The French DVD of Paris Je Taime is out (alas no English subtitles) and awesome You Know, For Kids! reader “Junior” has taken the time to email in a little write up and also some screen grabs from the making of documentary. Below is his write up verbatim;
“The Coen Brothers “making of” is VERY revealing (more than any other Coen
DVD so far) just short of a step by step process on the shooting of the
short, as the brothers explain why they made certain choices–even why they
chose to shoot in a subway–the initial story was going to be a cowboy from
Texas who visits Paris for the first time but then they thought it might
rain during shooting and they only had 2 or 3 days to film hence they
thought up the “subway” story. They thought it was great that the only parts
of Paris that you see beyond the subway is in the Tour Guide Book that
Buscemi has.
We even see the stunt reherasals and Joel & Ethan making decisions on the
set as they shoot the short. I have never seen them as more “human” than in
this documentary. They laugh, get excited and you see how they figure
things out as they shoot–of course this is easier because they have
pre-planned every detail in advance.
Steve Buscemi is also interviewed. One funny quote is when Joel Coen says
he and Ethan were discussing working with Steve Buscemi and how he gets
beaten up or killed when he appears in their films. They also said the
older he gets, the more Buscemi looks like Buster Keaton to them.
They also interview the cinematagrpher, Bruno Delbonnel (who shot Amelie, A
Very Long Engageent & Jean-Pierre Jeunet short films–ironic because Jeunet
is a huge Coen fan and even “borrowed” a shot from the Coen’s Barton Fink
for his film Delicatessen–but I digress). I thought I had recognized some
of the tricky camera moves, the look of the film, etc–it’s very Amelie!
Other crew members and the actors are interviewed as well but those,
including Bruno’s are all in French and w/o subtitles so I’ll have to wait
until a proper subtitled version comes out.
One thing that I didn’t need to understand French to learn is when everyone
comments in French and with hand gestures how Joel and Ethan are like “one’
person.
Joel comments that they have the ability to each go off and do different
things while filming but that doesn’t necessarily translate as more
efficiency–it’s just easier on them. Ethan adds, they both wear different
underwear, LOL!
Joel goes on to say in the U.S. That they have worked with the same crew for
20 years but for this they worked with all new people and they had no idea
what they were getting into but everything was so calm and smooth. Joel
says this is really unusual because Ethan is a real chair thrower on the set
and like to yell at people because of a lack of sleep and that he, Joel must
have been drugged before making this movie because he was not aware of any
problems this time–wink, wink. They actually credit Bruno DelBonnel and
the French crew with making it such an easy and enjoyable shoot. You get a
sense from all the French crew and Actors that they are the biggest Coen
Brothers fans.“
Now for the great screen grabs. In the structure of my site, I’m not sure where to pop these yet so please just click them here for now;
Image 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30.
A massive, huge thanks to “Junior” for taking the time to do this for the greater good of us Coen bro fans. Thanks!
