Florence e Julien decidem matar Simon, o marido de Florence. O crime deve parecer suicídio. Como é tarde, o vigia corta a eletricidade: Julien fica preso no elevador. Enquanto isso, dois jov... Ler tudoFlorence e Julien decidem matar Simon, o marido de Florence. O crime deve parecer suicídio. Como é tarde, o vigia corta a eletricidade: Julien fica preso no elevador. Enquanto isso, dois jovens roubam o carro de Julien.Florence e Julien decidem matar Simon, o marido de Florence. O crime deve parecer suicídio. Como é tarde, o vigia corta a eletricidade: Julien fica preso no elevador. Enquanto isso, dois jovens roubam o carro de Julien.
- Direção
- Roteiristas
- Artistas
- Prêmios
- 1 vitória no total
Avaliações em destaque
Jeanne Moreau is the perfect pouty French femme fatale. Her scenes of walking (wandering) the dark, rainy streets of Paris are chilling to watch for film lovers. The weak lighting and lack of make-up allow Moreau's true emotions to guide us. Malle also is tremendous in his filming of the elevator scenes with Maurice Ronet.
The secondary characters of the young lovers played by Yori Bertin (Veronique) and George Poujouly (Louis) are unmistakable in their likeness to Natalie Wood and James Dean. Watching two young kids carelessly destroy their own lives, as well as that of others, is quite the contrast to the well-conceived scheme of Moreau and Ronet.
I have not been able to come up with an apt description of the powerfully improvised jazz score from the legendary Miles Davis. The approach has been mimicked over the years, but never duplicated. It is startling in its ability to slap the viewer in the face! Moreau is of course a screen legend and went on to star in "Jules and Jim", Truffaut's "The Four Hundred Blows" and my personal favorite, "The Bride Wore Black". As great as she was in all of these, I am not sure her essence was ever better captured than her wandering through the Paris streets in "Elevator to the Gallows".
The labyrinth story focuses first on illicit lovers Florence Carala, the restless wife of a corrupt arms dealer, and Julien Tavernier, a former war hero working for Florence's husband. There is not a wasted moment as they plot her husband's murder, but of course, things go awry with a forgotten piece of evidence and a running car ready to be taken. An amoral young couple, sullen and resentful Louis and free-spirited Veronique, enter the scene tangentially and get caught up in their own deceptions with a boisterous German couple whom they meet through a fender bender. The plot strands meander somewhat and eventually come together in a climax that has all the characters confronting the harsh reality of their past actions. There is a particular poignancy in the photos Florence sees at the end since we have no indication of the depth of emotion between the lovers otherwise.
Malle, along with co-screenwriter Roger Nimier, presents an interesting puzzle full of irony and chance events, but there is a periodic slackness to the suspense, for instance, Florence's endlessly despondent walk though nocturnal Paris. Jazz great Miles Davis contributes a fitting hipster score, though the music is not as big an element as I expected in setting the mood. With her sorrowful eyes and pouting intelligence, Jeanne Moreau makes a vivid impression as Florence and gives her obsessed character the necessary gravitas to make her journey worthy of our interest. Maurice Ronet effectively plays Julien like a coiled spring throughout, and it's intriguing to note how most of his performance takes place in an immobilized elevator. As Louis and Veronique, Georges Poujuloy and the especially pixyish Yori Bertin are the forerunners for the runaway pair in Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" replete with youthful angst and mercenary cool.
The print transfer on the 2006 Criterion Collection DVD package is wonderfully pristine. The first disc also contains the original and 2005 re-release trailers, though there is surprisingly no scholarly audio commentary track (the usual bonus for a Criterion release). The second disc, however, makes up for it with a bevy of extras starting with an extensive 1975 early career retrospective interview with Malle, a 2005 interview with an aged but still haunting Moreau, and a joint interview with the two icons and one-time lovers at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
Three shorts on the second disc focus on Davis's contribution - the six-minute "The Record Session" shot the night Davis and his musicians recorded the score; a remembrance piece with pianist Rene Utreger, the only surviving member of Davis's ensemble; and the celebratory "Miles Goes Modal: The Breakthrough Score to Elevator to the Gallows" where jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis and music critic Gary Giddins discuss Davis's influence over the generation of musicians to come. There is also a short by Malle set to Charlie Parker's "Crazeology" and an informative 25-page photo essay booklet.
Malle pays tribute to the tense murder style of Hitchcock with Billy Wilder's cynicism of selfishness a la "Double Indemnity" plus Graham Greene-like, post-war politics from "The Third Man"-- and arms and oil dealers with military pasts in the Middle East are not outdated let alone adulterous lovers and rebellious teenagers.
The film drips with sex and violence without actually showing either -- sensuous Jeanne Moreau walking through a long, rainy Paris night is enough to incite both.
The black and white cinematography by Henri Decaë is breathtakingly beautiful in this newly struck 35 mm print, from smokey cafés with ever watchful eyes like ours to the titular, ironic alibi's long shafts (which surely must have inspired a key, far paler scene in "Speed") to highway lights, to a spare interrogation box, but particularly in the street scenes. The coincidences and clues are built up, step by step, visually, including the final damning evidence.
Miles Davis's improvisations gloriously and agitatedly burst forth as if pouring from the cafés and radios, but the bulk of the film is startlingly silent, except for ambient sounds like rain that adds to the tension in the plot.
The characters are archetypes -- the steely ex-Legonnaire, the James Dean and Natalie Wood imitators, the preening prosecutor -- that fit together in a marvelous puzzle. But all are cool besides Moreau's fire, as she dominates the look of the film, just wandering around Paris.
There is some dialog that doesn't quite make sense at the end, but, heck, neither does "The Big Sleep" and this is at least in that league, if not higher in the pantheon.
The trouble is the material itself is better suited to Hollywood B-movie techniques. In short, the material is jagged, while Malle's style is smooth, resulting unfortunately in a thriller drained of inherent drama. Note, for example, the elevator sequence, a predicament fairly bursting with suspenseful potential. Yet Malle's style does little to heighten the implicit desperation and even cuts away (though smoothly) from the mounting tension. To be fair, Ronet (Tavernier) adds nothing by remaining impassive throughout. (Perhaps paratroopers never sweat.) Thus the movie's dramatic centerpiece flattens out into just one more event among many.
Then there are the various misadventures of the free-spirited kids. They look cuddly, but remain amoral cyphers throughout, their double homicide coming across again as just one more event, no more important than Florence's (Moreau) dispirited walk up the avenue. In fact, the one time Malle highlights with his camera is that lengthy trudge through Paris, a director clearly fascinated by Moreau's distinctive appearance. Again, the style is smooth and polished, but also highly impersonal and homogenizing. I kept wishing one of Hollywood's noir masters like Nicholas Ray or Billy Wilder had gotten hold of the material first.
No need to go on apart from Malle about a sloppy script with its number of plot holes helpfully cited by other reviewers, or about overlooked details like a bullet to the head that raises no blood. All in all, I wonder how many folks would celebrate the film if it were not from France with Malle's name on it. Apart from its influence on French cinema, the movie does not wear well over time. Moreover, given the style he shows here, it's no surprise to me that Malle's breakthrough movie would be titled The Lovers rather than this over-civilized slice of thick ear.
Você sabia?
- CuriosidadesMiles Davis recorded the music in a single recording session while he watched a screening. He composed it while watching a rough cut and then invited a quartet of French and US musicians in a for few hours (from 11pm to 5am one night), improvising each number and allegedly sipping champagne with Jeanne Moreau and Louis Malle.
- Erros de gravaçãoWhen Florence arrives at the motel, the photos are just being developed - with the lights on! Exposing the prints to light before fixation would make them turn black. By the way, it's not recommended to put your hands into developer.
- Citações
Julien Tavernier: Don't sneer at war. It's your bread and butter. Indochina netted you how much? And now Algeria. Have some respect for war. It's your family heirloom.
- Trilhas sonorasAscenseur Pour L'Échafaud (Générique)
Composed by Miles Davis
Performed by Miles Davis (Trumpet), Barney Wilen (Tenor Saxophone), Emilhenco (as René Urtreger) (Piano), Pierre Michelot (Bass) and Kenny Clarke (Drums)
Principais escolhas
- How long is Elevator to the Gallows?Fornecido pela Alexa
Detalhes
- Data de lançamento
- País de origem
- Centrais de atendimento oficiais
- Idiomas
- Também conhecido como
- Elevator to the Gallows
- Locações de filme
- 26 Rue de Courcelles, Paris 8, Paris, França(Tavernier climbing on the upper terrace)
- Empresa de produção
- Consulte mais créditos da empresa na IMDbPro
Bilheteria
- Faturamento bruto nos EUA e Canadá
- US$ 374.671
- Fim de semana de estreia nos EUA e Canadá
- US$ 7.354
- 26 de jun. de 2005
- Faturamento bruto mundial
- US$ 431.784
- Tempo de duração
- 1 h 31 min(91 min)
- Cor
- Proporção
- 1.66 : 1