An American in Paris (1951)
Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
11 connections found
View:
11 connections, in both directions
What critics compared An American in Paris to
But does all the referencing and homage—and not just to Demy, but also to Golden Age Tinseltown productions like An American in Paris, jazz greats like Miles Davis, and even (in the film's funniest scene) the English new-wave band A Flock of Seagulls—add up to much of anything original?
Singin' in the Rain is saluted, An American in Paris is saluted.
Indeed, even if it had only lived up to the memory of all its many references it would be something special — Chazelle nods to the likes of “Top Hat,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” and “An American in Paris,” and more, after all.
Of the many inspirations for La La Land—Chazelle clearly knows his An American in Paris and his Annie Hall, too—none echo so loudly as Jacques Demy’s 1964 masterpiece , Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), as well as its lesser sibling, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.
The camerawork is cleverly evocative of “An American in Paris” and “Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”
And throughout “La La Land,“ there are references to many musicals, from the faux Paris dance finale of “An American in Paris” and the career trajectory melodrama of the 1954 version of “A Star is Born,” as well as the dream ballet from “Oklahoma” and the jazz club scenes from “Funny Face.”
Some viewers have compared her to Audrey Hepburn, but Tautou's Amelie is more like a slightly naughty, less inhibited descendant of the characters Leslie Caron played in "An American in Paris" and "Lili."
Of course this is not a realistic modern Paris, and some critics have sniffed about that, too: It is clean, orderly, safe, colorful, has no social problems, and is peopled entirely by citizens who look like extras from " An American in Paris ."
Michael Pitt plays the American in Paris who comes into their lives, much like Gene Kelly did in, you know, "An American in Paris", or more aptly, like the then not-so-morbidly obese Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris".
But there’s only one Greta Gerwig and if any director could convince a major studio to fork over a truckload of cash and disguise a movie based on the world’s most instantly recognizable doll as a thoughtful (and rollicking) meditation on gender norms, what it means to be a human, and fragile masculinity while also doubling as an homage to “An American in Paris” and “Singin’ in the Rain” (complete with dream ballets!) it would be her.
A detailed morning routine is often the perfect introduction to a character (e.g., Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread or Jerry Mulligan in An American in Paris ), and Barbie is no exception.
Advertisement
The film's visuals are so marvelous that they evoke the depth and lush colors of "An American in Paris."
Jordan Peele’s NOPE opens with a chimpanzee wearing one of those outfits that barely contained Gene Kelly’s biceps in An American in Paris (1951).
(Sadly, this is what we get instead of An American in Paris.)
That doubled feeling, the Michel-Patricia love-hate paradox, has been the subject of several, even epochal films—from Vincente Minnelli's 1951 An American in Paris to Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 Last Tango in Paris .
Advertisement
Kaufman stages an entire dream ballet, the abstract style of dance sequence popular in classic movie musicals like An American in Paris and Oklahoma!, in the halls of the school, and while it’s beautiful to watch, it seems only tenuously connected to the story.
The final sequence—which features a dream ballet that made me long for An American in Paris ; also has a scene where Plemons sings a show tune from Oklahoma! ; and another with an animated pig prancing down a hallway—takes place in Jake’s former high school.
Without reinterpreting the novel, Kaufman abstracts its revelations, productively scrambling a “twist” into something funnier, sadder, and more touching: a requiem of pure expressive irresolution, like the final minutes of An American In Paris (a film that the musical-loving Jake would surely count among his tossed-off, amusingly lengthy list of favorites).
It is a pity the title An American in Paris had already been taken because it would have suited Midnight in Paris, a film about American writer Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) who is seduced by the French capital while visiting with his fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams).