Speaking of Miles: Film Recommendation Two

Malle, Louis. Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud). France: The
Criterion Collection DVD, 2006.

It may seem strange to suggest a black and white, subtitled French noir film that features no jazz musicians as characters, no nightclubs as settings, no Black characters, no American characters, and nary an instrument in sight as a fitting tool for the discussion of jazz and the literary narrative. This problem can be answered very quickly, if only superficially, by pointing out the legendary score, the atmospheric compositions created by Miles Davis. Davis, who worked with bop drummer Kenny Clark and three French musicians picked up in the studio, improvised all of the music in an attempt to play with the relationship between sound to image. Jazz historians and music students may be interested to learn that it was during these soundtrack sessions, according to the supplemental information booklet issued with the Criterion Collection DVD, that Davis began to develop his interest in the modal approach to composition—the same style that he would famously employ on his landmark album Kind of Blue. However, for those interested in narrative alone, the music operates as both a mechanism for conveying a tone and as a very real presence itself, almost as if it were a character on screen.

The story centers around two pairs of lovers, Florence and Julien who are planning to murder Mr. Carala (who just happens to be Florence’s husband and Julien’s boss), and the juvenile delinquent Louis and his romantic girlfriend Veronique. Trough a series of mistaken identities, incredible strings of bad luck, misunderstandings each couple finds itself in increasingly dire situations. With the backdrop of noir conventions and the attendant suspense, Malle was primarily focused on presenting a vision of Paris that was, above all, Modern. It in this regard that we may ask: what is modernism? What are the conventions of modernism? How is the film’s story modern? How does the musical score accomplish Malle’s aims and expand upon the image on the screen? Students may wish to consider how the characters—world-weary, alienated, tired by war and politics—are introduced.

As Malle said in an interview with Philip French (reprinted in the Criterion Collection booklet), the use of Miles Davis’ score “was not like a lot of film music, emphasizing or ting to add the emotion that is implic in the images and the rest of the soundtrack. It was a couterpoint, it was elegiac—and it was somewhat detached…the Miles Davis trumpet gave it a tone that added tremendously to the first images.” It is this idea—that the trumpet adds something tremendous to the images—that is definitely work investigating. There is perhaps no better example of Davis’ evocative playing and Malle’s conceptualization of the modern than in the scene when Florence (played by French film icon Jeanne Morreau) wanders through the lonely, late night streets of Paris searching for her lover. The stark beauty of the Parisian nighttime, Morreau’s expressive look, and, of course, Davis’ cool trumpet combine to create a lasting moment of desperation, fear, longing, and heartbreak.

This is a fantastically entertaining film. A stylish thriller filled with tension, suspense, and style.