RED BALLON THEORY

Francois Truffaut (sometimes known as the demolisher of French cinema when he worked as a critic), writing in Cahiers du Cinema, was scathing:

I saw Le Ballon Rouge three times in the space of six months, so there’s nothing mysterious to me about the unfailing enthusiasm it arouses. I know that if I criticize it severely I risk offending my most faithful readers and singling myself out in the worst possible way. When a work is universally admired, one hesitates to run counter to popular opinion. One might be tempted to pretend so as not to stand all alone.

There’s no question that Le Ballon Rouge, a love story about a little boy and a balloon which follows him around everywhere like a puppy, is a carefully made film, and admirably photographed, if not well directed; also, the boy mugs as little as possible. Having said that, there is, in my opinion, neither poetry nor fantasy nor sensitivity nor truth in this film—not real poetry, fantasy, sensitivity, or truth.
When Walt Disney bestowed human speech and reactions on animals, he cheated the animals and the human beings as well. He betrayed La Fontaine by caricaturing him—but then no one takes Disney for a poet. I believe firmly that nothing poetic can be born derivatively; we should despise modern artefacts which resemble something else: pens that are really cigarette lighters, leather-bound books that are cigarette boxes, etcetera.

In fact he had no mercy for the sentimentality of Albert Lamorisse’s Le Ballon Rouge – ‘like a film of Minou Drouet made for Marie-Chantal.’

He viewed the film as having no emotional truth and that it was, in his word, ‘phoney.’ Not that he had a problem with films that use tricks per se but that Lamorisse was trying too hard to present this as real, with too many telegraphed scenes, while presenting an ending that was far from real. Nor did I think that the balloon was the boy’s friend (only friend?) as was argued. He saw the balloon as a servant, always several steps behind the boy.

The First English Language Review (at least a lengthy one).

(From Sight and Sound. January 1957.)

RED BALLOON ( Films de France). The films of Albert Lamorisse all tell much the same story: that of a child and his companion (Bim, the donkey, Crin Blanc, the horse, or a red balloon) at grips with the malice of “the others’’. Here a little boy finds a balloon. He wins its confidence, and it follows him faithfully wherever he goes. But the miraculous friendship must have its tragic ending, and a gang of urchins stone the balloon to death.

There is a certain ambiguity about the film, in that Lamorisse seems undecided as to whether he is addressing himself to children or to grown-ups. For the child’s eye, Lamorisse has stylised his characters, presenting a world sharply and conventionally divided between the good and the bad. To attract the adult section of his audience, he emphasises formal effects, strives for a minute polish, spices his gags with a subtle element of malice. His characters move through the film along paths chosen solely for their elegance; their actions, expressed through superb images, often have little purpose other than to look “artistic’’. But the poetic qualities of a child’s world lie, above all, in the spontaneity of its fantasy (in the cinema, of course, in the illusion of spontaneity); and it is precisely this quality that Lamorisse loses in the conscious over-elaboration of his images.

In spite of these reservations, Le Ballon Rouge is an unusually pleasing film. The colour is among the best the French cinema has produced; and the awakening of Paris in a blueish haze, the scarlet blob of the balloon caressing the crumbling facades of La Butte, are unforgettable images. One admires equally the skill with which the director has overcome the problem of “humanising’’ the toy. This has been managed without any tricks of editing, and the little boy and the obedient balloon appear together in the same shot. In Le Ballon Rouge, Lamorisse has attempted one of the cinema’s most taxing subjects: the vague, marvellous territory of a child’s daydreams. When he is able to put aside his present paralysing preoccupation with form, he will give us a true poetic film. —Claude Goretta.

Synopsis (with further embellishments by Albert Lamorisse)

Pascal lives with his mother but, because he has no brothers and sisters, at times he feels lonely, even sad. On his way to school one morning, the young Pascal finds a red balloon hooked on a street lamp in the Belleville district of Paris. He scrambles up the lamp, unties the balloon, and tries to go to school on his usual bus that runs down rue de Menlimontant. This time the conductor tells him that he cannot board while holding the balloon. Not wishing to lose the balloon, he has no choice but to run to school.

Pascal enters the classroom after leaving the balloon with the school’s janitor. After school, he retrieves the balloon, holds the string tightly, and returns home on rue du Transvaal. He takes the balloon into the family apartment but his mother won’t allow it to stay inside, chases it out but instead of blowing away it hovers outside the window.

Pascal soon discovers that the red balloon has become his companion, sometimes a cheeky friend. It follows him wherever he goes: to school, out shopping, or wandering through Paris. One day on the way home Pascal stops to look at a picture in a pavement exhibit. It shows a little girl with a hoop. Pascal thinks how nice it would be to have a sister like that little girl.

Another time, he and his mother go to church and the balloon follows them inside. The pastor is not pleased and Pascal and the balloon are chased out. On the way home Pascal stops at a boulangerie for a piece of cake.

The other children of Belleville have become jealous of Pascal and his relationship with the balloon. They want the balloon for themselves. When Pascal is in the shop – and the balloon is waiting outside – they try to capture it. At one point the boys have the balloon but Pascal gets it back and they start a cat and mouse chase through the alleys of Belleville. Ultimately Pascal is unsuccessful, is caught, and the children throw stones and use catapaults aimed at the balloon, Pascal releases the balloon, tells it to escape but the balloon stays with him.

Finally, a stone hits the balloon and it deflates in almost withering agony. Pascal is left to cry. Then a strange and unexpected thing happens. Colourful balloons from all over the city flock to him. It is a revolt of all the captive balloons. He gathers them up, holds on tight and he soars high into the sky, making his escape from the world and rising above the evil of the boys below.

Some Thoughts

The Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa (谷川 俊太郎) once commented that it is a movie that is more akin to a poem, arguing that there is a purity about the work that depicts the relationship between a child and his world in a simple story without adornment. But a poem that is almost wordless. (Although it is not soundless as it allows Maurice Le Roux score to soar and it uses ambient sound to great effect.) And like a poem there are blanks that, in this instance, the viewer has to fill.

‘Recently, I translated a picture book called Murasaki Fusen, but when children with an incurable disease are told by the doctor to draw a picture of their current feelings, almost without exception, they drew blue-purple balloons. It’s a little strange, but I heard that balloons are a symbol of the human soul, and when I watched The Red Balloon I felt this. Pascal boy was lucky enough to build a friendship with a balloon. That’s why in the end he soars into the sky to escape the hate he has seen on earth. It is the ascent of his soul no matter how you think about it. It is not a happy ending.’

Like William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies it shows how childhood innocence can turn very quickly to aggression and the rule of the mob even at a time when Paris was only just emerging from Nazi oppression. At the same time, it also reminds adults of something that we often lose as we get older – the ability to find magic in the world.

Le Ballon Rouge premiered in France on 19 October, 1956.

Three weeks later the film was first shown in England in November 1956 at the Odeon in Leicester Square – the country’s most prestigious cinema. It was as the support film for Battle Of The River Plate. Other reviews of the film all remarked on the use of colour. “As for the Technicolour camera work, nothing finer has been seen in any film long or short.’ (Kinematograph Weekly November 1956.) Later it went on general release in the UK continuing as the support film for Battle Of The River Plate.

Interestingly the director Ken Russell’s second foray into cinema was a short, and far more optimistic film Amelia and the Angel. Sight and Sound magazine wrote that ‘…it has the freshness and vitality which freedom from box-office worries should bring. Inspired, Russell admits, by The Red Balloon, it avoids the forced charm and cleverness of Lamorisse’s film.’ However it does have a happy ending.

The Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien made a film that in part was inspired by The Red Balloon. In an interview he remarked:
My first reaction on seeing it was that it showed certain realities of Paris in 1956. It shows the city’s ambience, and the social system of the time. The focus on the various constraints surrounding the child is revealing: he is forbidden to do things at home, at school, on the bus…He doesn’t have enough space to live, but at the same time the film gives a sense of the new, post-war freedoms around him. Kids today don’t have such freedoms. I didn’t think of the red balloon itself
in metaphorical terms; I think the film shows cruel realities.

An interview with Pascal Lamorisse by Kuriko Satoy

(Carried out in 2008.)

The round, glossy and exquisite size of red balloons is very impressive. How was this unique balloon born?

“The balloon is actually doubled. There is a yellow balloon inside the red balloon, and it inflates at the same time. But before that, we applied varnish to it and made it glossy. It is very shiny when inflated, so as to reflect the surrounding scenery. The use of a double balloon means it doesn’t become transparent, and it makes the red shine more.”

Why red?

“When this movie was made in 1956, it was only about 10 years after the war, and the whole city had no colour as it has now, and it was almost grey. That’s why he used vivid colours that look good visually. My father was drawn to the visual. He drew pictures and took pictures.”

Certainly, the colour of the city is pale, and only the balloons take on a vivid colour, but it’s not set up to make it look special is it?

“The look of the city was like that and shows the state of Paris at that time. It was often shot using a hidden camera. Most of the passers-by in the movie are real. Unfortunately, the Menilmontant area used to shoot the movie has now been demolished and is due for redevelopment. It’s a pity that it wasn’t protected like Montmartre.”

The balloon moved as if it were alive. Can you tell me about the shooting technology as far as you know? Of course, that balloon is not a mechanical device, is it?

“No. In that era, there was no computer programming or green or blue screens. I can’t reveal the secret of shooting here, it will destroy the audience’s dream when watching the movie, but in fact it is due to very simple ingenuity. A calculation was made of the condition of light and wind, and various artisanal technique were employed. My father was surrounded by wonderful engineers.”

I’m especially surprised by the last scene, but did you really fly yourself?

“That’s also a trade secret (laughs). Because movies give magic and emotion. It’s better not to know that it will ruin it, right? Let’s just say that it floated in the air a little bit here. What was important to my father was to show that the balloon had a heart. So you can’t have the impression that it’s run by a computer. Because balloons are living things, the boy and their hearts go together. The balloon is the boy’s partner, and it is also a symbol of freedom.”

The naughty children break the balloon with stones, but it is impressive that it goes slowly and little by little instead of bursting. Is that mechanism also a trade secret?

“I think it’s certain that we made a hole, but I don’t remember exactly how we actually did it. It’s true that slowly withering is as if humans are ageing and the lights of life are going out.”

That scene is also a shock because the balloon looks alive.

“Yes, but unfortunately in this world, it is said that a person is killed somewhere every second. That’s why this movie expresses very important things in a metaphorical way. About the nature of human beings, the environment surrounding children in that era, the way of school education, etc. The balloon itself is also a symbol of creativity and freedom. I think that the red balloon was like a bubble of freedom for the boy. Unfortunately, in the world we live in, freedom and innocence are often erased.

Of course, there are various ways of looking at movies, so I don’t want to say that you should look at The Red Balloon like this. However, my father was making a movie with this intention. He was against all extreme ways of thinking. And he resolutely disagreed with the situation where humanity is not respected. For example, there is a scene where children flock to balloons. They want balloons, but they can’t communicate with balloons. Just by making the balloon your own and trying to control it, you don’t share anything with the balloon. Or can you say that you want to love but don’t know how to love?.”

Can you say that your father didn’t lose his child’s point of view?

“That’s right. he once wrote a separate book where children didn’t come out, but I think he always had a kind of innocence and purity. Also, he was good at chess, so he was very focussed and had the ability to read ahead. Rather than doing something with intuition, he was always thinking about various things. When I was a child, he told me the story he made up every day at the dinner table. It was a continuation, and it was a tremendous amount. I still have what I wrote down at that time. My father was really a mass of imagination.”

Was the director’s face and his father’s face different?

“As a director, he was rigorous and very meticulous. But as a father, he was a very generous person. He respected the whole family and was a person who cherished our bonds very much. So it was natural for me to work with my father. I didn’t really want to be an actor. Just like other children are with my father, I just went to the locations and worked. My father also had a quality of never giving up on things. He liked samurai movies, and he may have had something like a samurai quality. No matter how difficult it was during shooting, he continued to be patient and definitely got the results he wanted. ”

Alan Emry, who played the leading role in White Horse, seemed to think that he couldn’t really act at that time, but your father pulled out the best from him. How was it in your case? Did he give detailed acting instruction?

“‘Red Balloon’ is different from ‘White Horse’, where everything was written in the script. My father explained the situation on the spot, and I acted as if it was my true story. Rather than acting, it can be said that it was me. My father also told me that I could do as I wanted, but the scene setting was faithful to the script. But that was not difficult. My mother also made costumes and often came to the locations, so for me, I really felt like I was making it together as a family. Probably the most difficult thing was the fight scene. Because we were children, we couldn’t “pretend”, so we were serious about it (laughs). In fact, 50 years later, I met one of the boys who were fighting at that time. It’s also wonderful, isn’t it?”

So how was the film made? The balloon was sometimes weighted, and sometimes filled with helium instead of air. And they were often controlled using a thin metal line attached to a long rod – as well as patient filming, and the clever use of camera angles and editing.

The deflation can be achieved by placing a piece of tape over the balloon and then gently piercing this with a fine needle.

The final sequence shows Pascal’s feet lifting from the ground (he is raised by the crew) but then a dummy is used when ‘he’ floats over the city.

Albert Lamorisse: Director

Albert Lamorisse was born on January 13, 1922 in Paris. After studying at Ecole de Roche, he became a student at the IDHEC (Higher Film Academy) and at the same time trained as a photographer.

His first released work was the documentary Djerba that recorded the potters and scenery of Djerba in Tunisia and shot in 1947. In 1949, he released the 45-minute film Bim, le petit âne which depicts the adventure of an Arab boy and his donkey. This work, which was shot in Djerba again could not gain distribution until the poet Jacques Prevert discovered its charm. He wrote a new commentary that enhanced the appeal of the film (and Prevert later co-authored a photo book that combines Lamorisse’s photos and his poetry).

In 1953, he directed the second fiction film White Main (Crin-Blanc). This movie won many awards, including the Short Film Palme d’Or Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and made Lamorisse’s name known to the world.

The Red Balloon released in 1956 also won awards including the Cannes International Film Festival Palme d’Or, and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. This of course further enhanced Lamorisse’s reputation.

In 1960, he wrote and directed his first feature film Stowaway in the Sky (Le Voyage en ballon). To film it Lamorisse co-invented a new system that enabled aerial photography from a helicopter without blurring caused by vibrations. Working with a marine gyroscope specialist Jean Fieux, they developed the Hélivision, with a three-axis stabilisation system, an early version of the Steadicam.

The film is a travelogue and Lamorisse went to great trouble to hide intrusions of modern life such as buildings and roads but without resorting to special effects. Akira Kurosawa once said it as one of his 100 favourite films. On the other hand, the New York Times was less complimentary writing, ‘It is all concrete and conventional, beautiful but eventually repetitious, with a much too arch narration by Jack Lemmon and some atrocious dubbed English dialogue, a nice musical score and some rather silly aerial acrobatics that should greatly please the kids.’

In truth Lamorisse was never able to match the verve and originality of his early work.

In 1962, he used Jacques Prevert as a commentator again and directed the 21-minute short documentary Lesonge Chevaux sauvages (Dream of Wild Horses.)

In 1965, he released his second long-length drama film Fifi la plume. A thief hired by a circus troupe who escaped from the police chase is a fantastical comedy in which he falls in love with the troupe’s The Girl. Helivision also played an important role in this work.

Since Stowaway in the Sky, Lamorisse had become evangelical about filmed flight, and the Hélivision—which, by the midsixties, had been showcased in major Hollywood films such as Goldfinger and The Sound of Music—was crucial to Lamorisse’s final three films, all of which are documentaries on geographical themes. For Paris Jamais Vu (1967), he soared over Paris, and for Versailles, from the same year, he shot the palace from a bird’s-eye view.

On June 2, 1970, his latest documentary Le vent des amoureux (The Lover’s Wind) was being filmed from a helicopter over a dam near Tehran when the blades of the helicopter touched an overhead electric cable and it crashed into a lake. Lamorisse and the pilot died in the accident. His son Pascal was with him but survived. The film was completed by his widow and released in 1978, eight years after his death. There is also separate footage on line assembled from the last footage that Lamorisse shot over the dam.

When he died, The Red Balloon was still being shown in cinemas from time to time and also on television – as were a number of his other films.

Edmond Séchan: Director of Photography

Edmond Séchan was born on September 20, 1919 in Monpellier, France. His first work was on the documentary Savage Africa (1950) directed by Jacques DuPont. He worked with Lamoirisse on Crin-Blanc and again on The Red Balloon. In the same year, he also filmed the marine documentary The World of Silence for Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle which became a landmark film in French cinema history for its use of underwater photography. He would later move into directing as well as his cinematograhy work. His short films earned him prizes: Le Haricot, (Short Film Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1963) and Toine ( a César du meilleur court métrage in 1981). He belongs to the small group of Frenchmen to have won Oscars: in 1960 with The Golden Fish, produced by Cousteau, in the category Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, and in 1975 with One-Eyed Men Are Kings, in collaboration with Michel Leroy.

Truffaut wrote: ‘I would be remiss if I failed to point out that Le Ballon Rouge is one of the most beautiful color films ever made, thanks to the extraordinary work of Edmond Sechan.’

Maurice Leroux: Composer

Born on February 6, 1923 in Paris, France. He studied composition at the Concertoire in Paris and under Olivier Messiaen. His first film composition was on Crin Blanc, and then Bad Liaisons (Les Mauvaises Rencontres). In 1956 he scored Les Possédées before composing the the music of The Red Balloon.

From 1960 to 1967 he served as the conductor of the French National Broadcasting Orchestra.

In total he was responsible for 19 much celebrated original film scores and worked with some leading directors including The Bitterness (1957/Nicholas Ray), Akogare (1958/François Truffaut), Presentation ou Charlotte et son steak (1960/Eric Romer), Little Soldier (1960/Jean Luc Godard), View from the Bridge (1961/Sydney Lumet), and Immoral Story (1973/Valerian Polofutsuk). He died in Avignon on October 19, 1992.

Locations

All the film was shot in Paris on location with most found in the Belleville distirct of Paris, and with a concentration at the top of what is now the Parc de Belleville and at the spot called Belvédère de Belleville. The Parc was where the narrow streets and alleys are seen in the film. Even then it is clear that this was a rundown area and in the 1970s it was declared a slum and the buildings demolished. Developers moved in. New housing blocks were built but much was converted into the park but at the top it is still possible to basically see where Pascal first found the balloon, ate cake, and the family apartment still exists on rue du Transvaal.

The adjacent district of Ménilmontant was also used as a location.

The best resource for discovering the specific locations can be found on Flickr here.

But before the film was released in the UK it was the publishing of the book that started to raise interest in the story. In the summer of 1956 over 15,000 copies were sold at 12s. 6d despite having had few reviews, and only two in London, in the Observer and in the New Statesman, the latter suggesting that there was “no reason why it should not become a classic”.

To help promote the book to the book seller trade, the publishers Allen & Unwin ‘gave it the fullest possible treatment with private film show for book-sellers, seven-year-old Pascal autographing manfully, gas-filled balloons liberated over London and hundreds of others given away to booksellers.’

With this initial success, a further 10,000 reprint was planned for mid-October prior to the film’s release and as demand had shot far ahead of their expectations more were printed when the film went into cinemas. By the end of 1956 over 30,000 copies had been sold, which was no mean feat.