le cinéma à paris

here's a fun fact: paris has more cinemas per capita than any other place in the world. in addition to the big theaters with multiple locations, such as MK2, there are several tiny salles du ciné tucked away, sometimes so unassuming that you can walk right by without even noticing. these are most heavily concentrated in the quartier latin as well as the montparnasse area, but really all of the cool quartiers have cinés.

all of the major hollywood shit gets to france around the same time it comes out aux états unis. some delay, sure, but nothing major. but it gets so much better than that. the paris cinés have a rich collection of films from all over the world. and then of course, there are the reprises, old films being shown in theaters.

and how do you navigate this system of many, many theaters with literally dozens of films each week, showtimes changing with each day of the week and perhaps only one or two showings of a particular film in the city each week? Le pariscope, of course!




Pariscope is a pocket sized guide that comes out once a week- every Wednesday- which is generally the day that most new movies come out in France as well. It costs 0,40€ (or $0.60), and lists all of the salles du ciné in Paris by arrondisement, starting with of course the 1èr all the way to the 20è, plus a few choice suburbs. It lists all the films that are playing in Paris that week- new releases, reprises, and "autres films"...which is basically anything thats not a new release but not old enough to be considered a reprise. You'll also find out, along with the showtimes, whether the film is V.F. (version français) or V.O. (version originale). V.F. means that unless its actually a French film, the dialogue has been dubbed in French. Usually this is only for animated movies or shit like Harry Potter. V.O. means that that the film will be in its original language, whatever it may be, with French subtitles.

If you really know me, you'll know how film illiterate I am. Its quite tragic how few of the classics I've seen. I'm trying to expand my horizons, though, and I've been going to the ciné quite often here. I enjoy it for a number of reasons, including:

-somewhere comfy to sit for two hours
-I don't have to talk to anyone
-I don't have to LOOK at anyone (except the actors of course),
-whether its in French, or in English with subtitles, or in Spanish with Subtitles- its always good for improving my French ("oh.... so that's how you say faggot in french!")


While here, I have seen:

-Numéro 9
-Antichrist
-J'ai tué ma mère
-Mon voisin Totoro
-Tu n'ameras point
-Torch Song Trilogy
-Wendy & Lucy
-À la carte


Oh, and something even better? Sept 13-17 is a biannual tradition called La Rentrée du Cinéma, which means that for these four days, all movies are only 4€. yay!