by Jim.


I am sitting on the terrace of the "Balzac room" in a delightful Parisian hotel, Relais Saint-German, so named after the famous author who the gentle reader may remember as inspiration for a scene in Truffaut's The 400 Blows. My travel guide reports the terrace as being "sunny" but today a light drizzle falls on my face. Not one to endure the rain pointlessly, I sit here because I have been locked out of the room by none other than my subject of interview, one Frenchie L'amour, whose infamous contempt of Americans seems only to be surpassed by, among other things, his contempt for Americans late for their interview.

I try pleading my case, citing my completely flawed grasp of French. I had hopped into a taxi cab, and in an attempt to implore the man to speed it up, I meant to say "I am late," when in reality I was looking at the wrong page in my phrasebook - what I had said was "Je suis constipe'" (I am constipated.) My pleas only seem to exasperate the situation, as I can see Mssr. L'amour lightly chuckling through my objections.

Just as I begin contemplating a very American remedy of circumstance, namely kicking the door in avec my foot, Messeur L'amour shouts a question through the thick panes of washed out glass, through the rain that has by now started pouring down insistently --

"Which do you enjoy more, Mister American reporter," he spits those last three words out as if they were battery acid, "to keep the company of the cinema, or the company of a woman?"

This is a test.

My mind races - before me I see some of my most personally treasured montages of the craft play on the screen of my inner eye : Ilsa's arrival at Rick's Café Americain, Eric von Stroheim's call of Swanson's descent down the grande staircase, Bogart and Bacall discussing horses, a Knight and Death along the beach...

And at the same time, these memories are competing for my attention with those most private of moments with the women of my past : kisses of distinct taste, the sighs of private comfort, confessions of secret longings and fears...

"If I had to choose, I'd say the former. Movies have always been there, and they always will. Women are, for me... inconsistent."

Reluctantly, Frenchie moves forward and unlatches the door. He sizes me up, amused at my soaked appearance, and after what seems like too long, motions for me to take a seat.

I try and smooth over the thick unease in the air, conceding if just for a moment, the power of the interview to the hands of the interviewee


Jim : Well, I'm glad I had the right answer - I was about to take an audience poll!

FL (affecting an air of non-amusement) : And so your American brain rests thinking this is so! But is it? You say the cinema has always been here, and yet were you not born of a woman's womb? Ah, who will dress your wounds, who will bake you fine bread - your precious Rolland Emerich?! One would hope not!

For a moment, my confidence is dashed. Frenchie sits before me, madly puffing a seemingly everlasting cigarette.

FL : The truth is not so often what it seems, eh? The hesitation in your response - there may be hope for you yet, if the choice between a woman and the cinema is reason for confusion!

What follows is an interview which persisted despite initial ill-will, despite a language barrier, and lastly, despite many misunderstandings.

Jim : Right then. Thinking about your question out on the terrace, I couldn't help but think of a few of my favorite scenes...

I proceed to relate to him the specific scenes.

FL : "The Big Sleep" [1946] was nice. Bacall is a bit too old for the part, and Bogart is... no Maurice Chevalier, but ah well. The thing to note about Hawks is his persistent vision of the world that bleeds into every one of his films, whether it's a comedy or a drama - he's very, in French it is 'il a des talents varies'?

Versatile? Yeah, that's one of his most appealing traits. And you're right, there's a definite Hawksian look about things - the competition, the tough women who have to be won, the overall sense of...

Just then my mind wanders for a bit as I see Frenchie rolling his eyes, as if to tell me there's nothing that I'm saying that's new or particularly interesting. Steering the conversation to something, anything that I feel will get his interest :

What do you think of his portrayal of fighting men, my mind turns specifically to his WWII drama "The Dawn Patrol" [1930].

Eh, well, that is something film can never quite capture - the essence of combat. There is very little that can be real about what you see on the screen in war films with no actual bullets whizzing past your head, no weary feet forced over miles of rocky terrain, and no rapturous nurses on whose bosoms you may rest your head during times of injury.

What about the scenes in "Saving Private Ryan" [1999]?

Sacre-merde! Shall I put this cigarette out in my eye - I have endured more pain viewing such dribble! Speilberg seems to me to hate his audience - well hate him back I say! Never have I been so ashamed as when I watched the opening and closing ten minutes of that film! What is this, a man weeping to ask has he earned his life? A Frenchmen knows life is to be taken from hands of the gods, not earned.

Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself, about the Frenchy L'Amour outside of the war - what was your life in France like?

There is little you need to know about me. I am a man of many passions but I was born into this world the son of a mountain climbing enthusiast Marcel and his lover, a Parisian prostitute by the name of Claudette. My heart sighs when I think back on my childhood - racing with my good friend Dido around the town's giant wheel of cheese, admiring the works of the local Impressionists, the real Impressionists from which hacks such as Renoir so freely stole. My later adolescence, too, brought about memories which I now cherish - ascending the steep cliffs of the Alps with Papa, drinking wine with my uncle who owned a small vineyard, and exploring the splendors of a woman's company. It would be some years before circumstances in the world would force me to enlist and take action, and it was at this time that I became a real man, a real Frenchman, and knew first hand what the word honor meant. After serving I came home to a broken house and, after doing odd jobs which only served to get in the way of my art, I was arrested for lifting some cheese from a local café - such is the struggle of the artiste. I spent some time in what you might call Le Big House, only to be bailed out by my good friend Francois and his then lover, a charming actress named Jean. Jean and I would have a passionate affair which torn my relationship with Francois like the curtain at Christ's crucifixion, which is a shame because I was having many affairs at the time, none of them to be so enduring as the relationship of the heart and mind which Francois and I had shared. Since then I have lived the life of a man of mystery, wandering the streets of Paris with allegiance only to the pleasures of life.

That sounds like a pretty full life. How did you happen to become involved in French Cinema?

During the same period in which I had returned to a broken home, my uncle had given me a motion picture camera to sell - it was something small, an 8 millimeters camera, and, I look and voila, it had a bit of film left in it! I took to photographing some scenes of Paris, including the prostitutes along rue de Navarin who remain unsurpassed in their beauty, and with the help of a friend who owned a photographic lab, I developed the film for free. Such wondrous images had I never seen, and from that moment I was drawn in to the cinema like the ocean to the shore.

Did you interact at all with Truffaut and the leaders of the French New Wave?

Interact? I was the inspiration for Truffaut's "L'Homme qui aimait les femmes" ("The Man Who Loved Women"[1977]) I should have you know! Truffaut and I would correspond now and again, most of our conversations about film and women, women and film, women in film, et cetera. He was a charming boy of similar tastes and passions.

It seems to me you have a reputation with women that is pretty impressive.

Well things are not as they used to be. When I was young, yes, it was not uncommon for me to be out with two women until well past six in the morning. Now, in my greater age, I am unable to keep up such a pace - so it is that I am out with six women until only two!

Any chance you'll be sharing those secrets with this American Interviewer? Off the record, of course...

Hah! To share such secrets one must be a zebra sharing its stripes! As lovers, superior by our very nature, French men cannot just write a book. However I am working on my memoirs, so you may be able to inspect them for clues of the French man's ways.

I'll be on the lookout for it. Frenchie, care to give us a word on film, something which would be kind of a general insight for us to look to?


Well, such is not easy. You must first be the cinema. Once you can do this, you may make life as if it is somewhere between imagination and reality - where insignificant things may be made large, and things of the largest nature may be made small. Do this, and you may begin to visit upon yourself the delights that us French critics have known for years, the delights of the cinema in its true nature, in its very passion!

Is there anything I might be able to do to get into the proper state of mind for such a perspective?

Eat plenty of cheese, and drink many wines, of course! And if it is not so hard, many, many women...


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