Amélie is one of the first films I remember, not because I sat down and watched it at a pivotal time in my life, but because I experienced it as a child in very visceral way. It was probably just after the film was released in 2001, that this happened. I had, had a nightmare one night and wandered out to where my mother and sister (who would have been in her twenties at the time and had just returned from Paris) were watching a film. I vividly remember the green lighting that emanated from the screen, as I walked down the hallway toward the couch and I think this must have been the first time I experienced film light. My mother let me lie down on the couch to get back to sleep and I remember just watching the screen from a dutch angle, not understanding anything, really. I fell back to sleep, in a whirlwind of French that I could not understand, in subtitles I could barely read at the time. It was disorienting in its beauty and I wish I could have found a clip of this scene to analyse, but was unable to.
I believe this started my love of French cinema, above all others. The way it often tells a story about the lives of everyday people in such a deep and meaningful, artistic way – never ceases to amaze me. Some people dislike it, because it is slower than Hollywood films, but I love that about French filmmaking, all the details will unfold beautifully, in time and there is no need for unrealistic resolution.
I also chose Amélie because I was just in France for the first time in February, staying in Montmartre where the film was shot. I was able to visit the cafe where this scene takes place and while it is a little touristy now, it was just around the corner from where I was staying, so the film geek inside me had to go there.
I will be analysing the cafe segments of the above scene.
Bruno Delbonnel, the cinematographer for Amélie, loves using soft light, from minimal light sources and diffusing these lights considerably to attain a naturalistic look to the characters, especially their skin tone.You can see this lighting effect, despite the colour correction used in post production to saturate the scene in warm yellow tones. Where he can, he has used natural light in this scene, i.e from outside the window, as well as light from sources within the scene such as lamps. Because of the limited number of light sources he uses, he is able to attain a natural contrast where shadows fall across the characters face, giving a hard edge despite the soft lighting that dominates the shot. That might sound like an oxymoron, but this can be seen at 0.55 seconds into the clip, the cameras movement making the shadow across his face gradually become harder.
This is a really interesting use of light, as it feels very natural and is something that is observable in everyday lighting conditions. It also brings natural highlights to certain areas of the face as can be seen at 0.46 of the clip, when the waitress approaches, as the light from the outside of the cafe and the shallow depth of field due to the short focal length lens, is used to bring focus onto her in the foreground, as opposed to the diners in the background. This allows viewers to know that this character is important and differentiates them from the unimportant details in the background.
Bruno’s staple use of short focal lengths and a wide angle lens allows the audience to feel like they are inside the bustling cafe, as the camera zooms into the characters and introduces them to the audience by showing in a greenish tinged, yet almost black and white, flashback effect, inside details about each character, adding to the quirkiness of the scene. The way this scene is shot and edited in such a fast paced way, holds the audiences attention and brings to life the characters in the film.
Amélie is a beautiful and quirky film, a bit more fast paced and whimsical than other French Films and because of this I think it was more accessible to mainstream audiences. Adding further to this, the way that the film is artfully put together, makes it very appealing and it has a timeless quality to it, tapping into the romanticisation of French culture that permeates the West. I think because of this, those English speaking film goers, who would have otherwise avoided seeing a film with subtitles, were drawn into seeing Amélie.