Chapter 19 There is no "underground", only "underground": The last subway, 1980

There is no "underground", only "underground": The last subway, 1980 1. Bernard (Depardieu): You are so beautiful, it pains me to look at you. Marianne (Deneuve): But yesterday you said it was a pleasure. Bernard: It is joy, but also pain. This is the last dialogue in the drama "Dead Woman" performed by the male and female protagonists in "The Last Subway". These two lines appear repeatedly in the film.It is not only the confession of the love of the "people in the play", but also the revelation of the ambiguous relationship between the "movie characters" who play them, echoing both sides.In fact, this line of "pain and happiness" was already spoken by Belmondo and Deneuve in Truffaut's 1969 film "Marriage Deceit".That work of ambition "indicates that Truffaut has since left Hitchcock and returned to Jean Renoir, so the first half of the film is suspenseful, and the second half is innocent...".In "The Last Metro", Truffaut's ideas seem to have completely changed to Renoir's humanitarianism. He doesn't mention those painful war memories, but only talks about the good side of people, "Everyone has their own reason".Jiao Xiongping compared this film to "Traffaut's, Truffaut's "Decision of Life and Death".

"A Choice to Live and Die" is a work in which Lubitsch and the Nazis completely draw a line. "To Be or Not To Be" is also a movie with the theater as its background and environment.Truffaut unconsciously felt that he was influenced by "Lubitsch's brushwork" and tried his best to arrange this play within a play to be elegant and sensitive.The more specific details are that in Lubitsch's films, there are often humorous scenes of playing lullabies while eating, such as in "The Last Subway", and more obviously in the subsequent "The Flower on the Wall".

(In a short documentary in the MK2 appendix, Truffaut's love of Paris and reading is shown. He often hangs around second-hand bookstores, looking for books about Proust and Lubitsch.) 2. There are no subways in The Last Metro.Truffaut used the title of the film instead of the picture to point out the living conditions of people during the occupation of France - people hid in theaters or cinemas, escaping from reality and maintaining enthusiasm, but they had to catch the last subway before eleven o'clock in the evening. A curfew was imposed during the war, and those who wandered the streets at night had to be locked up for at least one night.In this movie, Truffaut never used pictures to deliberately exaggerate the social conditions at the time, such as air raids, black market transactions, and queuing up to buy necessities.But at the same time, some small allusions have not been missed: the resistance movement used gramophones to make bombs, the potato pests were popular at the time, and two fishing rods were used as a metaphor for Charles de Gaulle, etc.In this way, the entire historical background is embedded very appropriately and naturally.This must have benefited from Truffaut's very detailed research on the historical situation, and also benefited from his very strong literary accomplishment and his filming of it.

On the other hand, Truffaut turned the events in film history during the Japanese Occupation into plots in the film, which was mentioned in many film reviews.Most famously, the actor Jean Marais beat up the drama critic Alain Lambeks in defense of the poet director Jean Cocteau.In the film, this incident becomes an important passage to show the bravery and recklessness of Bernard's character. He beats the German critic Daksha in order to defend Marianne.In addition, Steiner, who is hiding underground, and the front-screen director who replaced him all have corresponding prototypes. The selection of character identities and the performance of the space environment in "The Last Metro" obviously downplay the unspeakable pain and embarrassment of the French for that period of history.The Jew in this movie is not an ordinary tailor, but a theater owner; there are no long-range shots of the city in this movie, but simple indoor and street scenes, with a "theater-like sense of envelopment."Truffaut is too eager to become another Renoir, and he tends to be too humane to all the characters, even if they compromise, cooperate, and even have ambiguous dealings with the Germans.As an Occupied film, like Tavernier's Passport in 2002, The Last Metro has received some political criticism.Tavernier believes that "anyone who has not lived in that era has no right to judge those who have come from that era when there was no utopia".Truffaut himself is obviously farther away from politics than Tavernier. He has always emphasized that he looks at the Occupation and the theater from the perspective of a child.He was ten years old.

In fact, Truffaut has always regretted not adding a wartime background to "The Four Hundred Blows". 3. In the appendix of the "Last Metro" DVD, there is an interview with Truffaut. He said that he was not satisfied with the script and felt that there was no character throughout.But the film is still "controlled" by Catherine Deneuve, who gives the film a mysterious, majestic, and gorgeous temperament.In fact, before making the film, Truffaut himself said that the film would fulfill his three dreams: first, to bring the camera to the backstage of the theater; second, to create the atmosphere of the occupied area; woman".It can be seen that Deneuve has a "natural" influence on this film.

Film critics say that Truffaut's screen has always been dominated by female images.When Jeanne Moreau appeared in Jules et Jim, Truffaut used several close-ups (eyes, nose, chin, forehead) and freeze-frame shots to carve her face onto the film.After "The Last Metro," Truffaut's new love interest, Fanny Ardan, starred in his last two films, "The Flower on the Wall" and "The Fierce Sunday."His camera almost "faithfully" followed her every move.Truffaut himself said that he felt very comfortable with women, as if he was one of them. Undoubtedly, Catherine Deneuve is the core of "The Last Metro", connecting love and art, lovers and husbands, dealing with interpersonal relationships in the entertainment industry during the Occupation.Truffaut depicts her with the most meticulous brushwork and expresses her with the most gorgeous lens.Depardieu said at the beginning of the commentary track of the DVD that the first time he met Truffaut, he said bluntly: Your movie is too bourgeois, and "The Four Hundred Blows" is really artificial; Truffaut replied: OK, I see.Depardieu, in turn, had to admit: he knew how to love.Of course, Truffaut also knows how to express love. Even if we accept Godard's various accusations and criticisms of his late works, we cannot deny that "he knows how to love".

He knows how to tease Deneuve's mysterious black veil, and then show an undercurrent of alluring love. 4. In Truffaut's shooting plan, "The Last Metro" is the second part of a trilogy, the first is "Day as Night"; the third is "The Magical Agency" (Themagical Agency), The dance hall will be described.Let's call it the "Unreal and Real" trilogy.In his university speech, Godard used his "Contempt" which also showed the authenticity of the film to refute the falsity of "Day as Night".He believes that "this film makes people think that it is revealing the true face of the film, but it is actually hiding it." Godard feels that Truffaut "is completely at the mercy of the film, and finally becomes the virtue that I hate the most." There is a point of view. Yes, "The Last Metro" is Truffaut's response to Godard's incessant curses, pointing out that "the real political effect is invisible on the surface, the artist rejects his profession, busy discussing the political situation, criticizing society, directing the production Bad politics and bad art."

The last scene of "The Last Metro": French Liberation, Bernard (Depardieu) and Marianne (Deneve) meet in a hospital, the former claims to have forgotten the past, while the latter still wants to love go down.Then the curtain closed, and the audience realized that they were not seeing a "movie plot", but a "play within a play" in the movie.This is directly reminiscent of the first scene of "Day as Night", an ordinary life scene. When the speaker yells "click", we suddenly realize that this is not a "movie", but a "movie".Truffaut is at ease between this "illusion and reality", which he may think is the most wonderful feeling. (But I have to point out that this is still "false", because although the final scene of this group of shots took place on the stage, the previous scenes were completed using the constructed exterior.)

In "The Last Subway", there are two other "behind the scenes" stories.One is the identity of a member of Bernard's underground resistance organization; it is the secret life in the cellar of Marianne's husband Luca.Therefore, the critic Don Allen pointed out in his book "The Last Truffaut" that there is no "subway" in "The Last Subway", only "underground".For Bernard's underground identity, Truffaut used simple strokes; while for Luca's underground life, Truffaut used detailed descriptions.In the movie, Luca is an escaped Jew, a selfless dramatist, and an anxious husband. Three identities are fighting in his body.It seems that he has not suffered much. He still has coffee, cigarettes, radio, bookshelf... These luxuries during the war, and he can hide behind the scenes and direct works on stage.In fact, this may be the contradiction between Truffaut: on the one hand, he avoids the cruel and difficult life of the enemy; on the other hand, he bestows the best treatment on artists.

5. It can be said with certainty that art is always supreme in Truffaut.In "Days Are Nights", the director he plays tells Jean-Pierre Leo, who plays the actor, in the film: "The movement of the film is like a train. The film is more harmonious than life. But there is nothing in it. There is no support. Personal problems are irrelevant, the cinema has everything under control.” This is Truffaut’s manifesto.In "The Last Subway," the same personal lives are put on the back burner, and people can make almost any sacrifice as long as the play can go on.When Luca appeared in the movie for the first time, Marianne told him that there was bad news, and his first reaction was "whether the show is banned", not whether he can escape.

In "The Last Metro", Truffaut downplayed the war, and the concentration camp was only briefly mentioned, while the art was greatly exaggerated.Godard is at least right in saying that he is "completely at the mercy of the cinema."Truffaut resolved all political issues with the reason of "a child's perspective on the fall and the theater", thus winning unprecedented and enthusiastic praise from the mainstream critics.In the DVD appendix of MK2, we can see the live broadcast of the 1981 Cesar Awards.Among the nominees are Godard ("Everyone for Himself"), Alain Resnais ("My American Uncle"), Claude Sauter ("Bad Boy"), Pialat ("Lou "Dew"), and finally Truffaut's "The Last Metro" won ten awards, which was the most glorious moment in his late life. In this DVD we can also discover a deleted scene.That's when Marianne (Deneuve) rejects an old director's invitation to act for her husband's theater.In the end, the director told her that he was about to die, "Death is a pile of empty clothes, jackets, shirts, and soon they will be useless, either burned or discarded...".Truffaut deleted this seemingly idle conversation, and also erased the last trace of sadness.