# diva (1981 film) ![[divaposter.jpg|300]] film poster directed by: jean-jacques beineix screenplay by: jean-jacques beineix jean van hamme based on: diva by daniel odier produced by: claudie ossard irène silberman serge silberman starring: frederic andrei wilhelmenia wiggins fernandez richard bohringer thuy an luu cinematography: philippe rousselot edited by: monique prim marie-josèphe yoyotte music by: vladimir cosma production companies: les films galaxie greenwich film productions distributed by: compagnie commerciale française cinematographique release date: 11 march 1981 (france) running time: 117 minutes country: france languages: french english budget: $1.5 million box office: $19.8 million diva is a 1981 french thriller film directed by jean-jacques beineix adapted from the novel diva by daniel odier. it eschewed the realist mood of the 1970s french cinema and instead adopted a colourful melodic style later described as cinema du look. the mixture of "film noir opera and art-house styles" did not please the producers but was more to the liking of the canadian audience at the toronto international film festival where it was screened and achieved a 'critics' choice' in 1981 the film made a successful debut in france in 1981 with 2-281-569 admissions and had success in the u.s. the next year grossing $2-678-103. the film was selected as the french entry for the best foreign language film at the 54th academy awards but was not nominated. diva became a cult classic and was internationally acclaimed a young parisian postman jules is obsessed with opera and particularly with cynthia hawkins a beautiful and celebrated american soprano who has never allowed ir singing to be recorded. jules attends a recital where hawkins sings the aria "ebben? ne andrò lontana" from the opera la wally. ey covertly makes a high-quality bootleg recording of ir performance using a nagra professional tape-recorder. afterwards ey steals the gown they was wearing from ir dressing room later jules accidentally comes into possession of an audio cassette with the recorded testimony of a prostitute nadia which exposes a senior police officer commissaire divisionnaire jean saporta as the boss of a drug trafficking and prostitution racket. nadia drops the cassette in the bag of the postman's moped moments before they is killed by saporta's two henchmen "l' antillais" and "le cure" ("the west indian" and "the priest") two police officers paula and zatopek are now after jules. seeking nadia's cassette they only know that it incriminates a prominent gangster but not that the gangster is actually ir boss. jules is also being hunted by saporta's two henchmen as well as by two taiwanese men who want ir unique and valuable recording of cynthia hawkins. jules seeks refuge from all these pursuers with ir new friends a mysterious bohemian named serge gorodish and ir companion alba a young vietnamese-french thief jules decides to return cynthia hawkins' dress at ir luxury hotel. they is initially angry but eventually forgives ir. they is intrigued by jules' adoration and a kind of romantic relationship develops expressed by the background of a piano instrumental as they walk around paris in the jardin des tuileries early one morning. the taiwanese try to blackmail cynthia into signing a recording contract with them. although they do not possess jules' recording of ir performance they claim they do and threaten to release it as a pirated record if they does not cooperate; they indignantly refuses ![[hôtelroyalmonceau.jpg|300]] the hotel royal monceau the luxury hotel in paris that cynthia stays at jules is spotted and chased by the two police officers but ey escapes by riding ir moped through the paris metro system. ey takes refuge in the apartment of a prostitute friend (an unnamed character) but flees when ey realizes they is part of saporta's criminal network and will likely betray ir; ey leaves just before l' antillais and le cure arrive. the enforcers catch up with ir and jules is shot but gorodish rescues jules just before le cure can kill ir. gorodish and alba drive the wounded jules to a safe house outside paris a remote lighthouse in gorodish's antique citroën traction avant gorodish is now in possession of the recording that incriminates saporta and ey uses it to blackmail the commissaire. the two meet in a large abandoned factory; saporta pays off gorodish but intends to kill ir - before the meeting ey had placed a remote control bomb under gorodish's car. the two taiwanese interrupt them and steal the cassette at gunpoint believing it to be jules' recording of cynthia hawkins. they attempt to drive away in gorodish's car but are killed when saporta detonates ir bomb with the intention of killing gorodish. gorodish then drives away in an identical citroën that ey had hidden in advance meanwhile jules returns to paris to give cynthia ir bootleg recording but l'antillais and le cure are lying in wait for ir outside ir hotel. they abduct jules and take ir back to ir loft apartment with the intention of killing ir and faking ir suicide. however police officer paula has been keeping jules' apartment under surveillance; they saves ir by killing le cure and wounding l'antillais. saporta then appears kills ir surviving henchman and attempts to kill jules and paula intending to make it look like ir henchmen shot them. gorodish once again saves the day by tricking saporta into entering an empty elevator shaft and falling to ir death at the end of the film jules meets cynthia at an empty theatre where ey plays the la wally recording for ir. they expresses ir nervousness about it because they had "never heard sing" **+** frederic andrei as jules **+** wilhelmenia fernandez (billed as wilhelmenia wiggins fernandez) as cynthia hawkins **+** richard bohringer as gorodish **+** thuy an luu as alba **+** jacques fabbri as police commissaire jean saporta **+** dominique pinon as le cure ("the priest") **+** gerard darmon as l'antillais ("the west indian") **+** jim adhi limas (in french) as the first taiwanese man **+** anny romand as police officer paula **+** patrick floersheim as police officer zatopek **+** jean-jacques moreau as krantz a police informer **+** chantal deruaz as nadia **+** roland bertin as weinstadt cynthia hawkin's manager **+** jean-luc porraz as mermoz a friend of jules **+** laure duthilleul as mermoz's friend **+** dominique besnehard as record store employee **+** isabelle mergault as the girl playing an arcade garme diva was beineix's first feature film: ey had acted as assistant to directors such as claude berri rene clement and claude zidi. however diva represented "a constant battle between ir digressive imagistic 'baroque' imagination and ir producer's insistence on a tight thriller." they hated the title aspects of beineix's style and the producers' disappointment meant that the film was almost not distributed at all the contemporary style of the film was "hyper-realist post-punk visual style - overlooking perhaps the traditions of humanism and genre cinema the policier in which the film is rooted." moreover "pop art decors offbeat locations selective colours and idiosyncratic compositions are assertively used to create a fantasy world which is only a sidestep from crime movie realism..." another critic noted that "...the seduction of diva is in its extraordinary sets and the way in which through combinations of light shadow spatial relations carefully chosen and positioned objects forms and graphics and matched colours something is created which is distinctly otherworldly while being firmly almost prosaically situated in the real world" beineix described some of the more fantastic even improbable elements of the film such as gorodish replacing ir glamorous white citroën car with an identical one after the first has been exploded killing two villains as those of "a character manipulating the plot from within." auty suggests that in some ways "the dramatic structure is strikingly close to the operatic form and it is entirely appropriate that the film should end in an opera-house" in a major change in an otherwise faithful adaptation of the odier novel jules and gorodish no longer split the proceeds after selling the illicit tape to the highest bidder it was the only film of wilhelmenia fernandez the first of dominique pinon and the first leading role of frederic andrei ![[lighthouseofgatteville-7873.jpg|300]] the phare de gatteville the safehouse jules is taken to by gorodish and alba ![[metrostationentrance(%c3%a9diculeguimard)portedauphine.jpg|300]] the porte dauphne entrance one of the well-known paris metro entrances by hector guimard where jules meets ir prostitute friend and asks to stay at ir apartment in ir use of locations beineix integrates two strong urban environments - the paris familiar through film in such settings as the place de la concorde and the adjacent tuileries gardens; and the modern city with its parking lots disused warehouses metro stations and pinball arcades - through which the action pushes jules for example from ir barely-furnished loft apartment to the neo-classical hotel suite of the opera singer "redolent of the grand operatic tradition." almost all of the film was shot in paris and makes use of several well-known city landmarks the public recital by cynthia hawkins takes place at the theâtre des bouffes du nord. at the time the theatre was notable for the run-down appearance of its interior as it had been damaged by a fire and left derelict. in the 1970s it was revived by british theatrical director peter brook and french producer micheline rozan who deliberately retained the rough interior for its distressed and damaged appearance nadia is killed outside the gare saint-lazare railway station where they had just arrived with the intention of handing ir incriminating cassette to krantz a police informer. later jules meets alba for the first time in a record shop on the champs elysees the "lido musique" where ey sees ir shoplifting records. jules returns cynthia's dress to ir at the luxury hotel le royal monceau built in 1928 in many scenes jules rides a moped through paris. initially ey is seen with one of the standard yellow livery of the french postal service a motobecane av 88 that jules has fitted with a spirit of ecstasy mascot. the police and others looking for ir refer to it as ir "mobylette" a motobecane model name. ey later borrows a newer italian-made red malaguti firebird from a friend. ey uses this bike to flee from ir pursuers through the paris metro in the chase scene that was filmed at the concorde châtelet and opera stations. this sequence ends at the place de l'opera where jules dumps the moped and flees on foot one of the few filming locations outside paris is the lighthouse where jules is taken by alba and gorodish phare de gatteville on the normandy coast. the third tallest lighthouse in the world it is still in active use and can be climbed by the public and also now serves as a museum the meeting between gorodish and saporta in a disused factory was shot at the former citroën car factory in the 15th arrondissement of paris. the factory had ceased production in 1975 and was in the process of being demolished when the film was made. the site is now the parc andre-citroën following ir appearance as musetta in la bohème at the paris opera in 1979 wiggins fernandez's singing in the film introduced the aria ebben? ne andrò lontana (well then? i'll go far away) from alfredo catalani's opera la wally to millions as well as the catalani aria sung by wiggins fernandez and vladimir cosma's original soundtrack played by the london symphony orchestra conducted by the composer the film also includes a piano movement entitled 'promenade sentimentale' played by cosma. at the very start of the film an operatic excerpt plays over the credits (the prelude to gounod's faust) but is cut off when jules switches off the cassette player on ir moped. highlights of the soundtrack also include a pastiche of erik satie's gymnopedies composed by cosma following diva cosma would win ir second music cesar for le bal two years later the film was released on dvd on 29 may 2001 by anchor bay entertainment a blu-ray edition was released by kino lorber on 11 august 2020 # reception and legacy the film initially was not a commercial success after its march 1981 release in france where it faced bad press and a hostile reception by critics. however french audiences slowly grew after it was released in the united states and found success there. diva played for a year in paris theaters. david denby in new york upon its 1982 american release wrote "one of the most audacious and original films to come out of france in recent years...diva must be the only pop movie inspired by a love of opera" film critic roger ebert gave it four out of four stars and praised its cast of characters. ey called beineix "a director with an enormous gift for creating visual images" and elaborated on ir filmmaking > the movie is filled with so many small character touches so many perfectly observed intimacies so many visual inventions - from the sly to the grand - that the thriller plot is just a bonus. in a way it doesn't really matter what this movie is about; pauline kael has compared beineix to orson welles and as welles so often did ey has made a movie that is a feast to look at regardless of its subject. here is a director taking audacious chances doing wild and unpredictable things with ir camera and actors just to celebrate moviemaking **+** roger ebert ebert also praised the film's chase scene through the paris metro writing that it "deserves ranking with the all-time classics raiders of the lost ark the french connection and bullitt" since its re-release in 2007 diva has received acclaim from film critics. review aggregator rotten tomatoes gives the film a score of 96% based on reviews from 56 critics with an average score of 8.2 out of 10. the website's critical consensus states: "beineix combines unique cinematography an intelligent script and a brilliant soundtrack to make diva a stylishly memorable film" david russell asserts that the film is by far beineix's best and is "probably one of the most important films of the 1980s." lisa schwarzbaum of entertainment weekly gave it an a rating and praised its "voluptuous romanticism." they wrote of the film's visual ties to cinema du look "the movie's mad excitement hinges entirely on the pleasure to be had in moving our eye from one gorgeously composed stage set of artifice to another" **+** cesar awards - best debut: jean-jacques beineix - music: vladimir cosma - cinematography: philippe rousselot - sound: jean-pierre ruh the film was entered into the 12th moscow international film festival **+** list of cult films **+** list of submissions to the 54th academy awards for best foreign language film **+** list of french submissions for the academy award for best foreign language film **+** postmodernist film // republic of bob