Cinephile 2013
I had opportunities to travel quite a bit as a 20-22 year old, and despite spending more than a year in Europe, I didn’t spend any time in Paris. I kept telling myself I’d only go there once I spoke French. After a few decades, it became clear that I would never speak French, and I kind of wanted to see the place.
Wanda and I decided to spend a May in Paris, and since films made in the city formed such an important part of my love for cinema, I decided to bring along some motion picture film to shoot. I hadn’t shot a film on film since autoerotica in 2000, and I felt that this might be a way to say adieu to the medium in the city where the first film exhibition occured. I packed a Bolex camera and 10 x 100′ rolls of Kodak 7222.
I decided to get to know the city by looking for locations of films shot there. I traced locations of films like The 400 Blows, Breathless, Last Tango In Paris, Charade, and Amelie and wandered through the cemeteries where some film legends lie. I visited the Latin Quarter’s small cinemas (and one of them let me into their projection booth to change a roll of film).
I traced some of the locations that Celine and Jesse visited in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset. In that film, Julie Delpy’s character Celine mumbles something about the part of the city she lived in, but Wanda and I weren’t able to make it out. Then one day while walking along a street, we saw a doorway that looked familiar. We passed through it and realised it’s where Celine lived. As Wanda walked up the staircase that Celine and Jesse walk up near the end of the film, the camera roll ran out and got a bit fogged while unloading.
When I had the developed film transferred to HD, I chose the 16:9 aspect ratio, which baffles me now. I should have stuck with the native 4:3 of the original.
I used audio excerpts from some of the films whose locations I traced, which has caused issues when I put the film on YouTube. I believe the French word for this is hommage.
