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    • the first maps >
      • Some Maps in Gance's Napoléon
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    • 1890s-1909 >
      • firemen in Paris, 1896
      • La Villette c.1896-97
      • Hatot-Breteau 1897
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        • Alice Guy in the brothel ...
      • a dangerous street corner
      • Capellani in Paris
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      • a gateway out of Paris c.1910
      • L'Enfant de Paris (narrative of an identification)
      • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 1 >
        • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 2 >
          • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 3 >
            • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 4 >
              • Fantomas Over Belgium
      • One Place, Three Films: Fantomas and the French New Wave
      • a staircase in Belleville
      • Vampires Over Paris >
        • Les Vampires 1
        • Les Vampires 2
        • Les Vampires 3
        • Les Vampires 4
        • Les Vampires 5
        • Les Vampires 6
        • Les Vampires, 7
        • Les Vampires 8
        • Les Vampires 9
        • Les Vampires 10
      • Irma Vep posts a letter
      • Inside-Outside: space and light in Judex
      • L'Affaire Barsac
      • neon Paris c.1913
      • electric nights in Paris (and Berlin)
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      • Quai des Orfèvres
      • Olivia - Audry - 1951
      • Paris Noir: Becker, Dassin, Melville
      • the persistence of graffiti: Paris c.1952
      • Du rififi chez les hommes - reading topotropically >
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      • Het Parijs van Le Ballon rouge
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            • Baisers volés
          • 'New York Herald Tribune' - Parrish and Godard on the rue de Berri >
            • A bout de souffle (narrative of an identification)
          • the Grisbi connection: Chabrol and Becker
          • Les Bonnes Femmes: sequence by sequence
          • Une femme est une femme: the places documented
          • the boulevard des Italiens
          • Jules et Jim: Paris configured
          • the place of cinema: cinema as location in Vivre sa vie
          • Godard and Melville: the view from the rue Jenner >
            • Melville: more views from the rue Jenner
          • the New Wave in Pigalle c.1963
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          • Le Bonheur 1965
          • Paris vu par
          • Masculin Féminin
          • The Topography of La Guerre est finie
        • France
      • Le Samourai: places and maps >
        • Un flic: art and artifice
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      • Every Revolution
      • statues in Godard and Duras
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        • Holy Motors - notes
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      • Ville d'Avray en 1903
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      • One Church Two Cemeteries: Clouzot and Chabrol at Montfort L'Amaury
      • Feuilladian Franju - Les Yeux sans visage
      • country houses and suburban villas
      • banlieue locations in L'Amour existe
      • the Landru Villa
      • 1 place 2 filmmakers: Rivette & Chabrol in Ermenonville
      • Céline et Julie: what's the address of that house?
      • cinemas in La Petite Voleuse
    • The Stairs: Paris
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      • Cocaine 1922
      • Fu Manchu 1923
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        • Rififi in London
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      • maps in krimis
      • Kriminal (1966)
      • Kaurismaki's London c. 1989
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    • The Chronology of Le Petit Soldat
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      • Cleo 5-7 - Time
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        • Sans toit ni loi - the 12 tracking shots
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      • Alice Guy + JLG
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      • a map of Out 1
      • Le Pont du Nord: locations identified >
        • topographical telescoping in Le Pont du Nord
        • Le Pont du Nord (narrative of an identification)
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      • 10 photographs by Brassaï in 3 Paris dancehalls >
        • painters in the rue Blomet
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      • Godard's Histoire(s): photographs of women
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      • a building site and some buildings, c.1961 >
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      • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: HLM, cités, grands ensembles >
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        • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: La Courneuve to Saint Ouen
        • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: Sevran to Villepinte
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      • A Remarkable Journey in Zigoto's New Motor-Car - 1912
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The Cine-Tourist
Château Gaillard, Maisons Alfort, Val de Marne, 94700
Picture
Archimède la clochard (Gilles Grangier 1959)
Picture
postcard c.1962
In the 1959 film Archimède le Clochard Jean Gabin plays a tramp who has squatted a building on an estate under construction at Maisons Alfort, by the Marne in the eastern suburbs of Paris:
Picture
The film show the estate under construction from several angles and in several sequences, episodes which serve to contrast the newness of Fifth Republic France with the older, more familiar areas of Paris where Archimède is mostly to be seen in the film.
Here are views of the Domaine du Château Gaillard on completion, from comtemporary postcards:
And here is a recent photograph contrasting, as Grangier's film had,  the modern estate with a vestige of the old château:
Picture
Picture
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This is not the only film from this period where Jean Gabin, vestige of an older world, is used as contrast with the newness of the grands ensembles. Here, in films from 1959 and 1963, he is at Sarcelles, to the north of Paris:
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Rue des Prairies (Denys de la Patellière 1959)
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Mélodie en sous-sol (Henri Verneuil 1963)
A future Building Sites post will look more closely at Gabin in Sarcelles. In the meantime here is a slideshow of 1960s postcards of Sarcelles, many of them colourised - like the dvd of Mélodie en sous-sol from which I took the cap above.