HOLLYWOOD'S TAKE

FRED ASTAIRE SEEKS AUDREY HEBBURN IN SAINT-GERMAIN*

*Funny Face by Stanley Donen, 1957

He comes to a "cave" that is shady and sexy...

  

"This must be the place."

• He finds Audrey thinking she engaged in an intellectual discussion with two men who in fact are drunk. The scene is in the first half of the movie, which is gone from YouTube, but a critic for the London Times writes:   

"There is that in the film's attitude towards the 'intellectual' which offends. It is not amiable parody and it is not telling satire; it has its roots in the ill-based instinct to jeer, and its jeers are offensive."

• She performs modern dance 
  to evoke intellectuality, though it was the opposite of the Liberation's ebullient jitterbug that was danced in fact. 

Video, Existentialism at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 1951 / zoom

•  When the elegant philosopher who fascinates Audrey turns out to be a wolf, she chooses homespun Fred.

Subtext:

Rough-edged, moral America

wins out over sophisticated, decadent France.

Involuntary avowal:

Americans proud of their anti-intellectualism

cheer Fred's triumph

because Saint-Germain's intelligence 

makes them feel inferior.

*     *     *

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