Golden Eighties

Last updated

Golden Eighties
Golden Eighties film poster.png
French theatrical release poster
Directed by Chantal Akerman
Written by
Produced byMartine Merignac
Starring
CinematographyGilberto Azevedo
Edited by Francine Sandberg
Music byMarc Hérouet
Production
companies
  • La Cecilia
  • Paradise Films
  • Limbo Film
Distributed by
  • Pari Films
  • Gerick Distribution
Release dates
  • 15 May 1986 (1986-05-15)(Cannes)
  • 25 June 1986 (1986-06-25)(France)
Running time
96 minutes
Countries
  • Belgium
  • France
  • Switzerland
LanguageFrench

Golden Eighties (also known as Window Shopping) is a 1986 musical comedy film co-written and directed by Chantal Akerman. [1] The film explores themes such as consumerism, feminism, and Jewish identity through the lens of a shopping mall. [2]

Contents

Plot

The film follows the romantic lives of an ensemble of retail employees at a shopping mall. [3] Sylvie, a coffee shop employee, pines for her boyfriend who has traveled to Labrador seeking fortune. Her customer Eli, an American man, reencounters Jeanne, a Jewish woman from Poland who had been his lover in the wake of World War II when he was stationed in France. He pursues her in an attempt to start a new life with her, but ultimately, Jeanne cannot bring herself to leave the life she built with her shopkeeper husband and her son Robert.

Meanwhile, Pascale, a hairdresser, pines for Robert despite his love for the salon's manager Lili. Robert is rejected by Lili for Monsieur Jean, the wealthy married man who owns the salon. Robert instead resolves to marry hairdresser Mado, but is caught in a final tryst with Lili by Pascale. Word of Robert's infidelity spreads to everybody but Mado. When the news reaches Monsieur Schwartz, he tries to leverage it to make Monsieur Jean sell Lili's salon to him so he can expand his shop. Enraged, Monsieur Jean violently confronts Lili in the salon. Eli and Lili leave the mall together.

Months after these events, Robert now runs a boutique in the space formerly occupied by the salon and is set to marry Mado. On the eve of the wedding, Lili returns to the mall to proclaim her love for Robert. Mado catches the pair kissing in a fitting room and is distraught, running to Jeanne for comfort. Jeanne consoles Mado by telling her that she and Robert would not have been happy together and invites her to dinner with herself and her husband. As they leave the mall, they run into Eli and his new wife.

Cast

Production

Akerman had conceived Golden Eighties in the style of a Technicolor MGM musical. In part because this was such a departure from her earlier work, Akerman was unable to secure funding for the project. In 1983, the director released a documentary showcasing the movie's early phases of production to attract investors. [5] The first hour of the documentary feature, titled Les Annees 80s, featured scenes from rehearsals. The documentary continued with an abbreviated version of the musical followed by Akerman thanking her collaborators over 365-degree footage of Brussels. The director concluded the documentary with the phrase "Next year in Jerusalem". [6]

Although Les Annees 80s was poorly received at the 1983 New York Film Festival, [7] Akerman eventually secured the funding she needed. Filming for the funded feature took place in Brussels over the course of eight weeks in 1985. Budget constraints resulted in a more modest production than Akerman had envisioned; for example, the choreography was simpler than she had hoped. [8]

Release

Golden Eighties premiered at the 1986 Directors' Fortnight, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival. [9] The film received a limited release in the United States on 17 April 1992 under the title Window Shopping [3] to avoid confusion with Les Annees 80s, the musical's making-of documentary which was released as Golden Eighties in the United States. [7]

Reception

Golden Eighties enjoyed modest success in Belgium and France upon its original release. In a 1992 review for The New York Times , critic Vincent Canby described the film as an "unpretentious, absolutely charming romantic comedy-with-music, the small scale of which perfectly suits the passions of its characters". [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chantal Akerman</span> Belgian film director (1950–2015)

Chantal Anne Akerman was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delphine Seyrig</span> French actress and film director (1932–1990)

Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig was a Lebanese-born French actress and film director. She came to prominence in Alain Resnais's 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad, and later acted in films by Chantal Akerman, Luis Buñuel, Marguerite Duras, Ulrike Ottinger, Francois Truffaut, and Fred Zinneman. She directed three films, including the documentary Sois belle et tais-toi (1981).

Sight and Sound is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial Sight and Sound Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Sautet</span> French film director and screenwriter

Claude Sautet was a French film director and screenwriter.

<i>Monsieur Vincent</i> 1947 French film

Monsieur Vincent is a 1947 French historical drama film about Vincent de Paul. In 1949, it won an honorary Academy Award as the best foreign language film released in the United States in 1948. The Vatican placed it amongst their 1995 list of films under the category of Religion due to its thematic nature. Pierre Fresnay portrayed Vincent.

<i>Monsieur Klein</i> 1976 French film

Monsieur Klein is a 1976 mystery drama film directed by Joseph Losey, produced by and starring Alain Delon in the title role. Set in occupied France, the Kafkaesque narrative follows an apparently Gentile Parisian art dealer who is seemingly mistaken for a Jewish man of the same name and targeted in the Holocaust, unable to prove his identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magali Noël</span> French actress and singer

Magali Noël Guiffray, better known as Magali Noël, was a French actress and singer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of Belgium</span>

Cinema of Belgium refers to the film industry based in Belgium. Belgium is essentially a bi-lingual country divided into the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) north and the French-speaking south. There is also a small community of German speakers in the border region with Germany. Belgium is further a federal country made up of three regions and three language communities . Due to these linguistic and political divisions it is difficult to speak of a national, unified Cinema of Belgium. It would be more appropriate to talk about Flemish or Dutch-language cinema of Belgium and Walloon or French-language cinema of Belgium.

<i>Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles</i> 1975 film by Chantal Akerman

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is a 1975 film written and directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. It was filmed over five weeks on location in Brussels, and financed through a $120,000 grant awarded by the Belgian government. Distinguished by its restrained pace, long takes, and static camerawork, the film is a slice-of-life depiction of a widowed housewife over three days.

Little Lili is a 2003 French drama film by French director Claude Miller. The film stars Ludivine Sagnier, Bernard Giraudeau, Nicole Garcia, Julie Depardieu and Jean-Pierre Marielle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1983 Cannes Film Festival</span>

The 36th Cannes Film Festival was held from 7 to 19 May 1983. The Palme d'Or went to the Narayama Bushiko by Shōhei Imamura.

Véronique Silver was a French actress.

<i>Down There</i> (film) 2006 film by Chantal Akerman

Down There is a 78-minute 2006 Belgian-French English- and French-language independent documentary art film directed by Chantal Akerman.

<i>Les Rendez-vous dAnna</i> 1978 film by Chantal Akerman

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Chantal Akerman.

<i>No Home Movie</i> 2015 French-Belgian documentary film by Chantal Akerman

No Home Movie is a French-Belgian 2015 documentary film directed by Chantal Akerman, focusing on conversations between the filmmaker and her mother just months before her mother's death. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival on 10 August 2015. It is Akerman's last film before she died by suicide.

Sud is a 71-minute 1999 Belgian-Finnish-French English-language independent documentary art film directed by Chantal Akerman.

Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels is a 1994 television film by Belgian feminist and avant-garde filmmaker Chantal Akerman. It is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story with feminist and LGBT themes.

Minimalist cinema is related to the art and philosophy of minimalism.

Francine Sandberg is a French film editor. She is known for working as an editor for several films directed by Chantal Akerman and Cédric Klapisch, including News from Home (1977), L'Auberge Espagnole (2002), Russian Dolls (2005), and Paris (2008), and has been nominated three times for the César Award for Best Editing.

References

  1. ↑ "Golden Eighties". Festival de Cine de Sevilla. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  2. ↑ "Golden Eighties". The Criterion Channel. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 Vincent Canby (17 April 1992). "Review/Film: New Scenes from a Mall, with Music". The New York Times . Sec. C, p. 13.
  4. ↑ "Golden Eighties". Film at Lincoln Center. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  5. ↑ "A Nos Amours: Chantal Akerman 8: Les Années 80". Institute of Contemporary Arts. 24 April 2014. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  6. ↑ Adam Roberts (24 April 2014). "Chantal Akerman's Les Anneés 80 – A Film About Spinning". HuffPost . Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  7. 1 2 Janet Maslin (2 October 1983). "Eighties, a Surreal Rehearsal". The New York Times. p. 59.
  8. ↑ Xavier Jamet (30 January 2018). "Photographies de Tournage de Golden Eighties de Chantal Akerman, par Jean Ber" (in French). La Cinémathèque Français. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  9. ↑ "1986 – Directors' Fortnight". Quinzaine-Realisateurs.com. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.