Jean-Pierre Jenuet and Audrey Tautou on the Musée d'Orsay set of "A
Very Long Engagement"
Love and war and Hollywood
Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's last film, "Amelie," a low-budget sleeper about the eccentric inner life of a young Parisian woman, started small, but it went on to gross $153 million worldwide and became the most popular French-language film in US history.
Jeunet's new film, "A Very Long Engagement," opens Friday. Shouldn't the filmmaker be, as the French say, "stress" about the risk of audiences and critics not falling in love all over again with one of his films?
"I didn't feel pressure," Jeunet replied during an interview in Boston. "I have my head on my shoulders."
While Jeunet might be playing it cool, studios didn't do the same when given the chance to work with him again. He was even tapped to direct the next Harry Potter film but turned it down.
"There's no such thing as a guaranteed hit, but [Jeunet] is one of the best bets," said Mark Gill, president of Warner International Pictures, by phone from Los Angeles. Gill first did business with Jeunet when Miramax distributed his 1992 film "Delicatessen."
For his follow-up to "Amelie," Jeunet wanted to adapt the late Sebastien Japrisot's 1991 novel "Un long dimanche de finanailles," a complex love story set during and after World War I. Warner Bros. owned the rights, but rather than the studio setting conditions for the filmmaker, it was the other way around.
"When I met with [the studio] for the first time, I told them I wanted to make this film in French," said Jeunet. " 'No problem,' they said. 'French production crew,' I asked. 'No problem.' 'And I want to put your script in the garbage because it's no good.' 'No problem.' "
Jeunet even got the right to make the final cut, no small achievement when working with an American studio.
The story of "A Very Long Engagement" begins shortly after the Great War ends. A young French woman, Mathilde (played by the alternately devious and melancholy Audrey Tautou, the lead actress of "Amelie"), learns that her fiance, Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), was one of five court-martialed soldiers pushed into the no-man's land between the French and German lines. Narrated in the postwar "present" of the 1920s with flashbacks to the trench battles, the film follows the determined Mathilde as she tracks down every person who might know if Manech survived the war.
In the book, much of Mathilde's investigation takes the form of letters, so Jeunet and his screenwriter, Guillaume Laurant, had to transform them into on-screen action.
"This book was the only one I was interested in adapting," said Jeunet. "I dismantled [it] on the table. It was a huge job, but I'm not afraid of work." Sadly, author Japrisot died a week before the script was finished.
Jeunet insisted the film wouldn't have happened without Tautou. "I didn't choose her. She chose me. If [Tautou] had refused the film, I would not have done it."
With Tautou on board, Jeunet then filled out the cast with many of the unconventional-looking faces that have graced his other films, including Dominique Pinon, Ticky Holgado, and Jean-Claude and Michel Chalmeau. He even landed Jodie Foster for a small but crucial role as one of the five soldiers' wives. When Foster expressed interest in working with Jeunet, he said he gave her the choice between a large and a small part, and she chose the latter. Foster turned in one of the film's most poignant performances.
Tautou's participation may invite comparison to "Amelie," but "A Very Long Engagement" is a more traditional cinematic experience. Its romantic arc is recognizable, as are the "woman against the odds" and "power of hope" themes. Even the orchestral score, by longtime David Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti ("Twin Peaks," "Mulholland Drive"), strikes a familiar chord.
Yet viewers whose knowledge of Jeunet's work dates back to "Delicatessen" (1992) and "The City of Lost Children" (1995), or even his earlier animated short films, will still find the filmmaker's trademarks in evidence: kinetic camera work, lightning-quick flash-forwards and flashbacks, complex compositions and unexpected flickers of archival footage. His fearless eye for detail grabs the viewer's attention: a broken crucifix poking from a ruined chapel, a horse hanging from a tree, a woman erasing a bistro chalkboard to reveal a clue.
"I wanted just to show the small parts. I didn't want to show too much blood and violence like in 'Saving Private Ryan,' " Jeunet said, going on to explain the cinematic aesthetic of maximizing visual pleasure he absorbed from Walt Disney and French director Marcel Carn (director of "Children of Paradise," among other classics). "There must be one idea per scene, ideally one idea per shot. [Carn and I] both come from working families and know the price of a movie ticket. We give the audience what they deserve."
Compared to the modest $14 million budget for "Amelie," a whopping $58 million was needed to stage the more spectacular thrills of "A Very Long Engagement." But Jeunet had already made a film with a Hollywood-blockbuster-size budget, 1997's "Alien: Resurrection," which cost $70 million to make, so he drew on that experience to tackle the new film's extra-strewn battles and special-effects-laden sets. For its most elaborate sequence, workers took two months to build 650 feet of trenches into 50 acres of farmland for the grueling six-week "front lines" shoot.
Inspired by the color palette of "The Godfather" and, curiously, the work of Brazilian painter Juarez Machado, Jeunet had the idea to differentiate the bleak wartime scenes from later events in Paris and Brittany. This led to six painstaking weeks of postproduction digital color grading, explained cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who also shot "Amelie."
"All the sequences after the war had sunshine in them, and all were worked on the computer afterwards to give a sepia tone," said Delbonnel by telephone from Paris. "All the scenes in the trenches were overcast. I used a special film stock that was blue, and filters, to have a cold, blue look. Afterward I worked to give the earth a cold and gray look. The principle is to know what effect you want before you start working. Otherwise you can drive yourself crazy."
One of the film's delights is seeing Jeunet's version of 1920s-era Paris through Jeunet's nostalgia-tinged lens. Astounding visual effects re-create landmarks such as the Orsay train station and Garnier opera house as they existed 80 years ago. Even the city's legendary central food market, Les Halles, demolished in 1971, breathes again in the film.
The sumptuous imagery could leave Jeunet open to accusation of gimmickry, even bastardizing the past. "I was very concerned about the balance between reality and fantasy," said Jeunet. But he fervently believes an artist must bring his own vision to the story. "It isn't so interesting just to record reality. I love 'Erin Brockovich,' but I couldn't make this kind of film myself."
"Of course 'Amelie' was a miracle," Jeunet finally admitted. "['A Very Long Engagement'] is tougher. It's about war. You can do everything you want with 'Amelie.' It was a kind of poetry. For this one, [my goal] was to create a lost world. I wanted to show the war. It's so unknown, even in France. The last survivors are going to die. We want to know everything before it's too late."
Ethan
Gilsdorf can be reached at egilsdorf@yahoo.com. 
© Copyright
2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
Author: BY ETHAN GILSDORF Date: 12/12/2004 Page: N12 Section: Arts /Entertainment
When Academy Award season rolls around, don't look for "A Very Long Engagement"
in the best foreign film category. Nor will you find Jean-Pierre Jeunet's
new film up for competition at Cannes or eligible for best picture at France's
other big awards show, the Cesars.
The reason is a recent French court ruling, which is raising questions about
how "French" a French movie must be to be considered truly French.
Turns out, this has nothing to do with cigarettes or existential angst. The
court determined that "A Very Long Engagement" was not technically French
because its production company, 2003 Productions, was a stand-in for the US
studio Warner Bros.
"I'm still baffled as to how a film shot in France, with a French director,
cast, and crew, based on a French novel, in the French language, can still
be considered an American film," said Mark Gill, president of Warner International
Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., which is handling worldwide distribution
of the film. According to Gill, the suit was brought by small French studios
such as UGC, Gaumont, and Pathe (UGC was one of the backers of "Amelie").
The web of investors is hard to untangle, but several other French companies,
including Warner Bros. France, TF1 Films Production, Canal+, and the Centre
National de la Cinematographie were involved in financing the film.
The ruling suggests that financial ties, not citizenship of the director,
cast, or crew, determine a film's national origin. But that hasn't prevented
the new Oliver Stone film, "Alexander," shot in Morocco with a largely American
cast and crew, from being declared a French film, largely because Stone has
dual US-French citizenship.
" `Alexander' is considered French," Jeunet complained. "If [my film] isn't
French, I don't know what is." At stake was $4.8 million in French government
subsidies, for which Jeunet's film no longer qualifies.
"The main issue is that producers are afraid of American companies coming
to Europe," said cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, Jeunet's longtime collaborator.
"We forget that a film like `A Very Long Engagement' couldn't be produced
in France because it is too expensive." With a budget of $58 million, it would
be one of the biggest French productions in history except, apparently, it's
not French.
To add further irony, Gill said the film wasn't released early enough in its
"country of origin" in the academy's view, France to make the cutoff to qualify
for the best foreign film Oscar. Meanwhile, back in France, it can't compete
at Cannes because it was screened outside its country of origin er, France
before the festival.
So, scratching your head during the awards shows, remember: For the Oscars,
"A Very Long Engagement" may be on your ballot under "best picture." For the
French Cesars, look under "best foreign film."