It was by coincidence that our hotel in Paris--an aging, dusty place short on electrical outlets and space in the elevator--was a mere three doors down from the "Grand Action Cinema," a two-screen revival house specializing in American films.
But I could not have selected a better location, particularly when I glanced at their posted schedule and discovered a screening of Robert Altman's Nashville scheduled for the following evening: July Fourth, America's birthday.
One of our traveling companions had never seen it. Plans were made. We had prepared poorly for our trip to France. There was not a French speaker among us, and when you visit France all but ignorant of the native tongue, you end up saying merci a lot. Merci, merci. Merci beaucoup. Thank you for your patience, thank you for your service, thank you for not laughing at our strained mangling of your beautiful language, thank you, thank you, merci.
Luckily, many of the locals speak English. You will ask if they do, and they will say "A little," but then they speak it fluently, beautifully. They're shockingly modest in their bilingualism, or at least were compared to our party, who had learned four words of French and couldn't stop congratulating ourselves over it. Pardon, toilette, merci, merci beaucoup.
Thankfully, the box-office attendant at Grand Action Cinema spoke English and sensed my embarrassment over not having learned to count to two in his language "Um, two, Nashville , merci? Plastered across the back of the room is a large photograph of Langlois leaning onto a railing, as if he is watching the film along with you. A French woman picked up a microphone to introduce the film; her introduction was gibberish to us, excepting the heavily accented names and titles "French French French French Robert Alt-men Then she finished, and the film began.
