Montmartre: A Film Set

by Isabelle Ducatez

From the beginning of the history of cinema to the present day, from Lubitsch to Jeunet, Montmartre has always been a favored setting for films by French and foreign directors alike. Montmartre, with its charm and history embodies the very image of Paris and has become an actor in tis own right in films. Montmartre a film set evokes the various preferred locations for these films in Montmartre (the Moulin Rouge, Place Pigalle, Barbès, Sacré Coeur, and so on), its atypical scenes (the stairways, lanes, small houses, and lamp posts), and its residents (the artists, dancers, ordinary people, cops, thugs, and prostitutes). The Paris of parties and pleasure, as well as that of crime and perdition, often represented by the districts of La Chapelle, Pigalle and La Goutte d'Or, has been integral to the celebration of art and poetry on the Butte Montmartre.