Elevator to the Gallows Hsieh Tsai Shu Christy

Elevator to the Gallows Hsieh Tsai Shu (Christy)

Brief Information • Director: Louis Malle -Work in both French cinema and Hollywood -”The Silent World” wins Palme d’Or in 1956 and Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1957

• Actress: Jeanne Moreau played Carala "recognized as the prime stage actress of her generation. “ Moreau went on to work with many of the best known New Wave and avant-garde directors • Actor: Maurice Ronet played Tavernier Between 1955 and 1975 he appeared in over sixty films. He often portrayed characters who were in conflict with themselves or society.

• Production Co: Lux Compagnie Cinématographique de France • Released: 1958 • Runtime: 88 mins • Aspect Ration: 1. 66 : 1 • Music: Miles Davis (American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer) • adapted from a 1956 novel of the same name by Noël Calef

Lighting • Low-key lighting most of the time /make use of Paris night

The French Connection

Film Noir is not only American Style • American film noir: narrative patterns; characters labeled “noir” based on native ground • 2 sources for American film noir: - German expressionism - a homegrown school of hardboiled crime writing The French poetic realism of the 1930 s

Neo Noirs • New Wave directors remade previously uncelebrated American studio films • Contemporary noir (camera angles, light…) • American crime pictures serve only as a casual reference • 1930 s. poetic realism movement 1940 s. and 1950 s classicists 1960 s. the New Wave mavericks

France V. S. America Film Noir America France Style Embody the wounded spirited of prewar France Local and personal Human Desire Example Characters have predestined doom Noir is not a character’s unavoidable destiny

Godard Breathless • Allow his actors to talk to the spectators • He is not interested in telling a story; instead, he wants both to expose and to tease the mechanics of pulp and expectations of spectators • Location shooting and flat natural lighting instead of documentarylike realism • Restless camera movements • Existential more than narrative

Elevator to the Gallows: Louis Malle on the Ground Floor

About Lois Malle • François Truffaut once wrote, “All of Louis Malle, all his good qualities and faults, was in Elevator to the Gallows” • Louis’s other film never went anywhere near the genre again • Malle spent his filmmaking life saying, “Been there, done that”--searching for somewhere he hadn’t been and something he hadn’t done

Style Change in Louis Malle’s Movie • 1957, Elevators to the Gallows the chilly elegance it is the only Malle film designed purely as a genre exercise The new wave doesn’t quite get born in this film not of the future but at least modern • 1958, The Lovers humid romanticism • 1960, Zazie dans le métro frenetic zaniness

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