With Eric Rohmer in Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

Eric Rohmer’s films sharply divide critical opinion. Those with a taste for leisurely exposition, extended dialogues and philosophical complexity find much to commend. Others find them to be without equal when it comes to pretentious tedium. I can see both sides of this but the visual quality is the one I most appreciate - the sense of place and the curious intensity of observation in the way the camera is directed to record and scrutinise the surface of reality.


When filming La femme de l’aviateur in 1982, Rohmer selected the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont as the scene for the central encounter between the naive and emotionally confused twenty-something François and the precociously self-assured, articulate and animated fifteen year-old Lucie. François follows the aviator (with whom he suspects his girlfriend is deceiving him) and his female companion from Gare de l’Est to rue La Fayette where the three of them board an eastbound 26 bus. Unnoticed by François, Lucie also got on the bus and in order to keep the aviator under observation he moves to a seat opposite her. All four leave the bus at the Botzaris entrance to the park where Lucie and François collide with one another and strike up a conversation. What follows is a comedy of errors in which François, desperate not to disclose the secret object of his pursuit, tells his new companion an elaborate sequence of contradictory untruths.


The orbital meandering pathways in the park mirror the convoluted dialogue that results from François’s obfuscations. As his subterfuges unravel under Lucie’s spirited cross-examination she becomes his accomplice and takes the lead after they exit the park on to the rue Armand-Carrel and follow their target to the nearby office of a lawyer. Lucie weaves a web of deceit that in terms of invention easily surpasses the modest efforts of François. They sit at a café table in an attempt to maintain observation on their target where Lucie continues to baffle and befuddle the increasingly exhausted François to the point where he simply falls asleep. The film concludes with an interminable exchange between François and his neurotic girlfriend, Anne, that feels like the very worst of Rohmer and comes as a serious disappointment.



Rohmer’s fascination with Buttes-Chaumont began in 1964 when he made a short film of 13 minutes, Nadja à Paris in which the camera of Nestor Almendros follows a young overseas student across Paris as she exchanges the superficial pretensions of Saint-Germain des Près for the dependable working-class values of Belleville and the peace of the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. The brief scene in the park is soon after the start of the second section of the film. There’s a melancholy epilogue of tragedy and unfulfilled promise to La femme de l’aviateur. Of the two young actors at the centre of the drama, Philippe Marlaud (François) would be killed in a campsite fire less than 6 months after the premiere and Anne-Laure Meury (Lucie) would go on to appear in no more than handful of movies (including another for Rohmer) before virtually disappearing from view in 1989.

Finally, my thanks go to Chris Mullen who brought this to my attention.

Buttes-Chaumont – the Permanent Way

This postcard view has been taken from the southern heights of the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Today these slopes are densely wooded and this view is unobtainable. The railway is the Petite Ceinture, the long defunct Parisian orbital railway that runs through the eastern flank of the park enabling us to unite two obsessions in a single posting. The photographer is standing on top of the Tunnel de Belleville from which the tracks run north and leave the park at the point where the road bridge carrying the rue de Crimée travels overhead. The eastern boundary fence in the park has been breached and offers one of the easiest access points on to the trackbed of the Petite Ceinture. This writer is routinely mocked by friends and family for an aversion to any activity that might be construed, however remotely, as unauthorised so this was a major step in more ways than one. Which is how these photographs came to be taken.

La promenade est interdite sur la Petite Ceinture, comme pour toute voie ferrée appartenant au réseau national. L’alinéa 5 de l’article 73 du décret n° 730 du 22 mars 1942, modifié par le décret n° 69-601 du 10 juin 1969, portant règlement d’administration publique sur la police la sûreté et l’exploitation des voies ferrées d’intérêt général et d’intérêt local (J.O du 23 août 1942) stipule qu’ "il est défendu à toute personne de pénétrer, circuler ou stationner, sans autorisation régulière, dans les parties de la voie ferrée, ou de ses dépendances qui ne sont pas affectées à la circulation publique, d’y introduire des animaux ou d’y laisser introduire ceux dont elle est responsable, d’y faire circuler ou stationner aucun véhicule étranger au service, d’y jeter ou déposer des matériaux ou objets quelconques, d’entrer dans l’enceinte du chemin de fer ou d’en sortir par d’autres issues que celles affectées à cet usage.


Down on the hallowed ground of the Petite Ceinture, having transgressed line 5 of article 73 of decree 730 of March 22nd 1942, modified by decree 69-601 of June 10th 1969, it all looks very well cared for. The ballast has been renewed and is free of weeds while the tracks themselves show little evidence of rust formation. The railway emerges from the tunnel to the south into a cutting, the west side of which is buttressed by a brick built wall with alcoves adapted by rough sleepers using outsize plastic groundsheets to provide shelter and privacy. To the north where the tracks run underneath rue de Crimée, a branch that formerly served the abattoirs at La Villette diverges to the right. Some hardcore urban explorers were already present at the mouth of the tunnel engaged on a project of their own. Ignoring them in time-honoured fashion I walked north for a few hundred yards taking photographs before a deep seated fear of authority warned me the time to retreat was at hand.

Le Belvédère

Another glimpse of the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. The Belvedere stands at the highest point of the park and offers the finest views across the city of Paris. The colour photo is from a visit in December 2007. The postcard takes us back a century and is populated by a broad cross section of citizens of the 19ème. As usual, the local children have turned up in force for the photo-opportunity and present a wide range of attitudes from self-absorption and relaxed charm to brazen impudence. Two boys perch on the iron railings and another has clambered over the top to push himself into the foreground. On the extreme right, a saturnine individual favours us with an inscrutable glance as he exits the picture space. The image below shows part of the view from the Belvedere looking northwest along the avenue de Laumière.