Why is Amélie a Great Film?
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Why a Great Film

Why is Amélie a Great Film?

Amélie is considered one of the greatest films ever made. Here’s why.

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Amélie, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, is considered one of the greatest films ever made.

What is so great about Amélie?

I grade a film on four criteria. These are:

  1. Technical artistry
  2. Storytelling artistry
  3. Entertainment and
  4. Art

A film must ace all four to be great. If you want to know the details of what makes a film read this:

Technical artistry

Visually, Amélie is clearly a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film. He typically prefers the 18mm and 25mm focal lengths on Super 35mm; in Scope 2.39 to 1. Amélie was shot on Kodak stock with Zeiss Ultra Prime Lenses by the legendary cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel.

Don’t forget to check out this video I made on his cinematography (members only):

Jean-Pierre Jeunet loves super wide angles – wider than most directors. He can frame characters in close up in the foreground while showing us the world they live in. This distorts the facial features in a way that lends to his type of comedy. It is clear visually he loves to create a rich tapestry and mise-en-scene that lets his actors shine in.

The actors are almost caricatures of the roles they are playing. It’s a fine line. Just watch Alien: Resurrection.

Amélie was a response to the restrictions Jeunet had to endure in Hollywood. You feel you are watching a comic book come alive. Jean-Pierre Jeunet can push the visuals both ways – dark or cheerful. He did dark with Delicatessen and Alien: Resurrection. With Amélie he goes one eighty to a colorful and cheerful world where only good things can happen – even when events are bad. Let’s face it, it’s the world we all wish we could have, especially in the last two years.

The camera angles and movements are fluid and vibrant. One of the techniques Jean-Pierre Jeunet uses extensively is the character popping into frame, inspired directly by Sergio Leone.

Like Leone, Jeunet films in the spherical format and crops rather than film anamorphic. The camera technique is not often appreciated in Amelie, but shots like the one with Amélie on the bridge are one of the finest you’ll ever see in cinema. It’s stunning on every level.

The camera is almost always moving. Up or down, sideways, dollying in or out – there’s hardly a shot where the camera doesn’t move. A great example is an early unassuming scene where Amélie speaks to her landlady. You’d think with a film of such visual flair the director could easily have framed this more traditionally, but he doesn’t. This discipline is one of the reasons it works.

The characters are framed mostly in the center. The exception to this happens with over the shoulder shots. The film is all about relationships.

One of the major contributions of Amélie to cinema was in color grading. The majorly green hue was risky but paid off. As I’ve explained in my video on how films are shot in two colors – the primary colors of Amélie are red and green. You can watch it here:

Blue is a color that appears like a breath of fresh air from time to time. These colors were not completely achieved in production. Most of the credit goes to extensive color grading, which unfortunately led to countless films and commercials being green or blue over the next decade.

The main colors in the film – green, yellow and red – were inspired by the paintings of the Brazilian artist Juarez Machado.

This is not to say the production design didn’t play its part. It’s not for nothing the film received Academy Award nominations for art and cinematography among others. Excruciating care was placed in the tiniest of details of Amelie’s life.

It’s supposedly set in Paris, but such a world possibly never existed except in the director’s imagination. To bring this to life without everything turning tacky is a monumental collective effort by all departments.

Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel tried to marry naturalistic location lighting with a sense of charm and romanticism. It must have been hard, shooting in exterior situations on a low budget. They didn’t let poor lighting bog them down and managed to make every scene work without the film appearing lit in the artificial sense.

In the exterior scenes you can see they had stopped down to get deep depth of field. You’re always in the world of Amélie, and you’re sucked into it because you can’t have enough.

The editing of Amelie is fast paced and carefully laid out. Jean-Pierre Jeunet edits in camera with the shots precisely storyboarded. Everything is picturesque. In Amélie, everything works.

Storytelling artistry

Amélie made Audrey Tautou a superstar across the world. The character was initially written for Emily Watson but you can see the result would have been night and day. Every single frame Audrey is on screen you can’t take your eyes off her. It is one of the most perfect marriages of actor and character you’ll ever see.

I remember Jean-Pierre Jeunet saying in the DVD bonus features he knew in an instant she was the one. That happens so rarely. Directors would give anything for the privilege.

The secondary characters are mostly Jean-Pierre Jeunet staples, with Dominique Pinon the most well known. You’ll also know Mathieu Kassovitz from Munich. He’s also a director, having directed films like The Crimson Rivers and Gothika.

One thing you don’t notice until it’s pointed out is Amélie and Nino don’t talk except for a couple of brief interactions. I believe that’s why the dialogue from the rest works. Everyone’s talking so much in Amélie, so their ultimate unuttered connection is simply electric.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet always finds the good and funny in people, even in the face of death and heartbreak. It’s one of the finest positive films that teach the world how to behave in the face of all the bad things that can happen. It teaches people to always look for the good in others.

In the world of Amélie, the person who helps others gets helped in return. She helps others, sometimes it doesn’t work out, but eventually when she needs help, the ones she helped are there for her.

This is the best bet we have, and that’s the supreme storytelling success of The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain.

Entertainment

Amélie was a world-wide success on release, and deservedly so. Have you noticed, for some reason, films about dark subjects outweigh cheerful films by an unnatural factor?

One of the reasons could be it’s so hard to pull off the perfect feel good film and actually delight people with small novelties at every turn. Other great films that have walked this fine line and succeeded are It’s a Wonderful Life and Life is Beautiful.

I could watch Amélie again and again, and be happily immersed in the world of fun and naivete.

The film came at a time at the crossroads of digital post production, visual effects and experimentation in color theory. It was also one of the films before the mobile phone and social media era – which will forever cement its legacy even if just for nostalgia’s sake.

Art

Is The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain art?

Yes, it is.

When a film gains in value over time, and we probably can’t have that world back again you know it’s a special film. Countless directors have tried to replicate its storytelling prowess, and few have come close, let alone improve upon the art that is Amélie.

Which is why it is one of the greatest films ever made, and is sixth on my list of 100 films to see before you die: