The Last Metro
Film poster
Directed byFrançois Truffaut
Written byFrançois Truffaut
Suzanne Schiffman
Jean-Claude Grumberg
Produced byFrançois Truffaut
Jean-José Richer
StarringCatherine Deneuve
Gérard Depardieu
Jean Poiret
CinematographyNéstor Almendros
Edited byMartine Barraqué
Music byGeorges Delerue
Production
companies
Les Films du Carrosse
Andrea Films
SEDIF
SFP
TF1 Films Production
Distributed byGaumont
Release date
  • 17 September 1980 (1980-09-17)
Running time
131 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
Box office$23.3 million[1][2]
3,393,694 admissions (France)[3]

The Last Metro (French: Le Dernier Métro) is a 1980 historical drama film, written and directed by François Truffaut, that stars Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.[4]

Opening in 1942, during the Nazi Military Administration in France, the film follows the fortunes of a small theatre in the Montmartre quarter of Paris which keeps up passive resistance by maintaining its cultural integrity, despite censorship, antisemitism and material shortages, to emerge triumphant at the war's end.[5] The title evokes two salient facts of city life under the Germans: fuel shortages led people to spend their evenings in theatres and other places of entertainment, but the curfew meant they had to catch the last Métro train home.

In 1981, the film won 10 Césars for: best film, best actor (Depardieu), best actress (Deneuve), best cinematography, best director (Truffaut), best editing, best music, best production design, best sound and best writing.[4][6] It received Best Foreign Film nominations in the Academy Awards[7] and Golden Globe Awards.[8]

The Last Metro was one of Truffaut's more successful productions, grossing $3,007,436 in the United States; this was also true in France, where it had 3,384,045 admissions, making it one of his more successful films in his native country.[1]

Plot

On his way to begin rehearsals at the Théâtre Montmartre, where he has secured the role of male lead for an upcoming production, young Bernard Granger finds himself repeatedly rebuffed by a woman he attempts to flirt with on the street. Upon arriving at the theater, he discovers that the woman is actually the production designer, Arlette, who happens to be a lesbian. Bernard is then introduced to Marion, the owner of the theatre and its leading lady. Marion's Jewish husband, Lucas, serves as the theater's director, believed to have fled Paris; however, he is clandestinely hiding in the theater's cellar. Marion secretly releases him each evening, providing meals and materials for future productions. Their evenings are spent in the empty theater, where they engage in passionate discussions about the current production and make plans for Lucas to escape the country. However, Marion soon becomes infatuated with the oblivious Bernard, whom Lucas only knows from a headshot and snippets of conversation overheard through a rigged heating vent.

Unbeknownst to anyone at the theater, Bernard is a member of the Resistance group responsible for delivering the bomb that killed a German admiral.

The opening night of the production sees a full house, but a scathing review in a newspaper the following morning condemns the show as being "Jewish." The anti-Semitic writer behind the review aims to oust Marion and take control of her theater. While the cast and crew celebrate their initial success at a nightclub, the same writer, at another gathering, falsely accuses Bernard of insulting Marion, leading to a physical altercation in the street. On another occasion, two Gestapo agents, disguised as air raid wardens, conduct a search of the theater, prompting Marion to turn to Bernard in desperation for help in concealing Lucas and his belongings.

Following the arrest of Bernard's Resistance contact during a Gestapo raid, Bernard resolves to devote his life to the Resistance cause and abandon acting. As he prepares to leave his dressing room for the last time, Marion enters to bid him farewell, and the two share a passionate encounter on the floor.

After the war ends, Bernard returns to the theater to star in a new play written by Lucas during his time in hiding. On opening night, Marion, who plays the female lead, expresses her desire to share her life with Bernard, but he confesses that he never truly loved her. As the curtain falls, Bernard, Marion, and Lucas stand hand-in-hand to receive the applause of the audience.

Cast

Production

Truffaut had wanted to create a film set during the French occupation period for a long time, as his uncle and grandfather were both part of the French Resistance, and were once caught while passing messages. This event was eventually recreated in The Last Metro.[10] Truffaut was inspired by the actor Jean Marais’s autobiography, basing the film on this and other documents by theatre people from during the occupation.[11]

This film was one installment - dealing with theatre - of a trilogy on the entertainment world envisaged by Truffaut.[12] The installment that dealt with the film world was 1973's La Nuit américaine (Day for Night),[12] which had won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Truffaut completed the screenplay for the third installment, L'Agence magique, which would have dealt with the world of music hall.[12] In the late 1970s, he was close to beginning filming, but the failure of his film The Green Room forced him to look to a more commercial project, and he filmed Love on the Run instead.

Truffaut began casting in September 1979, and wrote the role of Marion especially with Catherine Deneuve in mind, for her energy.[13] Gérard Depardieu initially did not want to be involved in the film, as he did not like Truffaut’s directing style, but he was subsequently convinced that he should take part.[14]

Most of the filming took place in an abandoned chocolate factory on Rue du Landy in Clichy, which was converted into a studio. During shooting Deneuve suffered an ankle sprain from a fall, resulting in having to shoot scenes at short notice. Scriptwriter Suzanne Schiffman was also hospitalised with a serious intestinal obstruction.[15] The film shoot lasted fifty-nine days and ended on 21 April 1980.[16]

Themes

A recurring theme in Truffaut’s films has been linking film-making and film-watching.[17] The Last Metro is self-conscious in this respect. In the opening the film mixes documentary footage with period re-creations alongside shots of contemporary film posters.[18]

Truffaut commented: “this film is not concerned merely with anti-semitism but intolerance in general” and a tolerance is shown through the characters of Jean Poiret playing a homosexual director and Andrea Ferreol playing a lesbian designer.[19]

As in Truffaut's earlier films Jules et Jim and Two English Girls, there is a love triangle between the three principal characters: Marion Steiner (Deneuve), her husband Lucas (Heinz Bennent) and Bernard Granger (Depardieu), an actor in the theatre's latest production.[4]

Reception

Box office

The film recorded admissions in France of 3,384,045.[20]

Critical response

The Last Metro has an approval rating of 88% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 24 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10.[21]

Awards and nominations

See also

References

  1. ^ a b JP. "Le Dernier métro (1980)- JPBox-Office". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  2. ^ "The Last Metro (1981) - Box Office Mojo". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  3. ^ Box Office information for Francois Truffaut films at Box Office Story
  4. ^ a b c Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier (2002). French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. Continuum. pp. 314–315. ISBN 978-0-8264-1600-1.
  5. ^ Holmes, Diana; Ingram, Robert (1998). François Truffaut. Manchester: Manchester university press. p. 18. ISBN 0-7190-4554-1.
  6. ^ "Palmares". Académie des César. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
  7. ^ "The 53rd Academy Awards (1981) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2013-06-08.
  8. ^ "Golden Globes, USA: 1981". IMDB. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
  9. ^ Allen, Don. Finally Truffaut. New York: Beaufort Books. 1985. ISBN 0-8253-0335-4. OCLC 12613514. pp. 238–239.
  10. ^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
  11. ^ Insdorf, Annette (9 February 1981). "How Truffaut's 'The Last Metro' Reflects Occupied Paris". The New York Times.
  12. ^ a b c Higgins, Lynn A. (1998). New Novel, New Wave, New Politics. University of Nebraska Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-8032-7309-2.
  13. ^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 353. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
  14. ^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 354. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
  15. ^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
  16. ^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 357. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
  17. ^ Insdorf, Annette (1994). François Truffaut (Rev. and updated ed.). Cambridge u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47808-3.
  18. ^ White, Armond. "Truffaut's Changing Times: The Last Metro". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
  19. ^ Insdorf, Annette. "How Truffaut's 'The Last Metro' Reflects Occupied Paris". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
  20. ^ Catherine Deneuve box office information at Box Office Story
  21. ^ "The Last Metro". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  22. ^ "1981 Award Winners". National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.

External links

François Truffaut
César Award for Best Film
French submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
Authority control databases
Categories