Hello all -
For those of you who are new, welcome to the Paris Letter, my weekly letter about living here in France - As I was doing my Holiday cards this morning I added a few more people to the mailing - If you don't want to receive this, just shoot me an email, no problem.
Today's letter may be somewhat brief, because I"m having some kind of shoulder trauma which typing seems to make worse - I seem to be developing a chronic right shoulder problem, which some of you right-handed office workers may be familiar with - does anyone out there get frozen or painful shoulder stuff every couple of months on their dominant side? I am treating it with yoga and going ot get a massage in Madison,, but this seems to be something that flares up every few months now and I would love anyone's advice on treatment as it is ANNOYING.
ANYWAY, on to more interesting news about Paris, which is currently blanketed in slush and exhibiting classic "wintry mix" weather; the temperature is much milder than New York, and there's almost no accumulation, but I did order myself some rain boots from Zappo's today because I think it's finally time....
This week was very busy for Matt and I both as we tried to wrap everything up in time for our flight to Madison on Wednesday. We will be spending a week there with Matt's parents, and then flying to Bozeman and meeting up with Matt's brother and sister in law, and then all of us are heading to YELLOWSTONE for four days of skiing and snow. I simultaneously feel really settled in here in France and REALLY excited to be going back to the US for a visit. I am going to drink Sam Adams beer, eat a really good hamburger, go get a haircut and the aforementioned massage, buy jeans and shoes in my size and in dollars, not euros .... oh, so many fun things to do in America. Maybe I will even watch a FOOTBALL game.
I am also going to get my laptop fixed, with any luck, because it died on me this week and is now a big paperweight - thankfully, a paperweight that is under warranty
Okay so - this week, the first post not on Food but on Culture here in France! As I mentioned last week, I'm both starting to look for a film job here and also helping my cousin Hillary with her French production of Tony Kushner's A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY - So I'm starting to get a small window into the cultural world in Paris - I basically feel totally overwhelmed by it right now, but here are a few things I've noticed that are interesting and different.
There is a lot of theater in Paris, but it seems like rather than our tradition of musicals, they have a lot of Boulevard Comedies, or farces that get produced commercially here. There's also a lot of highbrow theater, but this is done more frequently by state sponsored theaters - not unlike in the US, though there is apparently a real highbrow-lowbrow divide between the two and people don't necessarily move between them easily. There's a lot of advertising for theater in Metro, actually, and it seems like big business - thethe farces have names like "Bonjour, Ivresse" (Hello, drunkenness!) or "Mon Colocataire est une garce!" (my roommate is a man-baby!) or "Boire, Fumer, et Conduire Vite" (Drink, Smoke, and Drive Fast) - apparently many of them come up through big theater festivals like Edinburgh and Avignon and get booked into Paris for long runs. I feel like they're a bit like TONY N TINA'S WEDDING or THE DONKEY SHOW in New York, but can't quite find an equivalent - imagine if all of Broadway were for comedy rather than musicals, and you'll get the idea.
Though, they also love musicals - I may have mentioned that MAMMA MIA! just opened here in it's French version on an open ended run - however, there's just not the same musical tradition here, so they have to import them, largely.
Paris, like London, is the center of film, TV, and theater for the country (as opposed to in the US, where it's split between NY and LA), so actors here move relatively easily between these media. In my cousin Hillary's play, there is an actress who is also in a TV show here called UN VILLAGE FRANCAIS, about a French town during the German occupation in World War II, and she is able to do the show and the play fairly easily. Television seasons here are discreet, usually 6 to 12 episodes, leaving actors free part of the year to act in plays or make films. My understanding is that TV stations here didn't have shows with "seasons" the way that we do, but would have miniseries on a project by project basis, without necessarily even having clear timeslots (for example, an episode could be 60 mins, 90 mins, or 2 hours) - However, now that they import a large part of their television from the US ( HOUSE is very popular here, as is LAW & ORDER, which is called NEW YORK: POLICE JUDICIARE), they've had to adopt more US methodology and formats in order to get all the timeslots to work.
Still, things remain fairly individual and project-by-project, in a way that would feel very strange to anyone who's worked in the TV machine of LA. A friend here is a writer on RIS (the French version of CSI, it stands for Recherches et Investigations Scientifiques) , and they don't have a traditional writers room the way the would in a US TV series - instead, the producers contract with individual writers for each episode, and work with them to develop an outline and make sure the script is in line with the series - So it's sort of halfway between what would happen on a film here and what would happen with a TV series .There's no real "showrunner" or team of writers, but there's an executive at the studio who is making sure that continuity of character and tone are upheld.
Film is much more diverse here, in part because of France's famous system of subsidy - part of the price of each movie ticket sold in France goes back into a general fund to subsidize French cinema, and this allows small films and auteur driven works to flourish more than in the United States. There's lots more to say on this, but I'll tell you one interesting thing I learned this week in a meeting with an exec at SND, the film arm of French cable channel M6 - In France, Hollywood action blockbuster is definitely a part of thethe market share, but its not as great here as it is in other European countries. Why this anomaly? In part, it has to do with how French films are marketed. In France, you're not allowed to show trailers of films on TV - so Hollywood's global tentpoles, which largely rely on special effects that can translate to people without words, can't really sell their best stuff to people in their homes. They have to rely on posters to sell film, and this doesn't do justice to action sequences thethe way a trailer would. By contrast, small French films advertise also with posters, but their stars have the time and ability to go on numerous French culture & television shows to promote their movie, something American movie stars can't do, as they do not live here and can't speak French. Thus, its likely that this weekend thethe movie SKYLINE, an alien invasion action film, will probaly open similarly to UN BALCON SUR MER (A BALCONY ON THE SEA), a tiny French drama with a big name French actor in it. Needless to say, in the US these opening weekend numbers would usually be quite far apart, with SKYLINE trouncing the drama, which at this point would probably even have a hard time getting released.
However, you'll all be happy to hear that MEET THE LITTLE FOCKERS is advertising here and ready to open! Here its called "MON BEAU PERE ET NOUS" (my Father in Law and Us), since the whole term "Fockers" doesn't really translate in French in the same way :)
Okay I'm signing off here -For those of you who are feeling French food deprived, I'm attaching a picture from this morning at our local butcher - they've now hung Christmas geese and turkeys from the rafters - sort of festive, in a meaty kind of way.
I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday, and keep me posted on what you're all up to !
xo CTL
