WCBE 90.5 FM - The Films of Patrice Leconte: "Girl on the Bridge," "Man on the Train"

WCBE #190-FINAL
IT'S MOVIE TIME with John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE

Reviews: “Girl on the Bridge," "Man on the Train"
Taped: 4:00 pm, November 3, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, November 5, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org.

The Script:

Clay
In “Girl on the Bridge” French pop singer, Vanessa Paradis re-defines what it means to be erotic . . . .

John
"Man on the Train" is about French love between 2 heterosexual men . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
“It's Movie Time” in Mid-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe, featuring today, a post-election salute to French film director Patrice Leconte . . .

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

DeSando
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John (Lead In/Leconte Background)

Clay, let's celebrate a film winner this election week--Director Patrice Leconte, whose 1989 "Monsieur Hire" about a strange middle-aged voyeur first sparked my interest (This was before I met you and then understood "strange").

Clay

And that was before Dick Cheney.

John
In the 4 years of "It's Movie Time," he remains my favorite director next to Britain's Mike Leigh.

Clay (Lead in/Leconte Background)
Four years, and still counting, John, and of course, Leconte is high on my list too. From his recent release, “Intimate Strangers,” to his “Widow of St. Pierre,” “Man on the Train,” and “Girl on the Bridge,” you’ll not find many other directors who will so assuredly immerse you in the emotional realms of intimate pleasures.

John
Clay, the 1999 "Girl on the Bridge" is the most romantic film of our 4 years on this show. Starring Daniel Auteuil and pop-singer Vanessa Paradis, the film emphasizes that love is like lucky gambling, beginning with the good fortune of a middle aged Auteuil rescuing the beautiful but troubled Paradis from jumping off a Parisian bridge and luckily ending up saving himself.

Paradis is an unfortunate wanderer for love and Auteuil is a knife thrower who needs a model, and he doesn't know it, a lucky love. Luck is the dominant motif--it's lucky to be together in love like 2 halves of a $50 bill, and luckier still never having to say you're sorry about that love.

"Girl on the Bridge" is as romantic and symbolically sexual as any film I
have seen for our show.

Clay
Not bad, considering we’ve been on the air for 190 shows.

This is a stunningly beautiful black and white film, John, but of course, it was Italian filmmakers--like Fellini and Antonioni--who inspired director Leconte . The circus themes, the music, the pouty, elegant female stars are right out of “La Dolce Vita” and “La Notte.” That said, “Girl on the Bridge” holds its own right up there with these classics. The deep sighing sensuality of Paradis as she awaits each throw of the knife by Autueil couldn’t be more powerful. Here are two characters who need each other more than they know, and when they connect, it’s deeper than flesh will allow, for their connection is in their hearts and in their minds. This is a must see.

HIT CD: “MAN ON THE TRAIN,” ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER JOHN AND CLAY’S REVIEWS

John (“Man on the Train”)
Patrice Laconte’s “Man on the Train” was my favorite film at the 2002 Toronto film festival. It has characteristic French sensibility (friendship of 2 middle-aged men) and ironic world-weariness (a bank robbery is just a job)

Clay
We even got to hear him intro the film.

John
When Johnny Hallyday’s craggy-faced tough guy comes to a small French town, he is hospitably housed by Jean Rochefort’s eccentric retired teacher in his cluttered but warm family estate. Each man faces a defining Saturday: Rochefort a triple bypass operation and Hallyday a heist. Before the day is over, the two become friends, each longing to be like the other: teacher wants to be a cowboy gunslinger and outlaw wants to be a pipe-smoking professor.

Both men exit still dreaming the other’s life but content to accept the fate already decreed. If you like character studies in essentially a two-handed narrative, you’ll not get better than this.

MUSIC UP BRIEFLY, THEN UNDER AGAIN

Clay ("The Man on the Train")
DeSando, like the men in “Man on the Train,” I sometimes envy you your life of wine, women and song but I have come to accept the quiet fate my good fortune has decreed. Poetry and quiet reflection are quite enough for me.

And that’s why I’m drawn to the melancholy mood of Patrice Leconte’s “The Man on the Train.”

The click-clack sounds of the steel wheels on the tracks. The rumble and roar of the train passing through pitch-dark tunnels. The old weathered trench coat and black leather jacket worn by the third-rate hood who was heading for a showdown in a small out-of-the way French town.

No four-letter words used by the heist guy in this film. No laser warning systems to foil the intentions of a thief. Just a two-bit loner who falls in love with pianos. pipes, and & poetry.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

John
Clay, despite the current Francophobia I remain a lifetime Francophile partly because of the French genius for elevating love to Platonic heights. Patrice Leconte is one of my reasons for loving their love, their eternal compulsion to seek mates while Germans and American presidents have been bent on reducing their romance to rubble.

Perhaps that American blundering has unknowingly moved me to Russia with love.

I’m outta here

Clay

Well, John, you bond on with your Russian in love, and I’ll bond on with my family and friends. Even our friends in France, who right now, are listening our show as it streams on the web.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CD: "HITS OF THE 70'S" (CUT 8: "CHANSON D'AMOUR")
Richelle:

The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus 106.7 FM in Newark, WYSO, etc.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

Copyright 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe