Pierre Salvadori

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domino harvey
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Pierre Salvadori

#1 Post by domino harvey » Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:42 pm

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Pierre Salvadori (1964 - )

"In film school, my classmates were all inspired by la Nouvelle Vague, but I was more interested in Mitchell Leisen and Billy Wilder"

FILMOGRAPHY

AS DIRECTOR
Ménage (1992)
Cible émouvante (1993)
R2 Second Sight (OOP) (as Wild Target)
Les apprentis (1995) R2 Bluebell (OOP)
...comme elle respire (1998)
Le détour (2000)
Les marchands de sable (2000)
Après vous... (2003)
R1 Paramount (OOP) (as After You...)
Hors de prix (2006) RA Alchemy (OOP) / Streaming free on Amazon Prime (as Priceless)
De vrais mensonges (2010) RB Trinity (OOP) (as Beautiful Lies)
Dans la cour (2014) RA Cohen (as In the Courtyard)
En liberté! (2018) R1 Kino Lorber (as the Trouble With You)
La petite bande (2022)

AS WRITER ONLY
La femme du cosmonaute (1997)
Francisca (2002)
Itinéraire bis (2011)
(as "Stéphane Laurent")

FORUM DISCUSSION
En liberté! [the Trouble With You] (2018)

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domino harvey
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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#2 Post by domino harvey » Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:57 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:14 am
I've been working my way through Salvadori's other films, and it's obvious that the man loves his old school Hollywood films (indeed, he told my audience at the above screening that while his colleagues were influenced by the French New Wave, he was influenced by Leisen and Wilder) and it's interesting to see how many stabs at finding the right balance of screwball lunacy and real world appeal it took to get it right with En liberté! (and that balance is of course only struck by completely rethinking what is meant by "real world" via re-contextualizing the "real world" wholly into the internal logic of a 30s screwball). I'm five films in and only one of his movies doesn't operate within this fantasy world of an era gone by [Les apprentis (1995), a pleasant enough minor key comedy far more indebted to the low budget indie tradition than classical Hollywood]. On a basic level, I don't think De vrais mensonges (2010), a would-be comic farce of anonymous letters of love in a hair salon, works at all because Audrey Tautou's character is unlikable to such a level that it comes across as a gross miscalculation (and here is the danger of going too far and just saying, "Well, she's Audrey Tautou, the audience will like her regardless" when filming...), and Nathalie Baye is unlikably pathetic to almost the same degree. Like that film, Après vous... (2003) also struggles (though more successfully) with balancing its darker elements with the studio system machinations of plot, as maître d Daniel Auteuil saves Jose Garcia from killing himself and then finds him a job as a sommelier at his restaurant, despite Garcia being an emotional wreck with zero knowledge of wines. The movie is only intermittently funny, but there's one show-stopping scene
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--the job interview with Auteuil trying to pantomime answers to an unbelievably clueless Garcia, complete with the unforgettable comic image of Auteuil trying to imitate a lobster--
that is so perfectly realized and filled with belly laughs that I suspect the whole movie was built around it. But I think his most successful film apart from En liberté! is the one that looked least-promising going in, Hors de prix (2006), which starts with a simple idiot plot premise (gold-digger mistakes hotel worker for a sugar daddy) and shifts to increasingly funnier and more complex comic ideas until we get a romance that functions more on the level of a buddy picture as Tautou and Gad Elmaleh navigate the world of being trophy mates for rich undesirables. The moral morass of the protagonists' actions is wonderfully navigated and there's a real tenderness to their behavior, which is sort of amazing when you look at this movie with any kind of objectivity apart from the fantasy of the world it presents. Probably the sweetest movie about prostituting yourself I imagine I'll ever see!
In addition to the above (brought over from the En liberté! thread), I caught up with ...comme elle respire (1998), and it's clear now that Salvadori's primary comic fascination is with lying and especially liars. This one's protagonist suffers from compulsive lying to the extent that she's been hospitalized, and Marie Trintignant's mythomania eventually attracts the ill attentions of another liar, conman Guillaume Depardieu, who believes her stories of having royal parentage and great wealth and orchestrates an ill-advised kidnapping (one of several in the film!). Like a lot of Salvadori's comedies, the jokes and gags skirt the taste boundaries, and it reminded me of Apres vous... in being amusing but not hilarious until punctuated with several laugh out loud gutbuster comic sequences that justify the whole endeavor. There's a bit of physical comedy here involving the adjustment of a disguise that is so instinctively amusing in such an ordinary way that it really reveals the intuitive strengths of Salvadori-- it is probably even funnier than the instance in En liberté!, if you can believe it!

The last act to this one is a lot of fun, with both pairs of the romantic coupling finally knowing the other is lying and unable to stop themselves from feeding the other with more lies to continue forward. It's a path that can only be met in tragedy (or what passes for it in this film-- despite the rough edges and dark jokes, this film is a little too good-natured to worry about it going over the cliff with its threats). It is also perhaps clouded now when watching by the knowledge that both stars died prematurely, one at the hand of some of the same kind of treatment she receives in this film. Overall I'd rank this in the middle with Apres vous..., but I am already looking back on Salvadori's films with a real fondness that indicates a longterm revisit potential, especially for his best works En liberté! and Hors de prix

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#3 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:56 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:57 pm
There's a bit of physical comedy here involving the adjustment of a disguise that is so instinctively amusing in such an ordinary way that it really reveals the intuitive strengths of Salvadori-- it is probably even funnier than the instance in En liberté!, if you can believe it!
I can't believe it, if you're referring to the gags involving the
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BDSM gear
but you've officially inspired me to dig in.

I tried watching his first film, a ten minute short Ménage on YouTube, but the machine-generated subtitled were even more illegible than usual.

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#4 Post by domino harvey » Fri Apr 03, 2020 4:29 pm

I was thinking more of (spoiler for En liberté!)
SpoilerShow
the makeshift trash bag mask, especially when Marmaï takes a drag
but I think this one’s funnier than your example as well, though all three are trés drôle

(Spoiler for ...comme elles respire)
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The first shot of the three crooks in their flat-topped pillowcase hoods is oddly laugh out loud hilarious but it’s when one of them deliberately straightens out one of his corners to maintain the flat-top that I lost it— what a small but delightful detail

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#5 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:57 pm

While not quite as reconstructive as En liberté!, Pierre Salvadori inhabits one critical element of the Hollywood screwball comedy more faithfully in Hors de prix by plucking two typical supporting, even cameo, roles and forcing them into leads of the picture. Each embodies so perfectly a one-note personality that I can’t think of any actual 30s/40s screwballs with side-characters-as-leads that are so dull! Of course this all changes as we get to know them but Gad Elmaleh’s dim fool is a stand-in for Keaton's deadpan mannerisms, while Audrey Tautou follows the manipulative financial leech to a T, until they are presented with mirrors that allow each to build into fleshed out people, who couple up against all rules of the game. This creates the inverse of the expected rippling effect, so instead of spreading into the milieu with chaos, the wrong ingredients implode to infect themselves. Contrary to En liberté! these characters don’t seamlessly reside in the world of screwball but rather the opposite, with the film inserting its strange decision of manipulating uncredited roles into a normal world, to hysterical results. The content is more in line with the sex comedies of the 60s but the pairing and interplay is that of the earlier movement. The dry wit humor is perfect because Gad Elmaleh is synonymous in his blank disposition as the ‘normal’ folks we encounter, because they’re one in the same with him just plucked from the pile, a fish out of water. This is a comedic melting pot though, with sight gags, satire, and comedy of manners all taking a turn. My favorite running gag were subtle but hilarious in series,
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the recurring jokes that Gad Elmaleh cannot stop acting on his impulse to fit the role of a server, with his typical characterization so deeply rooted that they're blended into his identity, jumping at any and all triggers that would initiate that function, which are many! Even he knows he doesn’t belong in this movie.
I love Tautou’s declaration, “you have a soul” with each party only half-believing this, still playing catch-up with their new experience of playing first fiddle in a movie, not just life.

The other well-constructed idea is that as Elmaleh begins to exhibit Tautou’s repetitive behavioral cons, he finds in himself a spark that would lead to authentic self-actualization in a movie acting as reality, but here fully embraces living a lie as the pathway to happiness, allowing him to blend with Tautou and grow closer honestly, in the ultimate ironic play. It’s a weird inverse of how these films typically operate since both characters are on vacation from their identities, him through social climbing and her through actually emoting. In breaking from their unidimensional stereotypes acting roles, each finds growth; similar to how two romantic leads end in the same place but through authentic change masking its artificiality. This is a movie, it knows what it is, and in some ways the path it takes is more authentic by not faking the audience from their experience!
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Even the finale is set up to achieve happiness through their characters’ default ways (his as servant to her, her as scheming for money over love) and yet the responsibilities of being a lead give way to Big Change and propel the union a romantic comedy simply must have, at the very last moment, much to her chagrin - just look at her facial expression and body language squirming as she has this realization, it’s not relief!

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#6 Post by domino harvey » Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:10 pm

The struggle to reconcile old school Hollywood comic scenes within an ostensibly otherwise “real” modern world and contemporary narrative framework is often at odds in his pre-En liberté! work I’ve seen, which is what makes that film so liberating (ahem). You can really see the seams in ...comme elle respire, which is begging for traditional classic era filmmaking, not handheld cameras doing location shoots, and needs to embrace its characters pushed completely out of the realm of the plausible. Look at it compared to En liberté! and how that film has no grounding characters— everyone is part of the lunacy in their own fashion. Not so in the earlier film, which veers into family dramatics (most regrettably with the sincere harried parents) and attempts plausible emotional depth (though I suspect you will appreciate those elements far more than I do based on how you read films, TWBB). A great comedy can have all of those elements, but it’s by embracing fully the screwball genre’s narrative model and learning to work in it from within the totality of the film— to operate as though this were a completely normal and contemporary kind of film still being made, thus willing the genre back into existence instead of inserting it into non-Hollywood reality or offering up a pastiche of the passé— that Salvadori finally figures out that to forgo his struggle between the two worlds, you need more restraints for more freedom

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#7 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Apr 04, 2020 12:13 am

It’s funny you say that because while I definitely tend to give more attention to reading dramatics of sociology as a crucial omnipresent signifier for individual and collective emotional and philosophical exploration, that doesn’t necessitate how much I’ll get out of it, as ...comme elle respire tanked for me every single time the tone swayed from the comic conceptions. Gags like the paramedic predicament were inspired, but the film forced consistent detachment as even the lying scenes, which became amusing in theory, were captured with such cold, suffocating rigidity by the camera that they read as flat and sick rather than funny because of being flat and sick (which every other film of his that I’ve seen has done, so maybe this was the turning point).

I did get little kicks out of subtle touches like when Guillaume Depardieu is explaining his plan and we pan out unable to hear with mimicking hand gestures, a transparent ode to the same fade-away in every caper movie plotting scene that doesn’t show the plotting. The assembly of vision is too uneven though, and while I can acknowledge that there are hints of both comedic and dramatic skills, they aren’t strung together well and the little substance that could have been is whisked away. Salvadori is trying to have his cake and eat it too, and not only is he going about that blend in the wrong way but he’s trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, and has yet to discover that going full tilt into his imagination will yield the complexity he seeks. I'm glad he came around to recognizing that his strengths lie in comedy, and that the strategy of making comedy the sun his entire milieu revolves around will light the way for finding drama too, in a different shade to breathe novel context rather than the labored attempt we get here. I agree that there is a lot of potential in this film, and the parts that work read better having seen his later work to compare, but part of me deeply hated this one for its arduous irritation that numbed most of the smart filmmaking.


Apres vous…, on the other hand, I thought was just delightful. Perhaps less intelligent in genre deconstruction compared to Hors de prix and En liberté!, but the series of interpersonal communication gags are each individually funny, and build on each other with imagination and compassion, never letting up for a minute. The conflict of obligation and impeding selfishness competing with socially constructed morals and self-absorption drive the awkward initiation of socialization here, but once the dynamic is established, the inappropriate behavior born from anxiety and positive intention is played almost entirely for laughs despite the real emotions at stake. Add this to the list of hilarious suicide gags on film too.

I’ve only seen four of his films now, but while I support domino’s impression that Salvadori is most interested in the act of lying, this seems to be a symptom of his greater focus on the inherent absurdity with social engagement, manifested as discomfort in awkwardness or repellent fakery in exploitation, and how we use tools (false confidence, apathy, deceit, descent into solipsism, ignorance) to cope with this inescapable struggle, all of which have maladaptive and adaptive sides to them. This film finds its specific humor in different places than the others, mainly meditating on the absurdist nature of a social world through the lens of ideology and social niceties. The burden of responsibility felt for no logical reason is treated wrong at every turn despite sympathy, and this film strikes a grey area where altruism and egocentrism can coexist without shame - especially given the rather blunt ending that abandons typical Hollywood fare!

If there is a shifty redeployment of genre here it’s a comedy of manners injected into the working class. Salvadori’s knack for visual gags is on display too, with some very clever deadpan moments and surreal social detective jokes (the silhouette picture held up to fit in frame with the actual silhouette from precisely where Antoine happens to be standing was a great exploitative genre jab, especially after the last Star Wars film used this idea seriously as a key to unlocking a pivotal clue!) I think this easily ranks up there with the other two Salvadoris I’ve loved so far, and exceeds both purely in laugh-ratio. I haven’t laughed out loud this hard in a long time, particularly in the first half, and yes mostly at the gag in domino’s spoilerbox. I mistakenly spoiled it for myself a while back, but that didn’t stop me from roaring in fits, which carried into the next scene in the wine cellar that cemented the peak of the escalating parentified dynamic.

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#8 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Apr 05, 2020 7:44 pm

Dans la cour is more in line with the antisocial comedy in Apres Vous… than it fits into any old genre mold. Still, the premise of an existential crisis sparking an infiltration of milieu to find escape from numbed apathy, only to bond with another lost soul, is nothing new; but Salvadori uses his ability to find the humor in depression by objectively framing the actions as absurd, simultaneously validating and empathizing with this struggle, to strike a kind balance. There is more drama here than in his other comedies I’ve seen (I’m not counting ...comme elles respire because whatever drama was there didn’t work as such) but it’s so seamlessly blended in to the world of this film that humor and pathos are found within each other like Russian dolls. Although I liked it better, Apres Vous… felt uncomfortable in stewing in the funk and opted to make light of every serious moment instead. This film allows itself to linger spaciously on the dramatic side, and the humor is especially wry in situational performance expression, not going for quantity in repetitive gags. There is a newfound confidence there, and also a strength in allowing for perspective-shifting to occur between the two leads in ways that would be perfectly struck in En liberté. Salvadori has done this before but never gave each actor as much breathing room between them to take control of their narrative, and it’s refreshing to see him take that risk here before going for broke to wild success in his next and best film.

Speaking of, it’s great to see Pio Marmaï pop up in a supporting performance of free-wielding hilarity and tragic circumstance that clearly inspired his character, and perhaps even plotline, in En liberté. Gustave Kervern tones it down for a subdued performance that walks the fine line between polar moods, and Catherine Deneuve gives another dependable late-life offering of wisdom in honest reflection, emiting natural comic chops that have only strengthened with age as she laughs at life with youthful wit and flexes the protective factors for her loneliness.

Unfortunately there is too much going on between the resident supporting players only half-realised and the multiple narrative threads take their time along bumpy roads to splice together. The attempts at gags like the projector malfunction don’t really work while the verbal delivery can and does intermittently. The tone is all over the place but it’s not hard to imagine that this was the film Salvadori made before his best yet because it tried too hard in one direction while mustering up the courage to do so, and found more than a few sweet spots in the dark humor. This film actually becomes very dramatic and although this has never been Salvadori's strong suit, I was impressed with how deeply he touched on these moments only to pull back without reverting to heavy melodrama in the first two acts. The comedy could have helped even out some third-act tailspins that do go down this road hardcore, but that was clearly the intention, though it veered too intensely into a one-note key that felt at odds with the preceding chapters even if in-step with the pervading poignancy always lurking beneath the surface.

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#9 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Apr 07, 2020 8:46 am

Ugh- domino, you weren’t kidding about Tautou's character in De vrais mensonges forcing the film to fold in on itself, though it’s not only that she’s awful but paper thin. The film doesn’t discriminate however, as the other two main actors were vapid hosts of equally annoying characters. On top of these unlikeable leads, there are moments clearly intended to be comical that fail miserably not just because the actors can’t carry them but because they simply aren’t funny at all. After a handful fell flat in the first ten minutes I was worried but wasn’t prepared for this to turn into a total skunk. Maybe Salvadori was going for straight romance (though there are clear indicators that he’s attempting some jokes) but even that would be a complete failure. I can’t say I felt any enthusiasm in this mess, which was a lone dud in the middle of Salvadori’s peak growth. The subgenre of screwball where a few people become buried in a series of misunderstandings and shifting dynamics is a strong idea for him to take on, but he twisted this idea for En liberté! as one of a variety of templates strung together for that film, and this makes me think that he functions better by instilling such a range of knowledge into an eclectic feast rather than taking a one-note premise and attempting to stretch it over 90 minutes (which only happened to work perfectly in Apres Vous…, though by that point I think he had either gained enough control over his ego so as to actually restrain himself from putting every gag on the page in the finished film, or he just found the perfect material to land a nonstop series of jokes in a fluke).

Les apprentis has a few strong moments of social jokes but even the most successful ideas still felt amateurish in the execution of banter. There are still enough witty amusements strung in the dialogue to make this earn as many laughs as the average indie 90s comedy. There’s also a moment that Salvadori repeated as a smarter situational joke in Hors de prix! I got the feeling that if he took more ideas from this script and filmed them today the material would land hard.

In a surprising turn of events, Cible émouvante, Salvadori’s first feature, was easily his most successful pre-aughts work I’ve seen. I was laughing from the nonchalant body drop in the first few seconds of this crime-comedy, and the wacky premise was in the vain of Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise with less suave Sturges-esque characters populating its territory. The character dynamics clicked well, and the wry and playful humor worked in ironically finding a place within the unpredictable habitat of cutthroat assassins and con men. The first half is much stronger than the back half though, and the film never quite realises the brilliance of the ideas it sets forth, becoming another shallow series of gags instead of a collective vision. Sadly that makes this yet another uneven outing for Salvadori but one with promise, more amusement, and less grievances from me at least.

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#10 Post by domino harvey » Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:54 am

Salvadori’s next film is a remake of Michel Deville’s La petite bande starring Pio Marmai!

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#11 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:56 am

Wow, excellent news- hopefully it remains youth-centered and doesn't stray from its central gimmick

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#12 Post by domino harvey » Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:57 am

I imagine Marmai is playing the adult explorer character. IMDB shows a cast of kids

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#13 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:11 am

Nice, let’s just hope the world is ready for a silent Goonies so that this becomes a hit and Deville is cast into the spotlight

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Re: Pierre Salvadori

#14 Post by domino harvey » Thu Oct 20, 2022 7:53 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:54 am
Salvadori’s next film is a remake of Michel Deville’s La petite bande starring Pio Marmai!
While it shares its name, turns out this is not a remake after all— there’s dialog and everything!

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