Educational Media Reviews Online

Forty twentieth-century songs about Paris are briefly surveyed in this production via popular recordings (from as early as 1910), commentary from a variety of contemporary Parisians, and film clips from popular cinema. Familiar landmarks and features of Paris are shown—songs about landscape cover the Seine and its islands, bridges, and quays; architecture; the Champs-Elysées. Slices of Parisian life are described in songs about fashion (including the work of seamstresses), restaurants, food, hotels, luxuries, middle-class normality, and starving-artist street performers. Nostalgic ballads are sung about Bohemian Paris, Montmartre, Montparnasse, and the outdoor marketplace Les Halles. Songs of Parisian nightlife celebrate cabarets such as the Moulin Rouge, as viewers watch bare-breasted can-can dancers in feathers and beads and listen to one of the dancers discuss her strenuous work. Among other people interviewed are historians, lawyers, writers, and business owners.

Sepia tones are used to introduce speakers or to indicate nostalgia while most archival footage is in black and white or fuzzy color. Narrative flow from subject to subject is smooth and the mix of talk, music, and visuals is well balanced. Swiftly-moving credits in difficult-to-read script are reserved for the end of the film, so viewers unfamiliar with the songs and singers remain mainly uninformed about what is supposedly the whole point of this project: showcasing popular songs written about Paris in the last century. The result is a quasi-travelogue with charming background music and little educational value.

Recommended only to large public libraries as an entertainment DVD.