Boulevard (Lichter von Paris)

Boulevard was made in the immediate vicinity of the cinematic awakening of the Nouvelle Vague. Duvivier set his story of the coming-of-age novel of a fatherless, half-strong boy named Jo-Jo in a tenement on the Place Pigalle, which is both glittering and characterized by poverty and rough customs: Jean-Pierre Léaud can be seen here in his second leading role, immediately after his triumphant breakthrough in Truffaut's Les 400 coups. Everyday life constantly throws the boy a spanner in the works and people are anything but helpful. Jo-Jo had imagined his first steps into adult life in Montmartre to be completely different. Courageously and with the certainty of his own mastery, Duvivier takes up the fresh wind in the cinema of the early 1960s - and the theme of the maltreated child that has accompanied him since Poil de carrotte (the idea of another remake in color and with Jean Gabin as the father had fallen through shortly before). (Ralph Eue)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum