film and architecture section: Diva by Jean-Jacques Beineix, architecture and film appreciation

category: Architecture and Film (The waterloo University syllabus) (click HERE for syllabus)
film index: 55
relationship with architecture: architecture around the city becomes virtual set for developing the story.

film: Diva
director: Jean-Jacques Beineix
writers: Jean-Jacques Beineix, Jean Van Hamme, Based on the novel by Delacorta
production: France
release: March 11, 1981
playtime: 117 min
visual: colour
Language: French, English
Subtitles:
Genre: suspence
Cast:
size: 896 mb

reference: rapid.org, www.foriegnmoviesddl.com

Description and download:

Diva is a 1981 film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, adapted from a novel of the same name by Daniel Odier (under the pseudonym Delacorta). It is one of the first[citation needed] French films to let go of the realist, harsh mood of 1970s French cinema and return to a colourful, melodic style, called "Cinema du look". The film made a muted debut in France in 1981, but had success in the United States the next year.[citation needed] The film became a cult classic and was internationally acclaimed.

Jules, a young postman, is obsessed with Cynthia Hawkins, a beautiful and celebrated opera singer who has never consented to have her performances recorded. He attends her performance, secretly and illegally records it, and steals a gown from her dressing room.

Unknowingly, Jules also comes into possession of another important tape: the testimony of a prostitute, exposing Saporta, a high-ranking policeman, as the boss of various rackets. The prostitute drops the recording in the bag of the postman's moped moments before she is murdered.

In danger from Saporta's enforcers as well as from Taiwanese gangsters seeking the Hawkins tape, Jules seeks refuge with his new friends, the mysterious bohemian Serge Gorodish and his young muse Alba (the central figures of a series of novels, including the one upon which the screenplay was based). Gorodish acts as a deus ex machina to manipulate Jules's enemies into destroying each other. Meanwhile a romantic relationship between Jules and Cynthia develops, beautifully emphasised by the piano instrumental 'Promenade Sentimentale' of Vladimir Cosma as they walk around Paris early one morning.

Diva has enormous loft apartments, thugs galore, gorgeous visuals, and a corker of a chase scene.

imdb links: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082269/
wikipedia links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diva_%28film%29

screencaps:

sneak peak:

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Diva by Jean-Jacques Beineix, architecture and film appreciation

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