The 1991 film Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (The Lovers on the Bridge) was one of the most expensive cinema productions ever undertaken in France. It was beset by myriad filming difficulties, delays and funding problems, and then it flopped at the box office - effectively ruining the career of its director Leos Carax.
Leos Carax and his Trilogy of Films About Love
Leos Carax was at the height of his fame when production began on Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. Just like that most famous of all French directors Jean-Luc Godard (to whom Carax is both indebted and inspired by) Leos was previously a writer for the influential French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema. His debut feature Boy Meets Girl was a great success, as was his second film Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood aka The Night is Young). Building on the success, and the themes, of those two, he set out to make a grand cinematic opus that would complete his work on the subject of love.
What Went Wrong with Les Amants du Pont-Neuf?
The film was supposed to be a simple character study, albeit about complex personalities. Its theme was an examination of how love can be hurtful and dangerous. The middle class heroine Michele (Juliette Binoche) is subsumed by her love for Alex (Denis Lavant), even though it doesn't seem to benefit her. A gifted artist, Michele is slowly going blind, so living on the streets with her vagrant lover would not seem to be the best choice. But her love for him defies such sense. Alex is also tormented by his love for Michele. His fear of losing her makes his love obsessive and brutal. He would rather her go blind than leave him.
The film's problems pretty much begin and end with the setting. Shooting on the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris was going to be a logistical nightmare, so production designer Michel Vandestein suggested building a model. After scouting Europe for locations to build the bridge, they ended up back in France with construction taking place in the town of Lansargues. Initially, the model was intended for night-time scenes, whereas day-time scenes were to be filmed on the real bridge in Paris. But building the model bridge had already increased costs by $5 million francs, according to the making-of documentary Enquête sur un film au-dessus de tout soupçon.
Injuries and Funding Problems on Les Amants du Pont-Neuf
More problems ensued when actor Denis Lavant badly injured his thumb and had to rest. This unfortunately co-incided with the time slot arranged for filming on the real Pont-Neuf, and the production missed its chance. Carax was pressured to re-cast his male lead, but he refused. Denis Lavant had starred in his previous two films, and he was not about to desert the actor now. The only solution was to film the daylight scenes on the model bridge too, but that meant extensive improvements were required. A further $9 million francs were secured, but it wasn't nearly enough to complete the bridge in Lansargues, and soon the insurance creditors stepped in to stop the production and pay off debts.
At this point, little more than a few minutes of useable footage had even been shot, but this was premiered at the Cannes film festival in 1998 and a couple of independently wealthy benefactors were impressed enough to undertake the funding. Construction work re-commenced, but money quickly spiralled out of control once more. With costs approaching $70 million francs, the benefactors withdrew, and production ceased again. During the break from filming, the still incomplete set was ravaged by storms, causing massive water damage.
At Cannes 1999, producer Christian Fechner took on the now infamous film Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. He personally secured a further $70 million, and the film was finally able to be completed.
Critical Reception of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf
The film met with a lacklustre critical reception. The escalating production costs had been well documented, and no doubt very little on screen could be seen to justify such gross expense. After all, the bridge was just the backdrop to the story. The place the characters went to sleep. The story itself was a simple one, as Carax had intended. To look back at the film now, or to stumble across it without knowledge of the catalogue of disasters that beset the production, is to discover a very different film. The photography is beautiful, and there are moments of divine pleasure scattered loosely throughout the film, such as the stunning fireworks display, and the water-skiing on the Seine. It's such a shame the film hasn't received its due credit. It really is an eccentric, stylistic, avant garde masterpiece.
Further Reading: Leos Carax was a leading director in the movement known as Cinema du Look.
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