Elevator to The Gallows
22/9/2016, 20:00, Danaos 1 24/9/2016, 19:30, Odeon Opera 2
An illicit couple. A seemingly perfect crime. A desperate night in Paris. Suffocating suspense, fatal romanticism, Jeanne Moreau’s aristocratic beauty and Miles Davis’ now legendary jazz soundtrack converge in Louis Malle’s claustrophobic debut, an emblematic film noir which breathed new life in the genre, forever leaving its mark on French cinema.
Julien and Florence have masterminded the perfect plan to kill her husband and make it look like suicide. However, an unforeseen event leaves Julien trapped in an elevator and Florence wandering the streets of Paris at night looking for him, while the unexpected involvement of another couple complicates things further, with fatal results.
An extramarital affair; an ostensibly perfect crime; a desperate night in Paris. An iconic French film noir that revitalized the genre’s archetypal tropes, Louis Malle’s debut put the 24-year old director and his enchanting muse, Jeanne Moreau, firmly on the cinematic map. Stifling suspense, doomed romanticism, atmospheric black and white cinematography, a captivating depiction of the French capital, and Miles Davis’s legendary soundtrack make up this hypnotizing, claustrophobic thriller that left a deep mark on French cinema, defining all the elements that both connected and distinguished Louis Malle from the emerging explosion of the Nouvelle Vague.
Director: Louis Malle
Screenwriter: Roger Nimier, Louis Malles, Noel Callef (novel)
DoP: Henri Decae
Music: Miles Davis
Editor: Leonide Azar
Principal Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly
France | 1958 | B&W | DCP | 91' | French, German
