by Robb, Graham
19. HÔTEL CRYSTAL, BEHIND SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS.
Natural sound.
Full-frame shot of the dingy hotel entrance: grubby, half-length curtains; dirty windows; bucket of detergent outside.
Zoom out: JULIETTE walks into shot. She stands looking into the dark brown interior of the hotel.
20. HÔTEL CRYSTAL, INTERIOR.
JULIETTE climbs the staircase (iron banister, brown carpet, embossed velvet flock wallpaper). The hotel owner (shirtsleeves, stained waistcoat) appears at the bottom of the stairs.
HOTELIER: Where do you think you’re going?
JULIETTE, descending the stairs: I’ve come for my things.
HOTELIER disappears, comes back with battered suitcase; dumps it on the hall carpet: There…
JULIETTE: Is that all?
HOTELIER: Hey! ‘Is that all’…Who does she think she is?…Try the pawn-shop…
JULIETTE stares at the hotelier.
HOTELIER: What am I? A Sister of Mercy? You left without paying.
JULIETTE kneels on the carpet, and opens the suitcase.
Close up: countless tiny moths flutter out of the suitcase; the remains of a dress are just visible.
21. STREETS AROUND SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS.
Long take: camera follows JULIETTE, who is carrying her suitcase. Rue Saint-Benoît, left along Boulevard Saint-Germain, past the church and the little park. People are talking animatedly. Three young German soldiers go by, looking like nervous schoolboys in their cheap wool uniforms. Posters have been pasted on the tree-trunks: AVIS À LA POPULATION, with ‘FFI’ daubed over it in black paint; TOUS AU COMBAT! and LA VICTOIRE EST PROCHE!, with a printed red band pasted across it signed by General von Choltitz threatening the destruction of Paris.
Juliette turns left down Rue de Buci and threads her way through the market stalls towards the building on the corner of the Rue de Seine.
Close up: the severed, golden horse-head of the boucherie chevaline next door to the hotel. A plaque beside the door advertises ‘Chambres á la journée’.
Juliette looks away from the head and walks into the dark hallway. The screen continues to show the hotel entrance for four seconds.
Loud explosions and shouting.
22. HOTEL ROOM.
JULIETTE opens the sixth-floor window, steps out onto the leadwork.
Rooftop view. Smoke rising from certain parts of the city.
Archive footage: posters being torn from walls; civilians in suits and ties carrying rifles; barricades; people taking cover in doorways; a tricolor flying from the Préfecture de Police, and the towers of Notre-Dame from a sandbagged window in the Préfecture; armoured cars racing along the Rue de Rivoli; bodies and debris lying on the Place Saint-Michel; General von Choltitz emerging from the Hôtel Meurice, lighting a cigar and having it crushed into his face by a woman in the crowd; American tanks festooned with cheering girls.
Rooftop view of Paris.
JULIETTE withdraws into the room and lies down on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
White plaster ceiling and light-bulb. Sounds of gunfire and cheering.
Ceiling fades to bright sky with white clouds.
23. JOËL’S APARTMENT.
Medium close up: a mountain of miscellaneous clothes.
Zoom out: a large studio apartment that looks like the property room of an abandoned theatre. Joël, a very tall, myopic young man, quite camp, opens the door:
JOËL: My God! Is it really you?
JULIETTE, smiling faintly: I don’t know…Perhaps it is…Can I come in?
Joël ushers her in. They sit; he hands her a cigarette.
JOËL: Where have you been? No one’s seen you for ages!
JULIETTE: On vacation…at Fresnes…(Silence.) They took my sister. And my mother, because, you know, my mother liked adventures…(Shrugs her shoulders, pulls on her cigarette and blows out a torrent of smoke.) But she’s only my mother, and she always said she bought me from the gypsies…
JOËL, inspecting Juliette with amiable distaste: Yes, and she bought your clothes from the gypsies, too. I can see that. Now we shall have to see what we can do for you. (Waves an arm at the clothes racks and the mountains of material.) My family, too…Their business was confiscated, and now (in a posh, 16th-arrondissement accent) I have come into possession of the family fortune!…(Pulls a green loden overcoat from the racks.) The only problem is, they specialized exclusively in men (arches his eyebrows). It runs in the family, you know! But now that we’ve all been ‘liberated’, we don’t have to worry ourselves about such petty distinctions!…Here, try this on!
JULIETTE tries on the coat and shrugs it onto the floor. Then she explores the racks and piles of clothes, and ‘models’ various outfits: a khaki uniform, a black gabardine, which she takes off again quickly after looking in the full-length mirror; then a hefty pullover and a large tweed jacket which she pulls about her and smells with an air of contentment.
(NB: this is not the Juliette Gréco of later years. She looks more like a chubby, street-wise teenager than a fashion model, but she wears even the most ludicrous combinations with a certain style.)
Two of her girlfriends enter and join in the fashion parade. Improvised, saucy conversation on the subject of men’s clothes. (Interview the actors; film in a single take, and edit out the interviewer’s questions.)
JULIETTE: I’ll never get used to buttoning it up the wrong way.
JOËL: You’d be surprised, my dear…
Juliette plunges back into the coat-racks. Before she re-emerges, the camera turns to the smiling faces of her two friends, applauding:
LUISA, laughing, in mock-indignation: You’re not going out dressed like that!…
24. PLACE SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS.
Two WOMEN of a certain age, swathed in funereal black, carrying handbags, looking scandalized.
JULIETTE and her two FRIENDS standing in front of a bar, all three wearing men’s jackets with wide shoulders, and trousers with the legs rolled up. Juliette begins to unbutton her jacket.
Close up: a pair of boots on display outside a shoe shop; legs walking past on the pavement. From one pair of legs to the next, the boots disappear.
JULIETTE buttoning her jacket over something bulky, and the three girls walking smartly away into the crowd on the Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
25. LUXURIOUS DRAWING ROOM, FAUBOURG SAINT-GERMAIN.
Ironic, light chamber music.
An elegantly dressed LADY in pearls and turban, looking supercilious but alarmed. Sitting opposite her: JULIETTE, with very long, uncombed hair, wearing a black figure-hugging woollen dress and the leather boots from the previous scene.
LADY, to Juliette: Do you have much experience in the profession?
JULIETTE: Oh yes, a lot of experience.
LADY: You have worked as a maid before?
JULIETTE, looking around the drawing room: Yes…Have you?
Close up: horrified look on the lady’s face.
26. STREETS AROUND SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS.
A wet evening; lights shining on the pavement. JULIETTE and her FRIENDS walk along, discussing films. The camera follows the conversation as though it is one of the group.
JOËL:…But it’s about a capitalist. It’s a glorification of America.
LUISA: Can’t a communist make a film about a capitalist? In any case, it’s allegorical.
ANNE-MARIE: So is practically everything!…Lang, Welles, Renoir…It’s all allegory.
JOËL: Allegory of what, might one ask?
They reach the corner of the Rue Dauphine and the Rue Christine, and stop in front of a bar.
JULIETTE, looking up at the plastic letters above the entrance, ‘Le Tabou’: It’s all real…And when you go outside into the rain, you start to fade away, because the film was more real than you are…
LUISA, cheerfully: Poor thing! She doesn’t know who she is, do you, darling? This afternoon, she thought she was a chambermaid…
JOËL, pushin
g open the door, dramatically: Scene Two: they enter a disgusting little bar called ‘Le Tabou’, where Joël buys everyone an exotic cocktail, and Juliette thinks she’s in Tahiti…
27. ‘LE TABOU’.
Inside: bulky men drinking at the bar–warehouse porters and newspaper-delivery drivers in fur-lined jackets. They look round at the group entering.
JULIETTE and FRIENDS walk to a stairwell and descend to a long, vaulted cellar full of little stools and tables. Lights shine through African masks on the wall. They sit down at one of the tables.
28. RUE DAUPHINE.
Close up of bar entrance outside. It looks cleaner and snazzier than before. The sign, ‘Le Tabou’, is now in blazing neon. A cat runs across the street as a car pulls up. Well-dressed people are entering the bar.
Crescendo of voices and jazz music.
29. ‘LE TABOU’.
In the vaulted cellar: women dressed in New Look clothes, and their lounge-suited chaperones. They look inquisitive and slightly apprehensive. Some of them are pointing at people in the cellar and especially to a motley group of intellectuals at the far end, bathed in smoke.
JULIETTE and LUISA stand near the entrance, apparently invisible to the people coming in. They pinch the ladies’ bottoms and point derisively at their expensive clothes. A po-faced man in black-rimmed spectacles enters the club. Juliette slides a notebook out of his back pocket. Luisa takes it from her and reads…
LUISA: ‘Le Tabou, 33 Rue Dauphine, Tel. DANTON 53–28. All night…(imagine!)…drunken philosophers, illiterate poets, Africans, long-haired adolescents…’(To Juliette:) That’s you! I bet he’s got a photographer with him! Try to look like a savage…You should go and sit with your intellectual friends over there. You’re their little pet!…
They walk over to a table where a black man is playing records. Men stare at Juliette; she stares back. She bends over the turntable and tries to read the label.
Close up: a blurred reflection of her face on the black vinyl. The record is Miles Davis–something casual and hypnotic (‘Deception’).
BORIS VIAN (realistically larger than life, debonair and slightly manic; leans over, close to Juliette): It’s Miles Davis…He’s in Paris, for the jazz festival. Do you want to go and hear him?
JULIETTE looks up at Vian.
VIAN: We’ll take you if you like. He’s rehearsing at the Salle Pleyel.
JULIETTE nods her head.
VIAN, hands on hips: She never speaks! Why do you never speak? (Fixes his eyes on her.) We’ll take you there on one condition: you have to let us hear your voice.
JULIETTE shakes her head, looks awkward. No.
VIAN: OK. You can use someone else’s words. It’s like ventriloquism…(Taking her over to the smoke-shrouded table.) You know these alcoholics, don’t you? (They greet Juliette. Vian gestures grandly:) Mademoiselle Gréco is in search of a song.
BEAUVOIR (striped pullover, hair tied back, red fingernails; to Sartre): You said Gréco ought to be a singer. Why don’t you give her a song?
SARTRE, thinking: What about ‘La Rue des Blancs-Manteaux’? I wrote it for Huis Clos, but (raising his vodka glass to Juliette), I hereby offer it to Mademoiselle.
BEAUVOIR: That’s nice! A song about an executioner…Find something better…Imagine her on the stage.
SARTRE, inspecting Juliette: ‘Juliette’…rhymes with…fillette…Ah!…‘Si tu t’imagines, fillette’. Raymond Queneau. (To Juliette:) You know Queneau?
JULIETTE nods her head. Yes.
BEAUVOIR, leaning over the table towards Juliette, smiling tipsily: ‘Your rosy cheeks’, ‘your slender waist’…(To Sartre:) What else?…
SARTRE, merrily: ‘Your twinkling feet, your sylph-like thighs…’ We can get Kosma to write the music.
All look at JULIETTE. Contra-zoom: she suddenly appears, as if in her mind’s eye, in the pose of a singer standing at a microphone. She stares at the camera with the shadow of a smile. The music has segued discreetly into something more gentle and romantic–‘Moon Dreams’ or ‘Générique’ again.
The merry group at the table continue reciting phrases of the poem: ‘A triple chin, a muscle turned to flab…’ ‘Gather the roses, the roses of life!’ ‘If you think they’ll last forever, you’ve got another think coming, little girl!’
30. SALLE PLEYEL.
The dilapidated, art deco facade of the Salle Pleyel. Music, at first indistinct and echoing, becomes gradually louder during the following sequence.
The camera moves through the white columns of the foyer.
The auditorium. On the distant stage: a bass-player, a drummer and the pencil-thin figure of Miles DAVIS (23 years old). He wears a white shirt, black tie and a sharply tailored linen suit. His dazzling trumpet catches the light.
Seats in the auditorium and scattered listeners; JULIETTE sitting a few rows from the front, her hands clasped around her left knee, listening intently. She is dressed simply but strikingly in black, with more mascara than before.
Dissolve: people here and there in the auditorium, this time in different seats; JULIETTE as before. During the dissolve, the music changes to a slow, poignant tune reminiscent of the opening sequence. While the music plays: close up of Juliette staring past the camera.
Music stops.
DAVIS and the other musicians resting between numbers; a photographer taking pictures of Davis, a journalist scribbling notes.
DAVIS, to one of the musicians, jerking his head: Hey, who’s that girl over there? The one with the long black hair?
MUSICIAN: That one over there? What do you want with her?
DAVIS: What do you mean, what do I want with her? I want to get to know her. She’s been sitting there all day…
MUSICIAN: She’s not for you, man. She came with Boris Vian and that crowd. She’s one of those ‘existentialists’…
DAVIS: Man, I don’t care about all that shit. She’s beautiful. I want to get to know her. (Quietly.) I ain’t never seen a woman look like that before.
Davis beckons to Juliette with his index finger. She walks slowly up to the stage and climbs the steps. They stand looking at each other, smiling warily.
DAVIS: You like the music?
JULIETTE: Si j’aime la musique?…(She looks closely at his trumpet, then runs her finger softly along the tubing.) Comme vous voyez…
DAVIS, readjusting his stance: OK, so you don’t speak English, huh? That’s cool…We’ll improvise!…(Waves the trumpet.) You play? You play an instrument?
JULIETTE purses her lips, mimes playing a trumpet: Montrezmoi…
DAVIS: Here, put your fingers here.
Close up: Juliette presses the valves as Davis blows the trumpet. Beautiful, brazen sounds come out. Her face lights up; she laughs out loud.
DAVIS, laughing: That’s not bad at all! (To musician, swaggering:) Hey, man! I just played a duet with an existentialist! (To Juliette:) You wanna go for a coffee?…Café?
JULIETTE: Oui, mais pas ici…(Takes his hand silently and leads him off the stage.) Venez…
MUSICIAN: Hey, Miles!
DAVIS, turning round: You just keep working on those changes, man!
31. BANKS OF THE SEINE.
Close up: a pigeon pecking between the cobblestones. The pigeon flies off.
Zoom out–camera close to the ground: a beggar with a crutch, chasing away the pigeon. Legs and feet of JULIETTE and DAVIS–her sandals, his shiny leather boots, walking along the Seine embankment, upstream of the Pont des Arts. Sound of walking feet.
Zoom out: a bridge at an oblique angle, half-hidden by the branches of a willow; Juliette and Davis in a tight embrace; Davis with his back to the river. A coal barge comes into shot. On the barge, standing by the geranium-bedecked cabin, a little girl watches the lovers.
They continue their walk along the embankment. Silence.
DAVIS starts to say something.
JULIETTE, glancing down: Je n’aime pas les hommes…mais vous, (looking at Miles) vous, c’est différent…
DAVIS: You don’t like men? Is that what you said? Well, I’ll tell you, in America, I ain’t a man. (Displays his fingers.) I’m a nigger! (Juliette strokes his fingers.) I’m an entertainer… (Davis flaps his hands, minstrel-style.) An Uncle Tom–you know what I mean?
JULIETTE: La Case de l’Oncle Tom, oui, je sais…
DAVIS, looking almost shy; walking on: There’s some kind of special smell here I ain’t smelled anywhere else. (Sniffs the air. Juliette looks amused and surprised.) It’s like coffee beans…and coconut and lime and rum all mixed together, and…like eau de cologne…Heh! This must be ‘April in Paris’…(singing) pap, pap, pap, pap, pap…