Paris In Cleo Comparative Essay

Portrayal of Paris: City in Cleo from 5 to 7 and Inception
A city, the icon of a lifestyle completely different from the others, is a creation of modernity, social contrast and cultural collisions. The city of Paris is one of the most well known cities in the world and the main setting for both films, Cleo from 5 to 7(Dir. Varda, 1961) and Inception(Dir. Nolan, 2010). Even though both filmmakers chose to set their films in the same geographical location, Agnes Varda’s Paris is very different from Christopher Nolan’s Paris in visualization, audio and thematic roles. I believe such distinctions in representations are caused by the differences in genre, time, objectives and gender of the directors.
First of all, the visual representations of
In Cleo from 5 to 7, the sounds of the city are truthfully represented. French New Wave was spearheaded by the people who wanted more realistic representation of lives in the films ,and Varda was one of them. In one scene, Cleo plays her own song on the jukebox in a cafe while a group of men besides her are talking about war. A woman in the background complaining about the song being too loud that she cannot hear what others are saying. After securing a seat at a table, Cleo starts to observe while waiting for her coffee. Here, the audio is submerged with the conversations of other people who are in the cafe ,traffic and other noises, and we sense her insecurity of other people judging her. Also, when Cleo is traveling around the city in a taxi, we can hear the car engine, radio, honk and people hollering on the street. The noises add to the authenticity when representing city and urban lives because it is never quite in the city. Varda actively seeks detachment both in narratives and characters. Other people’s stories were as important as the character’s. As a result, the conversations and noises are not blocked out in order to ensure the clarity of the main characters’ dialogues, unlike Classical Hollywood