The Dreamers is a 2003 French/British/Italian co-produced drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. The film's screenplay is based on Gilbert Adair's novel The Holy Innocents. Adair also wrote the screenplay for the film.
Plot
A young American exchange student, Matthew (Michael Pitt), has come to Paris in order to study French. Though he has lived there for several months and will stay in Paris for a year, he has made no friends. As a huge fan of film, he spends most of his time in the Cinémathèque Française. Eventually he forms a rapid friendship with a Frenchwoman, Isabelle (Eva Green), and her brother, Théo (Louis Garrel). Isabelle and Theo claim to be twins originally conjoined at her right and his left shoulder, although as they are opposite sexes this cannot be possible. However throughout the film, scars on their shoulders can be seen. All three have an avid love for movies, especially "the classics". As their friendship grows, Matthew learns of the extreme intimacy shared by the siblings (what one reviewer described as "incestuous in all but the most technical sense"[1]) and gets pulled into their world. Over time he falls in love with them, and the three seclude themselves from the world, falling further and further from the reality of the 1968 student rebellions. An abrupt ending to this relationship comes when that world is shattered and they are compelled to face the reality of 1968 France.
Cast
Pre-production
Although the screenplay was written by Gilbert Adair, the original author of the film's source material - the novel The Holy Innocents - Bertolucci insisted on additional changes during pre-production. The director "peppered the narrative with clips from the films he loves" and dropped homosexual content included in the first draft of the script, which Bertolucci felt was "just too much"; after it was released, he said he was "faithful to the spirit of the book but not the letter."[2] As such, Bertolucci removed all the scenes from the novel that depict Matthew and Théo having sex.
Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Jake Gyllenhaal were offered the role of Matthew, and both turned the role down for different reasons. DiCaprio turned it down because he was in pre-production with The Aviator, and Gyllenhaal turned it down because of the explicit nature of the nude scenes. Bertolucci was actually apprehensive about casting Pitt as he initially thought he was not right for the role. He first cast another actor, but then changed his mind and gave Pitt the role just before shooting began. Eva Green told The Guardian that her agent and her parents begged her not to take the role of Isabelle, concerned that the film would cause her career to "have the same destiny as Maria Schneider".[2]
Reception / Box Office result
When Eva Green saw a rough cut of the film, she said she was "quite shocked" and had to look away during the sex scenes; she later told an interviewer that for her, "it was as though I was wearing a costume while we were making the film. It was as if I had another story in my mind. So I was left speechless."[2]
Fox Searchlight gave the uncut version a limited theatrical release in the United States in 2004; it played in 116 theaters at its peak.[3] In the United States, the film was released theatrically with an NC-17 rating[3] whereas in Italy the same film was rated VM14. Even with its NC-17 rating, this film grossed $2.5 million in its United States theatrical release - a respectable result for a specialized film with a targeted audience.[3]
Among Rotten Tomatoes critics, 61% gave it a "fresh rating"[4]; its 40 Metacritic reviewers gave it scores that on average placed the film in the website's "generally favorable" category.[5] A.O. Scott of The New York Times said the film was "disarmingly sweet and completely enchanting" and described it as "fus[ing] sexual discovery with political tumult by means of a heady, heedless romanticism that nearly obscures the film's patient, skeptical intelligence."[1] The Times called it a "heady blend of Last Tango and Stealing Beauty, but one that combines the grubbily voyeuristic elements of each film rather than their relative strengths."[6]
Film references
- Bande à part
- Isabelle, Theo, and Matthew race through the Louvre, attempting to break the record depicted in Bande à part of 9 minutes, 43 seconds.
- Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
- Isabelle quotes a famous line from this film, telling Matthew "There is no such thing as love, only proofs of love".
- Shock Corridor
- Pierrot le fou
- Music from the film appears in The Dreamers
- The 400 Blows
- Persona
- La Chinoise
- Blow-Up
- A picture of David Hemmings in the role of the photographer hangs on the wall of the twins' apartment.
- Blonde Venus
- Isabelle reenacts scene in sexy white painting clothes.
- Freaks
- After Isabelle, Theo, and Matthew run through the Louvre, Isabelle and Theo signify their acceptance of Matthew by chanting, "We accept him, one of us," in a reflection of the wedding reception in Freaks.
- Scarface
- Theo reenacts the death of the character Tony Camonte played by Paul Muni, challenging Isabelle to name the film.
- Queen Christina
- Isabelle reenacts the scene in which Greta Garbo's character Queen Christina "memorizes the room," in Matthew's bedroom, the first night he sleeps over.
- Top Hat
- Isabelle challenges Matthew to name a scene in which a tap dancer wakes a woman in the apartment below.
- À bout de souffle (aka Breathless)
- Isabelle imitates Jean Seberg's character Patricia the first night Matthew stays with her and Theo.
- Isabelle claims her first words in English were "New York Herald Tribune", a conscious reference to the French New Wave film "Breathless", in which the heroine Patricia yells the same thing. The reference is accompanied by a segment of said film.
- Matthew imitates Jean-Paul Belmondo's character by rubbing his lips with his thumb in front of the mirror (something which Jean-Paul does to imitate Humphrey Bogart).
- Sunset Boulevard
- Mouchette
- After Isabelle realizes her mother has seen her sleeping naked with her brother she tries to kill the three of them with natural gas. When she closes her eyes images of the suicide of Mouchette from Robert Bresson's film appear.
- City Lights
- The Cameraman
- Rebel Without a Cause
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was released in February 2004; Allmusic gave it a 
rating, noting that "while its juxtapositions of French tradition and counterculture are jarring at times, Dreamers still does a worthy job of capturing the film's personal and political revolutions through music."[8]
- "Third Stone from the Sun" - Jimi Hendrix
- "Hey Joe" (cover version) - Michael Pitt & The Twins of Evil
- "Quatre Cents Coups" (from the score of "Les Quatre Cents Coups") - Jean Constantin
- "New York Herald Tribune" (from Breathless) - Martial Solal
- "Love Me Please Love Me" - Michel Polnareff
- "La Mer" - Charles Trenet
- "Song For Our Ancestors" - Steve Miller Band
- "The Spy" - The Doors
- "Tous Les Garçons et Les Filles" - Françoise Hardy
- "Ferdinand" (from Antoine Duhamel's score of "Pierrot Le Fou")
- "Dark Star" (special band edit) - The Grateful Dead
- "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" - Edith Piaf
Though the music of Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company was featured prominently in the film, none of the songs were included on the soundtrack. All of the songs used in the film were from the album Live at Winterland '68.
DVD release
The Dreamers was released on DVD in 2004. It includes a BBC film directed by David M. Thompson, Bertolucci Makes The Dreamers, narrated by Zoë Wanamaker, and a documentary Outside the window: events in France, May 1968 with contributions from Robin Blackburn, Adair, and Bertolucci. Bertolucci says that 1968 was about cinema, politics, music, journalism, sex and philosophy dreaming together.
References
External links
