These are images illustrating a paper on 'Les Escaliers de Paris' for the 'Paris en Images' conference, 24-25 May 2012. For details of the conference see here: Paris en Images
(With thanks to Piet Schreuders and Furore, where you will find the missing red balloon.)
This same stairway appears in Cavalcanti's Rien que les heures (1926) and almost thirty years later in Dassin's Du rififi chez les hommes (1955). In the interim a central handrail has been added, and the wooden fencing replaced with railings. By my rough calculation there are about forty steps. Rien que les heures is not sufficiently localised to give a clue as to whereabouts, but in Rififi the context strongly suggests Ménilmontant. In the credit sequence of the Ménilmontant-set La Maternelle (1949) there is a view of this staircase, which seems to me conclusive: The poster for La Maternelle appears to show the staircase from the other direction but doesn't supply any identifying features: |
L'Escalographe is an occasional blog about stairways in Paris that appear in films
BibliographyMy chief work of reference is François L'Henaff's magisterial Paris en marches: les escaliers des rues de Paris, published by the APUR, and available here. Archives
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