“She and Him”
Because it was him, because it was her.
He is Nickie Ferrante, fierce seducer, she is Terry McKay, cabaret singer.
They meet on a liner sailing to New York, with a stopover at love at first sight.
On this staircase, they exchange their first kiss, hidden from all eyes, including ours.
She dries the tears that she can't help but shed when confronted with beauty, she says.
What beauty is she talking about?
That of this meeting which will change the course of their lives?
They give themselves six months to change everything, before a meeting at the top of the Empire State Building, the eternal summit of romanticism.
Because He is Cary Grant, absolute elegance, and She is Deborah Kerr, magnetic sweetness.
Here they embody one of the greatest love stories in cinema, under the passionate eye of Leo McCarey, in the haunting swirls of composer Hugo Friedhofer.
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She and Him
, by Leo McCarey (1957) with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.
“They married and had many children”
Suddenly, in a department store, a stranger chooses the same song as you.
The stranger is Johnny Depp, the song is
Creep
by Radiohead, and the listening terminals haven't existed for a long time.
It's another world, another time, that of a film.
They married and had many children
.
In real life, this is precisely what happened to the two main actors, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Yvan Attal, who also directs.
As if the line between cinema and private life was blurring.
Just like that of fantasy, and of reality.
They married and had many children
, by Yvan Attal (2004) with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Johnny Depp.
“When Harry Met Sally”
“When you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible”: this is the reason why Harry, in this film which forever remains the standard measure of all our romantic comedies, joins Sally one New Year's Eve.
Perfect time for new beginnings, big decisions and good resolutions.
But also, for declarations.
When Harry Met Sally
, by Rob Reiner (1989) with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.
“The Last Days of Disco”
“I love Scrooge”: in 1998, no one expected to hear this phrase from the mouth of Chloë Sevigny, a glass of Pernod in hand, in the middle of a flirty dance scene with actor Robert Sean Leonard.
The most prominent and sexy actress of her time, discovered in Larry Clark's
Kids
, plays here a New Yorker from the early 1980s, who, in the company of her best friend, played by Kate Beckinsale, is looking for a place under the sun.
Their social journey passes through a club where the city's elite meet, inspired by the legendary Studio 54. Rivalries, jealousies, loves against a backdrop of ultra-danceable hits... The film, according to its director Whit Stillman, is an ode to “the bourgeoisie who falls in love”.
And his mantra might well be: stay true to yourself, above all.
A rom-com that says as much about the birth of the 80s as it does about the end of the 90s. Irresistible.
The Last Days of Disco
, by Whit Stillman (1998) with Chloë Sevigny and Robert Sean Leonard.
“Our best years”
Certainly, there is a time to spend an evening in front of a warm fire.
But for those who don't have a fireplace at their disposal, we can always go back to
Our Most Beautiful Years
.
The story of a man and a woman, attracted to each other as much by their charm as by their ideas.
They don't have the same ones, they will end up pushing them apart.
Their memories will remain, to enhance the past.
And the strength of a love which was played out in the effervescence of long conversations and the fidelity of each person to their convictions, as well as to their deep desires.
Our Best Years
, by Sydney Pollack (1973) with Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand.
“La la land”
Babylon
, the last film by Damien Chazelle, was a Dantesque monument erected by the glory of cinema and Hollywood, capable of devouring as well as transcending those who enter it.
This was already the subject of
La La Land
, treated through the lighter prism of the musical, and of a love story grappling with ambitions, compromises and success.
We keep many passages in our memory.
Like perhaps this scene with magnificent dialogue, the meeting of a musician and an actress, whose jokes and well-felt irony barely mask the immediate love at first sight.
La la Land
, by Damien Chazelle (2016) with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
“Zabriskie Point”
We don't know if it's the edge, or the end of the world.
Late 1960s: Daria and Mark meet by chance and end up at
Zabriskie Point
, in Death Valley.
A desert and mineral place, of which we do not know whether its rocks resemble monsters or cathedrals.
There, they talk and make love, discuss their studies, politics, their youth which manifests and questions an established order.
Alone in a desert that looks like a blank page, a scorched earth on which to invent everything.
It is one of the many legendary images of the film, enhanced by the work of production designer Dean Tavoularis.
Zabriskie Point
, by Michelangelo Antonioni (1970) with Daria Halprin and Mark Frechette.
“Garden State”
It's the story of an encounter, the kind that transforms a life.
In
Garden State
, by Zach Braff, the actor and director plays Andrew, a man at a crossroads.
Faced with the death of his mother, he left Los Angeles for a while to return to his roots in his hometown in New Jersey.
A disillusioned apprentice actor, he will regain a taste for life thanks to the strange and beautiful Samantha, played by Natalie Portman.
Between looks and shy smiles, the latter gradually breaks down her barriers.
And gives cinema an archetype: that of the “manic pixie dream girl”, a concept roughly translatable as “ideal girl who is a little crazy and cute”.
In short, an elf in a woolen hat with cute smiles, seen again and again, since then, in independent cinema.
Garden State
, by Zach Braff (2004) with Natalie Portman.
"The beautiful person"
What if we revisited our classics?
In their original version or crossed by a new vision.
Comme
La Belle Personne
, free adaptation of
La Princesse de Clèves
, by Madame de la Fayette, by Christophe Honoré.
Whose themes remain eternal: impossible passion, lost heartbreak, taking action and renunciation.
A timeless marvel, performed by the very young Léa Seydoux and Louis Garrel.
The Beautiful Person
by Christophe Honore (2008).
“Happy New Year”
A man, a woman, the Croisette: it's not the Cannes Film Festival, just a simple walk, and it's not spring but winter in
La Bonne Année
.
And yet, the film resonates with an innate sweetness and melancholy.
It's a story of robbery and New Year's Eve, luxury and prison.
But also love, between Françoise (Françoise Fabian) and Simon (Lino Ventura).
She is an antique dealer, free, lively and cultured.
He doesn't read books, is a bit clumsy and has a record.
And yet, they look at each other, recognize each other and find themselves, thanks to a look and the right word, a flirtation that will intensify.
Romantic as can be.
“Comfortable”, never.
The Happy New Year
, Claude Lelouch (1973).
“Bright Star”
Three days versus a lifetime.
Three days of passion against a duller life.
This is the market that the British poet John Keats dreamed of in his letters to Fanny Brawne, which are among the most romantic of all.
It is their story, brief and tragic, that Oscar winner Jane Campion tells in the film
Bright Star
.
Words, images that give, even if only for a moment, the desire to live more intensely.
That of abandoning yourself to a field of flowers.
To finally grant yourself the right to happiness.
Bright Star
, Jane Campion (2009) with Abbie Cornish.
“The time of innocence”
It is a world where everything is delicacy, worldliness, fresh flowers and perfumed lace.
A world, too, where only social rank, reputation, respectability count.
In her novel
The Age of Innocence
, published in 1920, Edith Wharton underlined all the ambivalence of 19th century New York high society, as cruel as it was refined.
Martin Scorsese's adaptation unfolds the intense passions, burning in the backs of sealed carriages.
Like the one between a prominent man, promised to a young girl from good society.
But ready to lose everything to marry a divorced woman.
A love story impossible to see in theaters, where the film is released this week.
The Age of Innocence
, Martin Scorsese (1993), Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer
“Take this Waltz”
Since her debut in the teen series
Dawson
at the end of the 90s, Michelle Williams has established herself as one of the most magnetic presences in American cinema.
Often with roles of women struggling with the constraints of their daily lives.
In 2011, she played in
Take This Waltz
by Sarah Polley, a young married woman with a happy and orderly life, whom the arrival of a neighbor turned upside down.
After having been the fictional mother of Steven Spielberg in
The Fabelmans
, this year she played in
Showing Up
by Kelly Reichardt, a sculptor who must take care of her complicated family, a flippant owner, an upcoming exhibition and 'an injured pigeon.
With art, grace and creation to enhance everything.
Take this waltz
, by Sarah Polley (2011) Luke Kirby, Michelle Williams
“The Chamade”
In
La Chamade
, Catherine Deneuve plays Lucile, a young woman living for love and lightness, for an existence made easy by the generosity of a wealthy lover.
A will-o'-the-wisp that another man will try to curb, to force one to adopt a so-called normal, more orderly life.
Without success.
The film, released in 1968, was adapted from a novel by Françoise Sagan.
To discover with a beating heart.
La Chamade
by Alain Cavalier (1968), Catherine Deneuve, Roger Van Hool
"A nice morning"
Talking about books and trips, phone calls that go through or not: so many fragments, seemingly innocuous, of a loving discourse that is slowly taking shape between Sandra and Clément.
They are friends, but haven't seen each other for a long time.
He is a researcher, married, charming.
She is a widow, takes care of her sick father and her 8-year-old daughter.
Their story may be shaky, sincere but impossible, with no apparent “happy ending”.
One beautiful morning
, by Mia Hansen-Løve (2022), Léa Seydoux, Melvil Poupaud
“Adventureland”
A somewhat rundown amusement park, stories that are made and unmade between employees stuck there for a summer job, a rickety fireworks display and a slow dance (
Don't dream its over
, by Crowded House) heard a thousand times: it doesn't seem like anything like it, but it's all the possibilities of summer that unfold in
Adventureland
, an ode to the end of adolescence, where the carefreeness of youth is fades to the rhythm of the last rays of the sun.
It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s everyone’s story.
After that, nothing was ever the same.
Adventureland
, by Greg Mottola (2009), Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg
"Happiness therapy"
“Happiness Therapy” is the story of two heartbroken people who reconcile with life through choreography.
Bipolar, Bradley Cooper, aka Pat, reluctantly agrees to participate in a dance competition with Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence.
A young widow, the latter lost her job and is going through a troubled period.
From this shaky friendship will be born a true redemption.
Liberation is at issue in this scene which is also the finale of the film, where we see the two nickel-plated feet, during this famous competition, dancing or rather letting off steam, in heaven.
And we understand that the competition was in reality only a pretext to be able to give ourselves another chance to be happy.
Alone, or in pairs.
Happiness Therapy
, by David O. Russell (2012), Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence
“One day without end”
Rarely has a film lived up to its title so well.
A Day Without End
, directed by Harold Ramis and released in 1993, is one of those Christmas comedies that has become cult over time.
Bill Murray plays Phil, a gruff weatherman who finds himself stuck in a time loop: he is doomed to live the same day, forever.
In this extract, we see him sculpting the face of Rita, played by Andie MacDowell, in ice, with whom he fell in love.
She herself seems transported, not by the portrait that is reflected back to her, but by the attention and delicacy that Phil showed.
Well seen: having had “the same day” several times to practice, it was deep down to her that he wanted to devote his time, which had become eternal.
A Day Without End
, by Harold Ramis (1993), Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell