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The Last Metro
The Last Metro
	Film poster
Directed by	François Truffaut
Written by	François Truffaut; Suzanne Schiffman; Jean-Claude Grumberg
Produced by	François Truffaut; Jean-José Richer
Starring	Catherine Deneuve; Gérard Depardieu; Jean Poiret
Cinematography	Néstor Almendros
Edited by	Martine Barraqué
Music by	Georges Delerue
Production; companies	Les Films du Carrosse; Andrea Films; SEDIF; SFP; TF1 Films Production
Distributed by	Gaumont Distribution
Release date	17 September 1980;
Running time	131 minutes
Country	France
Language	French
Box office	$23.3 million; 3,393,694 admissions (France)

The Last Metro (French: Le Dernier Métro) is a 1980 period drama film, co-written and directed by François Truffaut, that stars Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.^[4]

Set in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942, the film follows the fortunes of a small theatre in the Montmartre quarter which keeps up passive resistance by maintaining its cultural integrity, despite censorship, antisemitism and material shortages.^[5] The title evokes two salient facts of city life under the Germans: fuel shortages led people to spend their evenings in theatres and other places of entertainment, but the curfew meant they had to catch the last Métro train home.

Upon its release in theatres on 17 September 1980, The Last Metro became one of Truffaut's more commercially successful films. In France it had 3,384,045 admissions and in the United States it grossed $3 million.^[1] At the 6th César Awards, The Last Metro received 12 nominations and won 10 of them, including Best Film. The film also received Best Foreign Film nominations at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes.

Plot

On his way to begin rehearsals at the Théâtre Montmartre, where he has secured the male lead role for an upcoming production, young Bernard Granger finds himself repeatedly rebuffed by a woman he attempts to flirt with on the street. Upon arriving at the theater, he discovers that the woman is actually the production designer, Arlette, who happens to be a lesbian. Bernard is then introduced to Marion, the owner of the theatre and its leading lady. Marion's Jewish husband, Lucas, serves as the theater's director, believed to have fled Paris; however, he is clandestinely hiding in the theater's cellar. Marion secretly releases him each evening, providing meals and materials for future productions. Their evenings are spent in the empty theater, where they engage in passionate discussions about the current production and make plans for Lucas to escape the country. However, Marion soon becomes infatuated with the oblivious Bernard, whom Lucas only knows from a headshot and snippets of conversation overheard through a rigged heating vent.

Unbeknownst to anyone at the theater, Bernard is a member of the Resistance group responsible for delivering the bomb that killed a German admiral.

The opening night of the production sees a full house, but a scathing review in a newspaper the following morning condemns the show as being "Jewish." The anti-Semitic writer behind the review aims to oust Marion and take control of her theater. While the cast and crew celebrate their initial success at a nightclub, the same writer, at another gathering, falsely accuses Bernard of insulting Marion, leading to a physical altercation in the street. On another occasion, two Gestapo agents, disguised as air raid wardens, conduct a search of the theater, prompting Marion to turn to Bernard in desperation for help in concealing Lucas and his belongings.

Following the arrest of Bernard's Resistance contact during a Gestapo raid, Bernard resolves to devote his life to the Resistance cause and abandon acting. As he prepares to leave his dressing room for the last time, Marion enters to bid him farewell, and the two share a passionate encounter on the floor.

After the war ends, Bernard returns to the theater to star in a new play written by Lucas during his time in hiding. On opening night, Marion, who plays the female lead, expresses her desire to share her life with Bernard, but he confesses that he never truly loved her. As the curtain falls, Bernard, Marion, and Lucas stand hand-in-hand to receive the applause of the audience.

Cast

Catherine Deneuve as Marion Steiner
Gérard Depardieu as Bernard Granger
Jean Poiret as Jean-Loup Cottins
Heinz Bennent as Lucas Steiner
Andréa Ferréol as Arlette Guillaume, the production designer
Paulette Dubost as Germaine Fabre, the older woman employed by the theatre
Sabine Haudepin as Nadine Marsac, the young actress
Jean-Louis Richard as Daxiat
Maurice Risch as Raymond Boursier, the technician of the theatre
Marcel Berbert as Merlin
Richard Bohringer as a Gestapo Officer
László Szabó as Lieutenant Bergen
Jean-Pierre Klein as Christian Leglise, a resistant
Franck Pasquier as Jacquot/Eric
Rose Thierry as Jacquot's mother
Martine Simonet as Martine Sénéchal
Christian Baltauss as the actor replacing Bernard
Rénata as Greta Borg, a singer in a club
Hénia Ziv as Yvonne
Jean-José Richer as René Bernardini
Jessica Zucman as Rosette
René Dupré as M. Valentin
Alain Tasma as Marc
Pierre Belot as the Hotel porter
Jacob Weizbluth as Rosen^[6]

Production

Truffaut had wanted to create a film set during the French occupation period for a long time, as his uncle and grandfather were both part of the French Resistance, and were once caught while passing messages. This event was eventually recreated in The Last Metro.^[7] Truffaut was inspired by the actor Jean Marais’s autobiography, basing the film on this and other documents by theatre people from during the occupation.^[8]

This film was one installment - dealing with theatre - of a trilogy on the entertainment world envisaged by Truffaut.^[9] The installment that dealt with the film world was 1973's La Nuit américaine (Day for Night),^[9] which had won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Truffaut completed the screenplay for the third installment, L'Agence magique, which would have dealt with the world of music hall.^[9] In the late 1970s, he was close to beginning filming, but the failure of his film The Green Room forced him to look to a more commercial project, and he filmed Love on the Run instead.

Truffaut began casting in September 1979, and wrote the role of Marion especially with Catherine Deneuve in mind, for her energy.^[10] Gérard Depardieu initially did not want to be involved in the film, as he did not like Truffaut’s directing style, but he was subsequently convinced that he should take part.^[11]

Most of the filming took place in an abandoned chocolate factory on Rue du Landy in Clichy, which was converted into a studio. During shooting Deneuve suffered an ankle sprain from a fall, resulting in having to shoot scenes at short notice. Scriptwriter Suzanne Schiffman was also hospitalised with a serious intestinal obstruction.^[12] The film shoot lasted fifty-nine days and ended on 21 April 1980.^[13]

Themes

A recurring theme in Truffaut’s films has been linking film-making and film-watching.^[14] The Last Metro is self-conscious in this respect. In the opening the film mixes documentary footage with period re-creations alongside shots of contemporary film posters.^[15]

Truffaut commented: “this film is not concerned merely with anti-semitism but intolerance in general” and a tolerance is shown through the characters of Jean Poiret playing a homosexual director and Andrea Ferreol playing a lesbian designer.^[16]

As in Truffaut's earlier films Jules et Jim and Two English Girls, there is a love triangle between the three principal characters: Marion Steiner (Deneuve), her husband Lucas (Heinz Bennent) and Bernard Granger (Depardieu), an actor in the theatre's latest production.^[4]

Reception

Box office

The film recorded admissions in France of 3,384,045.^[17]

Critical response

The Last Metro has an approval rating of 88% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 24 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10.^[18]

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards (USA)
- Nominated: Best Foreign Language Film
National Board of Review (USA)
- Nominated: Best Foreign Language Film^[19]
Boston Film Critics (USA)
- Won: Best Foreign Language Film
César Awards (France)
- Won: Best Actor – Leading Role (Gérard Depardieu)
- Won: Best Actress – Leading Role (Catherine Deneuve)
- Won: Best Cinematography (Néstor Almendros)
- Won: Best Director (François Truffaut)
- Won: Best Editing (Martine Barraqué)
- Won: Best Film
- Won: Best Music (Georges Delerue)
- Won: Best Production Design (Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko)
- Won: Best Sound (Michel Laurent)
- Won: Best Writing (Suzanne Schiffman and François Truffaut)
- Nominated: Best Actor – Supporting Role (Heinz Bennent)
- Nominated: Best Actress – Supporting Role (Andréa Ferréol)
David di Donatello Awards (Italy)
- Won: Best Foreign Actress (Catherine Deneuve)
Golden Globe Awards (USA)
- Nominated: Best Foreign Film

References

^ ^a ^b JP. "Le Dernier métro (1980)- JPBox-Office". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
^ "The Last Metro (1981) - Box Office Mojo". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
^ Box Office information for Francois Truffaut films at Box Office Story
^ ^a ^b Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier (2002). French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. Continuum. pp. 314–315. ISBN 978-0-8264-1600-1.
^ Holmes, Diana; Ingram, Robert (1998). François Truffaut. Manchester: Manchester university press. p. 18. ISBN 0-7190-4554-1.
^ Allen, Don. Finally Truffaut. New York: Beaufort Books. 1985. ISBN 0-8253-0335-4. OCLC 12613514. pp. 238–239.
^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
^ Insdorf, Annette (9 February 1981). "How Truffaut's 'The Last Metro' Reflects Occupied Paris". The New York Times.
^ ^a ^b ^c Higgins, Lynn A. (1998). New Novel, New Wave, New Politics. University of Nebraska Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-8032-7309-2.
^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 353. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 354. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
^ Baecque, Antoine de; Temerson, Serge Toubiana (2000). Truffaut. Translation from French by Catherine. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 357. ISBN 978-0-520-22524-4.
^ Insdorf, Annette (1994). François Truffaut (Rev. and updated ed.). Cambridge u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47808-3.
^ White, Armond. "Truffaut's Changing Times: The Last Metro". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
^ Insdorf, Annette. "How Truffaut's 'The Last Metro' Reflects Occupied Paris". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
^ Catherine Deneuve box office information at Box Office Story
^ "The Last Metro". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
^ "1981 Award Winners". National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.