Here’s another in the series titled
“Berowne’s Mediocre Adventures.”
A few decades ago I
was working as a film-maker and I received a wonderful assignment: to make a brief
movie on Paris.
One item I
certainly wanted in the film was some special footage of the famous Place de la
Concorde, known, surely, to every tourist.
This place is
possibly the most beautiful public square in what generations have claimed is
the most beautiful city in the world.
It wasn’t always
beautiful. A few centuries ago it was
called the Place de la Revolution. The
unfortunate French king had to mount the stairs to keep his appointment with
Mme la Guillotine...
And the executioner
impulsively showed the result of his work to the cheering crowd. The equally unfortunate Marie Antoinette had
to make the same trip.
But “concorde” suggests reconciliation, so
no one gets beheaded there these days.
At one end of the famous
public square was a building I found fascinating. It was the National Assembly, home of the
French Parliament, and if I could get up there on top of it I would be able to
get sensational footage of the entire Place de la Concorde.
However, I was told
that no commercial photographer or cameraman had ever been given that
permission. They told me in the French
version of our phrase, “Fuggedaboutit.”
But I
persisted. I emphasized that I was no
commercial photog or paparazzo; I was working for the French Government Tourist
Office.
Ergo, or ipso facto,
or whatever, I was one of them; we were all working for the same boss, the gouvernement of France.
But there seemed to
be some morose person in that building who was sure, once I got up on top, I’d whip out a
home-made bomb and blow the whole place to the French equivalent of
smithereens.
It took quite a
while, but finally the word came through that, okay, even though they didn’t
think it was a great idea, they’d give me the permission.
They assigned me
two gendarmes, a sparse quasi-military unit that was to make sure I wouldn’t pull any funny stuff.
The two cops were
prepared for this assignment as though it was a platoon of Wehrmacht troops
they were supposed to watch over. They
each had a mitrailleuse – machine gun
– hung from a sling over the shoulder. You have not experienced the thrill of movie-making until you try to shoot a film with two machine guns pointed at you.
Anyway, I set up my
tripod and camera and went to work.
Looking through the viewfinder I saw a beautiful sunlit view of the
entire Place de la Concorde. I got medium
shots, wide angles, closeups, the works.
When I notified my
two chaperons I was finished, I thought they seemed a bit disappointed that I
hadn’t done anything unacceptable that would have allowed them to use their
popguns.
The sequence later
proved an important part of the finished film, a featurette titled “One Man’s
Paris.” The movie was distributed by
Universal-International and I was proud to invite the entire staff of the
French Gov’t Tourist Office in New York to see it playing at the Palace Theater
on Broadway.
