Le dernier metro
France
, 130 min
Shown in 1980
CREDITS
- dir
-
François Truffaut
- scr
-
François Truffaut, Suzanne Schiffman
- cam
-
Nestor Almendros
- mus
-
Georges Delerue
- cast
-
Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Jean Poiret, Andrea Ferreol, Jean-Louis Richard, Sabine Haudepin, Paulette Dubost
- prod co
-
Gaumont
-
COMMENTS
François Truffaut and Catherine Deneuve attended October 19, 1980 at the Palace of Fine Arts.
OTHER
An engrossing adventure, a love story, a dream-reverie all at once, Truffaut's most recent film is set in the milieu of the French theater, during the German Occupation of Paris. Lucas Steiner, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, is forced into exile once more when France is invaded. His wife, Marion, takes over the management of their prestigious theater company and, for the duration, finds that her job has as much to do with the atmosphere of suspicion and intrigue of Occupation, as with schedules, budgets and rehearsals. The company's leading man (and ladies' man) seems to be a double-agent; the costume designer has an intense, unexplained hatred for him; the leading Parisian theater critic is pro-Nazi and the chosen director is outspoken in his anti-Nazi opinions. Marion's unexplained disappearances every evening also adds to the secretive atmosphere of the theater activities and, soon, these characters and elliptical interludes move toward an alarming climax, very unexpected. The exuberance of the theater, caught between the invisible walls of Naziism, is an absorbing background, indeed, and not since Renoir's drama Carola has a French artist paid such loving attention to the interaction of thespians in love and civilian war. The acting is superb, with Catherine Deneuve etching with glacial grace the finer mannerisms of a feminine Guitry and the subtle hauteurs of a feline Jouvet.
—Albert Johnson
FACTOID #111
Both parents of TV star Mariska Hargitay attended the Festival, but not at the same time. Actress Jayne Mansfield attended in 1966 on a lark, and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay attended in 1989, having appeared as himself in György Szomjas’s film Mr. Universe.
