Movie Reviews for Is Paris Burning?

Is Paris Burning?

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Movie Reviews of Is Paris Burning?

Movie Review: WWII and Paris buffs will enjoy this
Summary: 3 Stars

When I read about this DVD my first thought was "why haven't I already seen this?" I'm a big WWII buff and on paper this movie sounds amazing. Orson Wells, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Kirk Douglas, and many other big name stars plus a script by Gore Vidal and Francess Ford Copola. If only they could have got Copola to direct. I suspect that unlike the actual director he would have had the french speaking french, the english english, and the germans german. Instead the movie was directed with dubbing in mind so no matter how you manipulate the language options you can never hear the germans speaking german (from what I can tell I think they are actually speaking french most of the time). I toggled back and forth between French with English subtitles (most of the movie) and English (scenes with Wells, Douglas, Stack, Glen Ford, and Tony Perkins) using the "Setup" option on the DVD.

Another problem is this movie is just too long. Especially at the beginning there are too many scenes of people going back and forth between different french organizations and talking and also some melodramatic scenes of Nazis acting like the cliche Nazis in an American B movie.

However, once the movie gets going its actually quite compelling. The story is the very interesting true story of how Paris was liberated. Hitler wanted to see Paris completely obliterated before the Nazis left. The allies on the other hand are torn between several different factions of the french resistance and General Patton who despite his love of French culture was more interested in getting to Berlin ASAP and for him that meant bypassing Paris. I saw that one reviewer said that the Nazis never really had the capability to completely destroy Paris. I suppose that depends on what you mean by destroy but there was a similar situation on the Eastern front where insurgents rose up against the Nazis as the Russians were advancing and parts of Warsaw were completely obliterated and thousands of people were masacred. The same could easily have happened but didn't thanks to the perseverence of the French resistance and the fact that the commanding general of the Germans behaved like a human not a war criminal.

What I loved about this movie were the shots of battles and troops liberating Paris. People who are familiar with WWII history will appreciate the battle scenes which for a change are quite realistic (minor exception, the insurgents deal with German tanks far too easily). The Americans actually have Sherman tanks and the Germans Panzers, unlike some movies such as Patton where they took 50's era war surplus tanks and passed them off. And the liberation scenes, the cooperation of the Americans and French were quite moving to me. I think this movie would make a nice companion to Casablanca.

Movie Review: Still No Liberation from the Dubbing Nazis
Summary: 3 Stars

This has always been an awkward, clunky film that deserves the critical raspberries that have been thrown at it. Still, for a number of reasons (foremost its fantastic score by Maurice Jarre) I have a longstanding affection for it.

While the video transfer is reasonably clean, the audio track is a total mess. I say this because there is no way to avoid the skillful (yet hideous) dubbing. You are never offered the opportunity to hear everybody speaking in their native language.
If I choose English audio I get everybody speaking in English. If I choose French with English subtitles I get Kirk Douglas and the Germans speaking French. Why can't I hear the Germans speaking to each other in German and the Americans speaking in English while the French converse in French? I would have thought that the DVD format would have rectified this little bit of linguistic parochialism. But (to quote the late John Belushi)

Devotees of this film may be happy to see it in DVD, but the continued hegemony of the dubbing Nazis left me in a state of annoyance and irritation.

Movie Review: Feel-good film for the French
Summary: 3 Stars

At almost three hours, this is too long by half. Padded with many battles scenes interspersed with actual WW2 footage, the movie tells the tale of French resistance in Paris in the last days of WW2 when the Nazis almost destroyed the city out of spite. It's a miracle they didn't. The Gore Vidal script is above average, but some of the acting, especially by the Americans like Kirk Douglas is a bit lame. Orson Wells comes off OK as the Swiss ambassador who tries to talk sense into the Nazi general in charge of Paris. This actually includes a 5 minute intermission. They don't do those anymore.

Movie Review: Did it really happen??
Summary: 3 Stars

Remember this movie from years ago(60) Still worth seeing Paris as it was in 1944. Should serve as a reminder that these things are still going on today.