Spoiler alert: this film contains early jump cuts or pre-Godard jump cuts. No, Godard didn't invent these. His friend Jean-Pierre Melville who suggested the cuts to him must have seen this film.
People tend to sleep a lot when stressed out, that's a fact, so whoever wrote this, knew it. Our leading man here is a sleepy head, wonderfully dorky, daydreaming his life away. At night, the women he meets every day become his sweethearts and he becomes a famous composer. In real life, he's waiting for a response from The Paris Opera and the uncertainty is killing him. He has written an opera for them. While waiting, he exchanges reality for fantasy - a coping strategy that makes the artist look even more awkward to the small town folk that surround him. Gerard Philipe, a brilliant comedian, plays the fool with great gusto. Laughing at himself, like Marilyn Monroe. They both had the same sense of comedy. What makes this film still very fresh is that it was built like a dream. Everything's achieved by simply removing the pieces of scenography, changing the lights or jump cutting through scenes. Since dream sequences required time travel back to "the good old days", director Rene Clair simply makes jump cuts through history. Or even a car ride through the Stone Age. The humor is so bonkers, it precedes Monty Python's. The beauties of the night, apart from Gerard Philipe who is himself a beautiful sight to behold, are some of the most beautiful French actresses, with Italian Gina Lollobrigida being the most famous of them. She and Gerard shared the screen that same year in Fanfan La Tulipe and both films were a success. However, as our hero's reality becomes more stable - friends start to show up and offer help, there's even a girl who truly likes him, his dreams turn to nightmares and he's done dreaming - again an accurate occurrence. We tend to sleep less and become more active when life is good. The best time is now. Sometimes the people we meet in our dreams walk straight into our reality. I'm not sure that's a science fact, but it is a fact in my case. This film made by the dreamers jump cuts straight to the future dreamers. That's the power of film we lack today. Maybe we should make them the way they were made back in the good old days. Now.
People tend to sleep a lot when stressed out, that's a fact, so whoever wrote this, knew it. Our leading man here is a sleepy head, wonderfully dorky, daydreaming his life away. At night, the women he meets every day become his sweethearts and he becomes a famous composer. In real life, he's waiting for a response from The Paris Opera and the uncertainty is killing him. He has written an opera for them. While waiting, he exchanges reality for fantasy - a coping strategy that makes the artist look even more awkward to the small town folk that surround him. Gerard Philipe, a brilliant comedian, plays the fool with great gusto. Laughing at himself, like Marilyn Monroe. They both had the same sense of comedy. What makes this film still very fresh is that it was built like a dream. Everything's achieved by simply removing the pieces of scenography, changing the lights or jump cutting through scenes. Since dream sequences required time travel back to "the good old days", director Rene Clair simply makes jump cuts through history. Or even a car ride through the Stone Age. The humor is so bonkers, it precedes Monty Python's. The beauties of the night, apart from Gerard Philipe who is himself a beautiful sight to behold, are some of the most beautiful French actresses, with Italian Gina Lollobrigida being the most famous of them. She and Gerard shared the screen that same year in Fanfan La Tulipe and both films were a success. However, as our hero's reality becomes more stable - friends start to show up and offer help, there's even a girl who truly likes him, his dreams turn to nightmares and he's done dreaming - again an accurate occurrence. We tend to sleep less and become more active when life is good. The best time is now. Sometimes the people we meet in our dreams walk straight into our reality. I'm not sure that's a science fact, but it is a fact in my case. This film made by the dreamers jump cuts straight to the future dreamers. That's the power of film we lack today. Maybe we should make them the way they were made back in the good old days. Now.