Long appointment
"Micmacs à tire-larigot" is the sixth feature film of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (the fourth part of his personal creation). Renei has never been a prolific director. Since " A Very Long Engagement ", he has kept fans waiting for five years.
Although " A Very Long Engagement " did not achieve the expected box office, Jean-Pierre Jeunet still won the appreciation of Hollywood. First, Warner invited him to continue writing the myth of " Harry Potter " (" Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince "), but Renei had little interest in magical themes and gave up. Then Fox invited him to remake the English novel ""Renei has invested considerable enthusiasm for this project. He and his queen screenwriter Guillaume Laurent (" Amelie ", " A Very Long Engagement ") immediately adapted the novel into a script, produced two sets of hand-painted and video storyboards, and inspected Fox and the local European Photo studio. However, the budget of up to eight thousand five hundred US dollars made the producer Fox also ashamed of his pocket, and Renet finally gave up the plan, and two years of hard work were in vain. It is reported that,""The filming work of "was transferred to Li Ang, which is still in the preparatory stage.
Sources of inspiration and script creation
At the end of"After the plan, Jean-Pierre Jeunet immediately started writing a new script with his old partner Guillaume Laurent. It took three to four months to write the script of "Micmacs à tire-larigot".
A hero with ammunition in his head gathered a group of ragged kings with unique skills and went to the lair of arms dealers. Where does the inspiration for the story come from? The director explained to us one by one: heroes, scavengers, and arms dealers with bullets in their heads, these ideas came out almost at the same time. While editing his debut film " The City of Lost Children " near Dassault’s factory, Rene had the idea of weaving the arms dealer into the story: “The crew members were often in the same restaurant as Dassault’s employees. Dining, looking at these extremely smart engineers in suits and leather shoes, I can't help but think that they are making some kind of weapon with super destructive ability, these weapons bring death and sorrow to people."
Let the scavengers become the protagonist of the film, stems from the director’s own love of handicraft: "I like the craftsmanship of tinkering. The way I make a movie is like the scavengers who stay in the cave in the film. Processing and reuse. I love these. I love making the movie itself. I need to follow every step and participate in every second. From the paper selection of the storyboard to the mixing and verification. These procedures are trivial and annoying for some directors. Yes, and I enjoy it. This is how I make movies, and I really enjoy this joy."
Small fights and big shots have always been the subject of the director's favorite, and the idea of letting scavengers compare with these death makers naturally came up. The director revealed that he likes the story of " Toy Story " very much . A group of strange, fringe, innocent but distinctive little characters can create a story and advance the plot. These people who maintain justice are always a bit late, and clumsy, but with a little poetry, and they are always united and have a sincere human touch.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet revealed the creative process between himself and his old partner Guillaume. Generally, Renet has a general theme first, and then he and Guillaume each wrote down their thoughts on characters, scenes, dialogues, small actions, expressions, and sets. These ideas are gathered in a cardboard box, and when the box is full and each of them is exhausted, they will be taken out to jointly create some new things, create characters, build stories, and write scripts.
When asked how to finalize his thoughts and how to resolve differences, Rene jokingly called this "magical alchemy": "Guillaume and I always have a happy tacit understanding, and my own ideas can be derived from each other. The response was like a never-ending table tennis match. Soon, we couldn't tell whose original intention this was."
In order to create "Micmacs à tire-larigot", Renai, who knew nothing about the arms business, started an investigation. Following his journalist friend, Renet met and visited an old spy who had retired from the French Ministry of Defense, and also visited a weapons manufacturing factory in Belgium (it is impossible to visit similar factories in France). Renet’s impression of arms dealers is still not getting better. He said: “They are amiable people, passionate about their profession. They talk about weapon manufacturing like chocolate making. However, this is after all causing pain, sorrow and sorrow. A dead product."
The beautiful joke of fate
Just like in "Amelie", Audrey Tato replaced the original actor Emily Watson who loved the beautiful role. In "Micmacs à tire-larigot", the role of Basel was originally played for Jamel Du Booth prepared.
After the filming of "Amelie" was completed, director René promised that Jamel would write a role for him, so "Micmacs à tire-larigot" was created. Not only is it tailor-made, Jamel's disability is also written into the script and integrated with the story. However, after contacting the producer and only two months before filming started, Jamel rejected all performance opportunities for personal reasons. The temporary vacancy of the male lead caught the director Jean-Pierre by surprise. After two months of delay, he thought of Dany Boon and tried to persuade him. The process of persuading Dany Boon was also quite troublesome. Although the director and Danny were "happy" and admired each other, both Danny and his agent believed that the script was full of Jamel's shadow, which was completely unsuitable for appearance. Dany Boon has a very different temperament.
Director Rene didn't want to give up lightly. He invited Danny to do an audition. Under Rene’s director, Danny was quite satisfied with the results of the audition, and immediately took the film. After that, Renet spent another four months to make two revisions to the script. The film was finally able to start shooting in August 2008.
In addition, there are some other cast changes: Marie-Julie Pope replaced the pregnant Marina Foys.
A hero and seven gangs
Basel, aiming for revenge, has seven good brothers, and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet also has a group of like-minded film partners. The cast brings together regulars from the movie world ( Dominique Jean-Claude Pinon , Andre Dussolier, Yolanda Monroe), and also attracts many new friends (Dany Boon, Julie Ferrari , Jean-Pierre Mariel, Marie-Julie Pope, etc.).
As for the production team, more than half of the production staff are made by old friends of Rene: Guillaume Laurent, the screenwriter of "Amelie" and "A Very Long Engagement", and the chief editor of Rene since " Delikatessen " Designer Elvi Schneider, chief costume designer Madeleine Fontaine of "Amelie" and "A Very Long Engagement", and chief set designer Elena Bonito.
Of course, despite having so many familiar partners, when it comes to film soundtracks, René never seems to have the same composer. He admitted that this is because every time he wants to find a composer that best fits the style of the film. Following Yang Tilson from "Amelie" and Angelo Badalamenti from "A Very Long Engagement", Jean-Pierre Jeunet launched another new musical artist: Rafael Bo, who is from Paris A young music teacher in the suburbs, "Micmacs à tire-larigot" will be his first film soundtrack.
As for the photographers, given that René’s queen photographer Bruno Del Bernard was called to the crew of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", this time René invited the photography of " La môme " and "Blueberry Love". Teacher Nakata Tetsuo.
The movie title is a place Jean-Pierre Jeunet often plays. Just like the French film name of "Black Spot Rhapsody" (Delicatessen), Rene gave his new movie a weird name "Micmacs à tire-larigot". Micmacs means conspiracy in French, and à tire-larigot means rich and abundant. The director felt that the two words put together had a sharp meaning to the theme of the movie.
· "Micmacs à tire-larigot" costs 25 million euros and is issued by Warner Corporation.
·The film was filmed on August 11, 2008 and finished in mid-December. The film was shot in Paris and the suburbs of Paris.
Return to Paris: Following the " ideal" Paris in " Amelie " and the Paris in the beginning of the last century in "A Very Long Engagement", Jean-Pierre Jeunet has created another bizarre Paris in "Micmacs à tire-larigot" , A Paris that mixes tradition and modernity, the combination of the old and the new, and the coexistence of the city and the suburbs.
·Adhering to the consistent hot inner style, posters of different versions of "Micmacs à tire-larigot" will appear in the film four times.
·Maximum efficiency: According to the director, this film did not cut a scene during editing. Only some of the scenes have been cut short.
·When the director faces a group of directors.: Dany Boon is the fourth actor and director to appear in the Jean-Pierre Jeunet film. The first three include Matthew Casowitz in "Amelie", Judy Foster and Albert Dubondell in " A Very Long Engagement ".
· In the role of young Basel, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet found an excellent actor, Dany Boon's biological son, and he took the first step in becoming a movie.
·Don’t try to find the video rental store operated by Basel at the beginning of the film, because it doesn’t exist at all! Jean-Pierre Jeunet completely rebuilt a flower shop on the Charles-Lorillo Street into an audio rental shop.
·At the beginning of the film, Dany Boon showed himself an old Howard Hawks movie "Sleep" (1947) in his video store. As a loyal fan of Howard Hawkes, Jean-Pierre Jeunet used this film to pay tribute to the film's predecessors and the soundtrack of "Sleep" Max Steiner.
·A female journalist, Christine Kelly, appeared in a news report in the film. She changed her job when the film was about to be completed. Since January 2009, she has become a member of the Confederate States of America , the highest audio-visual committee in France .
