Where The Tourist was Shot
For most of The Tourist’s 103 minutes, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck bravely struggles to commandeer the disparate elements of the film – the reworked script, the leading couple with little or no obvious personal chemistry, the glamorous locations – into a coherent whole.
I leave it to you to judge how well he ultimately succeeds, but one thing is for sure: the walk through Paris on which Angelina Jolie takes us at the beginning of the film, trying to shake off the police, has been very well laid out and does not violate the city’s geography.
This may be damning with faint praise, but praise it most certainly is. After all, everybody who is familiar with Paris knows films where people whose apartment has a view on the Eiffel Tower slip into their morning gown…
– Cut! –
…to buy a pair of croissants in a bakery underneath the Sacre Coeur (3 miles to the north).
Whatever you can say about The Tourist, no topographical logic was violated in the making of this film. After all, it is at least conceivable that a lady with an apartment at the Place de Victoire …
… would take her morning coffee at the Le Nemours coffee shop next door to the Comedie Francaise. (That’s a five to ten minute walk.)
And while the Passage Jouffroy on Boulevard Montmartre …
… may not lie in the flight path of a crow on its way from the Nemours to the metro station Quatre Septembre, the little detour is certainly understandable, considering the circumstances.
Although, on balance, perhaps Miss Jolie should have worn a different pair of shoes.
But then again: this is Hollywood – and The Tourist more so than most films you will be going to see this year.
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This is one of those movies I need to see again since my first viewing was on an airplane. Mostly, I’d like to watch those Paris scenes again. Glad to hear from you that those scenes kept true the city’s geography.
I wouldn’t mind having a morning coffee at Le Nemours. With Johnny Depp.
This is such a great idea, such a great list.
Was just watching paris on web cams. I really enjoyed my five weeks there paid for by a company I worked for at the time
She leaves her apartment on Rue Vide Gousset and heads due North West (opposite direction of Le Nemours, then within a minute she is walking past Place Boieldieu- like half a mile the opposite direction of Le Nemours. Then just before she arrived at the cafe (two seconds after she passes Place Boieldieu) she is suddenly a mile and a half away across the Seine in the Latin Quarter, on Place de Furstemberg ? Not geographically plausible.
That’s Hollywood film-making for you Jack!