PREVIOUSLY AT FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIES
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A Previous Fabuleux Presentation
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France: 2001 -- Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
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Perhaps the most charming movie of all time, Amélie is certainly one of the top 10. The title character (the bashful and impish Audrey Tautou) is a single waitress who decides to help other lonely people fix their lives. Her widowed father yearns to travel but won't, so to inspire the old man she sends his garden gnome on a tour of the world; with whispered gossip, she brings together two cranky regulars at her café; she reverses the doorknobs and reprograms the speed dial of a grocer who's mean to his assistant. Gradually she realizes her own life needs fixing, and a chance meeting leads to her most elaborate stratagem of all. This is a deeply wonderful movie, an illuminating mix of magic and pragmatism. Fans of the director's previous films (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children) will not be disappointed; newcomers will be delighted. |
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Hope to see you there. I'll save you an aisle seat and a snapshot of my garden gnome in Uzbekistan. |
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Nominated for Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction/Set Direciton and Best Sound Ranks #18 on the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 Movies Won César Awards (French Oscars) for Best Film, Best Director, Best Music and Best Production Design Won Independant Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film Won Audience Awards at Cinéfest, Chicago Film Festival, Canberra Film Festival, Denver Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and the European Film Awards More awards |
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Amélie: A least, you can't be a vegetable, because even a artichoke has heart. Amélie: [whispering in theater] I like to look for things no one else catches. I hate the way nobody ever looks at the road in old movies! More quotes |
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The part of Amelie was originally meant for Emily Watson. She wanted the part but had to decline because she didn't speak French and had already agreed to be in Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001) Paris is a graffiti-ridden city, and the areas in which the film was shot had to be cleaned and restored. The photo booth picture collection is based on a real collection created by a friend of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. More trivia |
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Technically, the fact that there are New VW Beetles in the streets of Paris in 1997, even though the car was not widely available in France until the summer of 1998, is an anachronism. It was, however, deliberate - Jean-Pierre Jeunet thought the car reflected the "sweet and amusing personality of Amélie". When Amélie sits down to have her picture taken in a Zorro costume, the camera flashes four times. Later, when Nino is putting the torn up picture together, we see that she chose to have one large picture developed, not four smaller pictures, indicating the camera should only have flashed once. More goofs |
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