck with it.
Here is Two Women and the role that made Sophia Loren an international film star at 26...
Today is the start of my annual two-week holiday visit with great film. Having spent much of my youth in the Museum of Modern Art's basement screening theater with my movie-loving artist father, watching old films with him late at night, and having taken a couple of screenwriting classes, film is another one of my passions. Think of this two-week period as cinematic jazz or music to the eyes. What both jazz and great cinema have in common is poetry.
The first film this week is Rocco and His Brothers. Directed by Luchino Visconti (above), one of the great Italian neo-realists, it's the story of a family that migrates from the south of Italy to Milan in the north and how the city's values change Rocco's family and why southern Italy's way of life and values still have a strong hold over them. Visconti would go on to direct The Leopard (1963) and Death in Venice (1971).
Rocco and His Brothers stars Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot and Claudia Cardinale (above), with music by Nino Rota (Fellini's 8½, Juliet of the Spirits and The Godfather Part II). Martin Scorsese clearly was influenced by the film's boxing sequences for Raging Bull.
A trickfor reading English subtitles. If the line is long, read the first half, look up at the screen and then read the rest. You'll get used to it.
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of 55 More Songs," "Anatomy of a Song," "Rock Concert: An Oral History" and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards.
