Audrey For Ever

Do you remember that quote from Woody Allen’s Manhattan?
A friend of Isaac, the main character, told him, as a reproach: You think you’re God…
And Isaac, seraphic, replies: Well, I gotta model myself after someone!
When I think about Audrey Hepburn, I always think about that quote, because I’ve always tried to model myself after her.
I think it’s useless to make here the list of her good qualities: a very talented actress but also an exquisite human being and an unrivalled example of elegance and class.
She is like the most adorable person ever and I certainly adore her.
When I found out that in Morges, Switzerland, there was an exhibition called “Audrey Hepburn & Hubert De Givenchy, Une élégante amitié” and that, completely by chance, I was in Geneva visiting a friend while it was still going on, mon coeur a fait BOUM!

Givenchy and Audrey met in 1952 in Paris. 
When Hubert was informed that a certain actress called Hepburn was about to arrive at his atelier, he was expecting to see Katherine, but to his great surprise he saw this tiny, thin girl going towards him. And the rest is history.
Givenchy and Hepburn not only created together some of the most iconic dresses of the cinema history, but they also had a life-long friendship (Givenchy is 90 and still alive, Audrey sadly left us quite young, at 63, in 1993).
Hepburn spent the last 30 years of her existence in Switzerland, in a house called La Paisible, outside a little village called Tolochenaz, just 5 minutes by car from Morges, where she got married for the second time (the first was with American actor Mel Ferrer back in 1954) to the Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969: 

The city of Morges hosts the exhibition in three different places: the Château de Morges, the Expo Fondation Bolle and the Musée Alexis-Forel (all of them at a walkable distance).
My favourite one has been by far the one in the Morges Castle, because it was there that the dresses from the '50s and '60s were displayed.
When I entered into the room I was so excited that my friends thought I was about to have a heart attack! But hey, how could you stay unperturbed in front of dresses you have dreamt about all your life? I simply couldn’t…

When I saw dresses and hats coming from Charade and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, are just went nuts!

And this was Audrey's chair on the fiming of the movie:

Of course, there were many interesting things also on the other two locations:

We also bumped into the place where the marriage between Audrey Hepburn and Andrea Dotti was celebrated:

Being a total Audrey’s day, we also decided to visit the little cemetery of Tolochenaz, where Audrey has been buried in 1993.
Just outside the village, this was a small and simple country cemetery: the most enchanting place to rest in peace and the most suitable one for Audrey:

What a lovely day. I was so happy that I wanted to bring with me as a souvenir the poster of the exhibition. To paraphrase another Allen’s movie: Take Audrey and run!

I would like to thank Denis, Laura and Laure for bringing me there and staying with me in this wonderful day. It was really unforgettable, dear friends!

Ciné-balade Truffaut

And when you thought that the "Truffaut's Month" was over, here comes Zazie with another adventure related to her favorite film-maker of all time.
I read many times about these Ciné-Balades, Cinema Walks around Paris, but until last week I never had the chance to follow one. Of course, when I heard that the new ciné-balade was about François Truffaut (in the 9th and 18th arrondissement, where I live!), I immediately decided to participate.
So there I was, last Saturday, with a bunch of unknown but very nice people.
The meeting point with Juliette, our guide, was in a very truffautian endroit, the church of the Trinité, in Place de la Trinité:

In the fountain in front of the church, after a night spent outside, Antoine Doinel in Les 400 Coups famously washes his face:

The second stop-over was an unexpected one: the Hotel Langlois, at 63 Rue Saint Lazare.

This hotel, that was once named Hotel des Croisés, was used in 2001 by the American film-maker Jonathan Demme for the shooting of his movie The Truth about Charlie (remake of Charade, the 1963 Stanley Donen movie with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant). The film was a massive homage to French cinema in general and Nouvelle Vague in particular. Demme re-named the hotel Hotel Langlois in honor of Henri Langlois, the man behind the Cinematheque Française, and the owners loved so much the name that they decided to keep it. I thought it was a super cute story!

The third place we visited was Place Saint Georges: Truffaut used the Theatre Saint Georges as location for the theatre where the jewish director Lucas Steiner hides himself during the Paris occupation in Le dernier Métro (1980):

The next stop-over was always related to Henri Langlois: when his family moved from Turkey to Paris, he lived in Rue Laferrière, above the Place Saint Georges, and it was in his apartment (quite famously in its bath tub) that he was piling up all the film reels he could find before the creation of the Cinémathèque:

Truffaut spent his (sad) childhood just a couple of streets above this one, at the 33 of Rue de Navarin:

Antoine Doinel, his alter ego in Les 400 Coups, lives very close by, at n° 4 of Place Gustave Toudouze:

The school of Antoine Doinel and François Truffaut was not far away, the Lycée Jacques Decour, in Avenue Trudaine:

Avenue Trudaine is also the street where, in Baisers Volés (1968), Doinel as private detective follows a woman and the woman immediately understands somebody is following her!

In Les 400 Coups, Antoine Doinel very often finds a shelter for the night at his best friend's place. I didn't know that the interiors of René's parents house were filmed in a big apartment at n° 10 of Rue de Douai!

The exteriors, though, were filmed in the private street Avenue Frochot, which was an homage to Truffaut's favorite French film-maker, Jean Renoir, who lived many years in this gorgeous street:

Always in Rue de Douai, but this time at n° 41, there was the apartment of Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, who was the founder of the Cahiers du Cinéma together with André Bazin. In this apartment Truffaut filmed, in 1955, his first short-movie, Une Visite. Truffaut was so unhappy about it, that notoriously destroyed every copy of his first serious attempt to cinema. Probably the most interesting thing to say about this short movie is that the cinematographer was a certain Jacques Rivette, while the editor was a certain Alain Resnais... 

In the near Rue Mansart, there is the restaurant owned by Jeanne Moreau's father, La Cloche D'Or. The place is still open and still looks quite charming:

Paris is a city full of great and beautiful cinemas, but I think that at the time of Truffaut's childhood, there were really incredible salles de cinéma! The greatest one was the famous Gaumont Palace, considered the "biggest cinema in the world": its theater could contain 6000 people. Built in 1899, completely renovated in 1931, the cinema was sadly closed in 1973. Now at the same address of Rue Caulaincourt, you can find an awful Castorama and a miserable Hôtel Mercure... Modern time suck!

The walk took end in front of the Montmartre Cemetery, where Truffaut is buried.
It was time for Juliette to show us the last piece of movie with her i-pad and super cute sound system:

Before leaving, one of the participants, a curator at the Montmartre Cemetery, told us the most incredible story: one day, in his office, Jean-Pierre Léaud showed up asking if it would have been possible to have the grave near the one of Truffaut for himself. When he was told that wasn't feasible, Léaud insisted again and again and left his phone number, praying them to call him if things would have changed. The curator and his colleagues found out, a bit later, that the grave was actually available. They called Léaud's number but in vane: they never had an answer. 
Long live Antoine Doinel!

I wish to thank Juliette of Ciné-Balade for being such a lovely guide.
Dear readers, if you happen to be in Paris in the next weeks, the Ciné-Balade Truffaut is still going on. Don't miss it!