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Posted: **Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:27 pm**

I recently watched The Lovers on the Bridge for the first time - what an extraordinary film! I wondered whether anyone could shed any light on the ending for me:

Spoiler

I was wondering whether the giddy final scene - where Lavant and Binoche emerge from the water and are "rescued" by the barge - was possibly forced on Carax by the studio? Pure speculation on my part, and I can't find any information online. I was taken aback by what seemed to me a very abrupt change in tone, especially after Lavant - mad with jealousy - had just tried to kill the both of them. Perhaps this jarring effect was what Carax intended, but I keep finding myself trying to "explain away" the ending somehow; to put it down to studio meddling or to recast it in my mind as a dying dream (someone pointed out to me that Binoche asks the old couple on the barge "Vous êtes marchands de sable?" - with "marchand de sable" also being the French name for the fairytale "sandman" who sprinkles magical sand into the eyes of children to bring dreams and sleep - is it at all possible that Carax is implying that this final scene is only a dream, or a post-death vision?)

I suppose I just really want for the two of them to have died there in the river, as to me that seems a more beautiful, moving and fitting ending - but perhaps this is my problem and not the film's!

Posted: **Wed Mar 26, 2014 8:38 pm**

isn't the film as a whole distinguished by an unorthodox mix of tones? the opening scenes, which in their unforgiving documentary-like gaze recall the opening of Grémillon's La Petite Lise, give way to something outrageously stylized. the film's mix of naturalism and romantic stylization is probably its major distinguishing feature (as is the case with all of Carax's films). the "double" ending fits that perfectly. asking whether it is "only a dream" seems as fruitful a question as asking whether Denis Levant is really married to a monkey in Holy Motors. the whole proposition is so outrageous that it renders questions of veracity or even reality moot...

I hope that is vague enough not to require the "spoiler" tag.

btw, I'm still mad that the the longer television version of Pola X, that has the full name of the Melville novel it loosely adapts (Pierre, ou les ambiguités), is still completely unavailable. in fact, the film seems pretty close to being forgotten... and when referred to, is often described as the film maudit that nearly ended Carax' career... exactly how Les Amants du Pont-Neuf was described through the '90s.

Posted: **Wed Mar 26, 2014 9:03 pm**

jonah.77 wrote:btw, I'm still mad that the the longer television version of Pola X, that has the full name of the Melville novel it loosely adapts (Pierre, ou les ambiguités), is still completely unavailable.

First I've heard of this! Did it ever actually air? How much longer is it supposed to be?

Posted: **Wed Mar 26, 2014 9:08 pm**

it did air (once or twice I believe), and it's been cited as superior to the theatrical version by a number of French critics.

more details above in this thread...

Posted: **Wed Mar 26, 2014 11:58 pm**

Re. the ending of Les Amants du Pont Neuf, bear in mind that the barge at the end is the barge from L'Atalante - ie. it's an integral part of the film's network of filmic references.

Posted: **Tue Apr 15, 2014 6:36 pm**

Mathew2468 wrote:Would Artificial Eye Blu them?

Yes they are re-releasing their Carax box in both formats this spring/early summer.

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 2:52 pm**

Hang on, is that official? Blu-ray.com lists a different kind of box as upcoming, with Pola X replaced with Holy Motors. Would be thrilled to get Pola X on Blu (although I agree with jonah.77 that the real deal would be to get the full-length cut in any format)

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 5:28 pm**

repeat wrote:Hang on, is that official? Blu-ray.com lists a different kind of box as upcoming, with Pola X replaced with Holy Motors. Would be thrilled to get Pola X on Blu (although I agree with jonah.77 that the real deal would be to get the full-length cut in any format)

Yes on checking you're right it is with holy Motors I just rehashed the Moviemail blurb before checking the contents. So a bummer for those of us with HM already on blu. The others are coming separately but it seems much more expensive indivdually.

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:47 pm**

Not having got around to buying the Holy Motors blu yet, I'll welcome the box set with these contents as well! (And keep hoping for a special edition of Pola X with both cuts on Blu-ray, Depardieu commentary, a repress of the soundtrack CD, a reprint of the source novel, etc. etc... Anyone?)

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:01 pm**

repeat wrote:Depardieu commentary

No longer with us, I'm afraid.

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:05 pm**

nor is Golubeva. who would have thought in 1999 that these two stars, in all their rude youth, would have disappeared before the film's 15th anniversary?

the best we might hope for is an interview with (the recently talkative) Scott Walker, whose remarkable score has seemingly slipped into an even greater obscurity than the film. the CD doesn't appear to be in print anywhere.

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:06 pm**

Zot! wrote:
repeat wrote:Depardieu commentary
No longer with us, I'm afraid.

Well, in that case I guess they'll just have to use the one he recorded when he was alive.

But they really shouldn't bother. It's terrible. He probably speaks for about thirty minutes of the film's runtime, and has very little of interest to say. It would make more sense to re-edit that material into an illustrated featurette, if they have the rights to it.

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:09 pm**

An even better idea, that. Someone should get a Kickstarter going for this. I wonder if the longer TV cut is somehow out of reach rights-wise though

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:19 pm**

the rights to the TV version may not be any more complicated than navigating through the thicket of European companies (including some broadcasters) who financed the film in the first place:

Arena Films
Canal+
Degeto Film
Euro Space
France 2 Cinéma
La Sept-Arte
Pandora Filmproduktion
Pola Production
Theo Films
Télévision Suisse-Romande (TSR)
Vega Film

!

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2014 10:34 pm**

jonah.77 wrote:the rights to the TV version may not be any more complicated than navigating through the thicket of European companies (including some broadcasters) who financed the film in the first place:

Arena Films
Canal+
Degeto Film
Euro Space
France 2 Cinéma
La Sept-Arte
Pandora Filmproduktion
Pola Production
Theo Films
Télévision Suisse-Romande (TSR)
Vega Film
!

Pathe list it in their catalog

Posted: **Thu Apr 17, 2014 4:01 am**

zedz wrote:
Zot! wrote:
repeat wrote:Depardieu commentary
No longer with us, I'm afraid.
Well, in that case I guess they'll just have to use the one he recorded when he was alive.

But they really shouldn't bother. It's terrible. He probably speaks for about thirty minutes of the film's runtime, and has very little of interest to say. It would make more sense to re-edit that material into an illustrated featurette, if they have the rights to it.

I don't get the hate for that commentary track, but I know it's a pretty widely shared opinion. It's not an easy listen but I think it gives an honest portrait of a little bit of what he was like as a person - the long, somewhat uneasy silences, his embarrassment about seeing himself in the sex scenes, his focus more on the practical difficulties of filming certain sequences rather than offering any particular in-depth analysis - I think that's just the nature of being a working actor... And to top it off, he was doing the commentary in English, which while he spoke it reasonably well, he's obviously not as comfortable as anyone would be in their native tongue or a second language they'd gotten completely fluent in. All of those are flaws I might be more critical of were he still around to do a better take sometime, but the fact that he's gone means this is kind of a unique, rare artifact of what this guy was about on some level. I really hope they port it over.

Posted: **Thu Apr 17, 2014 6:17 am**

I just hope that there will be a "they" to re-release this at all, as it still seems to have a maudit status among Carax's oeuvre. Maybe Pathé will get around to it at some point, now that Carax's commercial reputation has been rehabilitated...

The GD commentary might well be uninformative regarding the film but agree that it's a valuable document on the person, and that's why I too hope it to be included on possible future releases of the film.

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2014 8:02 am**

I don't know if there's a better link, but it seems he has a new short out called Gradiva.

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2014 11:39 am**

As far as I understand, it's an advertisement for a Paris art gallery of that name. Does anyone know what the Christophe track over the end credits is? A quick trawl through a dozen albums produced no answer.

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2014 9:32 pm**

Film Forum is having an extensive Leos Carax retrospective, including all of his films, a weeklong run of a new restoration of Boy Meets Girl, a weeklong run of the documentary on Carax, Mr. X, and a screening of Eyes Without a Face which is referenced in Holy Motors.

Posted: **Tue Aug 05, 2014 1:05 am**

repeat wrote:As far as I understand, it's an advertisement for a Paris art gallery of that name. Does anyone know what the Christophe track over the end credits is? A quick trawl through a dozen albums produced no answer.

Its "Silence on Meurt"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVNVQuhPImI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Posted: **Tue Aug 05, 2014 6:57 am**

Thank you!

Posted: **Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:49 pm**

repeat wrote:As far as I understand, it's an advertisement for a Paris art gallery of that name.....

This one?

http://deathbecomesherr.tumblr.com/post ... -left-bank

Posted: **Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:02 am**

Is his early short Strangulation Blues available anywhere?

Posted: **Sun Feb 17, 2019 4:10 pm**

Two years later...Strangulation Blues, no subtitles. https://vimeo.com/285100214

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