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French Cancan, 1955
Henri (Jean Gabin) is a down on his luck theater producer running a bankrupt cafe. One day he gets an inspiration to revive the tradition of the French cancan, and he also stumbles on a young laundress, Nini (Francoise Arnoul), whose star quality he hopes to use to add youthful energy to his new show. But a series of romantic entanglements and jealousies threatens the success of the show.
This is one of Ebert's Great Movies, and it is one of Takoma's Meh Movies.
I usually don't read other reviews before writing my own, out of fear of being unduly influenced. But in this case I just had to know why someone loved this movie. And while I certainly saw and liked everything that Ebert did, it did not thrill me and nor did it overcome the elements of the film that I didn't care for.
To begin with the positives, the film has a vibrant, painterly quality in both the color and the framing of various sequences. It looks great and has a sort of unabashed artificiality that makes everything feel like a stage within a stage within a stage. This style creates a lightness and levity to the different scenes and allows the film to flow from one part to the next. The various characters are also well-acted and distinct, from Henri's strong-willed lover, Lola (Maria Felix) to Nini's jealous boyfriend Paolo (Franco Pastorino), to Nina's wealthy suitor Alexandre (Giani Esposito). A really fun character is the older woman, and former cancan dancer, who is brought in to train the new squad of cancan dancers.
The comedy that I enjoyed the most in the film was actually the non-verbal stuff, such as a sequence in rehearsal where Nina is kicking with the opposite leg to the other dancers, finally collapsing in exhaustion when they make it to the end of the number. Or a scene in which several characters wait in a hallway to hear the outcome of a man who has been injured and the scale of the hallway (speaking to the man's wealth) seems to engulf the characters.
As for what I didn't love, it came down to two things.
The first was the romance between Henri and Nini. Just . . . no. He is in his 50s (but the character felt a bit older to me) and she is in her early 20s (but the character felt a bit younger to me). It looked like a man making out with his granddaughter. And the fact that she is clearly treating it as a serious relationship while he simply regards her as the latest on a long list gives the sense that he is taking advantage. The various jealousies that ensue from their relationship are largely directed at Nini instead of at Henri, and that also feels kind of yuck. There's a scene later when Henri gives Nini a big speech about exactly why he doesn't care about her as a person, and while it's supposed to be this neat expression of the pure love of art/theater, it seems to ignore the fact that he knew full well the effect he was having on Nini and many other people. It's one thing to have a pure passion for theater that eclipses love/passion for anything/anyone else, but quite another to treat people poorly and then excuse it with such a stance. I wish the film had confined the relationship between them to mentor/mentee and let the consequences of her performing ripple into the two relationships she already has in her life.
Setting the romance aside, I was also hoping for more spectacle. There were a few scenes that I enjoyed, and the final cancan performance probably looks totally fantastic on the big screen. But this film never grabbed me. And it doesn't help that the final performance follows that speech from Henri that I felt was so insensitive and off-putting. There's this whole subgenre about (often women) artists/dancers who are treated like total crap by male mentors, but it makes them great!!! And I feel perpetually unmoved by these stories. Especially when it doesn't feel like the artist actually is able to consider their own choices because their heads have been so messed with by the time they get to that decision point.
It had its charms, but there are half a dozen dancing/musicals I'd watch again before this one.
French Cancan, 1955
Henri (Jean Gabin) is a down on his luck theater producer running a bankrupt cafe. One day he gets an inspiration to revive the tradition of the French cancan, and he also stumbles on a young laundress, Nini (Francoise Arnoul), whose star quality he hopes to use to add youthful energy to his new show. But a series of romantic entanglements and jealousies threatens the success of the show.
This is one of Ebert's Great Movies, and it is one of Takoma's Meh Movies.
I usually don't read other reviews before writing my own, out of fear of being unduly influenced. But in this case I just had to know why someone loved this movie. And while I certainly saw and liked everything that Ebert did, it did not thrill me and nor did it overcome the elements of the film that I didn't care for.
To begin with the positives, the film has a vibrant, painterly quality in both the color and the framing of various sequences. It looks great and has a sort of unabashed artificiality that makes everything feel like a stage within a stage within a stage. This style creates a lightness and levity to the different scenes and allows the film to flow from one part to the next. The various characters are also well-acted and distinct, from Henri's strong-willed lover, Lola (Maria Felix) to Nini's jealous boyfriend Paolo (Franco Pastorino), to Nina's wealthy suitor Alexandre (Giani Esposito). A really fun character is the older woman, and former cancan dancer, who is brought in to train the new squad of cancan dancers.
The comedy that I enjoyed the most in the film was actually the non-verbal stuff, such as a sequence in rehearsal where Nina is kicking with the opposite leg to the other dancers, finally collapsing in exhaustion when they make it to the end of the number. Or a scene in which several characters wait in a hallway to hear the outcome of a man who has been injured and the scale of the hallway (speaking to the man's wealth) seems to engulf the characters.
As for what I didn't love, it came down to two things.
The first was the romance between Henri and Nini. Just . . . no. He is in his 50s (but the character felt a bit older to me) and she is in her early 20s (but the character felt a bit younger to me). It looked like a man making out with his granddaughter. And the fact that she is clearly treating it as a serious relationship while he simply regards her as the latest on a long list gives the sense that he is taking advantage. The various jealousies that ensue from their relationship are largely directed at Nini instead of at Henri, and that also feels kind of yuck. There's a scene later when Henri gives Nini a big speech about exactly why he doesn't care about her as a person, and while it's supposed to be this neat expression of the pure love of art/theater, it seems to ignore the fact that he knew full well the effect he was having on Nini and many other people. It's one thing to have a pure passion for theater that eclipses love/passion for anything/anyone else, but quite another to treat people poorly and then excuse it with such a stance. I wish the film had confined the relationship between them to mentor/mentee and let the consequences of her performing ripple into the two relationships she already has in her life.
Setting the romance aside, I was also hoping for more spectacle. There were a few scenes that I enjoyed, and the final cancan performance probably looks totally fantastic on the big screen. But this film never grabbed me. And it doesn't help that the final performance follows that speech from Henri that I felt was so insensitive and off-putting. There's this whole subgenre about (often women) artists/dancers who are treated like total crap by male mentors, but it makes them great!!! And I feel perpetually unmoved by these stories. Especially when it doesn't feel like the artist actually is able to consider their own choices because their heads have been so messed with by the time they get to that decision point.
It had its charms, but there are half a dozen dancing/musicals I'd watch again before this one.