Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris (36 page)

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…

JULIETTE
stops, pulls his arm, points at his face
:
La trompette…tu fais comment?…

DAVIS mimes trumpet playing; JULIETTE stands on tiptoe and kisses him on the lips.

Long take: they continue walking along the Seine. A few people pass–no one pays any attention to them (use extras), except an angler worried about his jars of bait.

Music: faintly recognizable improvisation on the tune of ‘April in Paris’.

They reach the steps that lead back up to the street near Place du Châtelet. Davis looks out along the river, then runs to catch up with Juliette.

DAVIS,
taking her hand
: Say, what
is
an existentialist, anyway?

JULIETTE
smiles inscrutably.

Music continues as they walk up to the busy street.

32. NEWSREEL.

(
Faster film stock; grainy.
)

Blank screen, numbers counting down
. 7, 6, 5, 4, 3…

Voice-over: suave, becoming increasingly sarcastic.

NARRATOR:

The
quartier
of Saint-Germain-des-Prés…

The square and the church. Close up of crumbling, ivy-covered walls.

The remains of the oldest abbey in Paris. A corner of the provinces in the heart of the city. Here, time passes more slowly.

Place de Furstemberg; pushchairs; an old woman feeding pigeons, another knitting on a park bench.

In this quiet little square, one can visit the studio where Delacroix revolutionized the art of his time. Sometimes, it seems as though nothing has changed…