L'appartement and Its American Remake, Wicker Park

The films, L'appartement and its American remake, Wicker Park are equally very intriguing films with the same plot but their endings differ greatly. L'appartement was released in 1996 and written/directed by Miles Mimouni; Wicker Park was released in 2004 and directed by Paul McGuigan. While L'appartement has an ambiguous ending that does not have any of the characters ending up with what they want, Wicker Park has a clear-cut, happy ending for the two main characters. Wicker Park falls into the Hollywood Formula outlined by Roffman and Purdy because it has the typical happy ending for the protagonist. The final scenes in both films reveal this cultural difference in endings between American (Hollywood) and French cinema.

Wicker Park follows the same basic plot of the French film, L'appartement- a romantic mystery that focuses on the character of Max, who is on the verge of getting married and soon to leave on a business trip to Tokyo. Before he leaves, he catches a glimpse of his former love, Lisa. He has never understood why Lisa disappeared and ended their relationship in the past, so he begins to track her in order to find her again. Meanwhile, he forsakes his trip and lies to his girlfriend about his true whereabouts. Just when Max thinks he has found Lisa, he realizes it is another woman named Alice who seduces him and they begin to have a secret affair. Alice, however, is dating Max's best friend, Lucien, at the same time but neither of them know they are seeing the same woman because Alice told Max that her name is Lisa also. Furthermore, unknown to either of the men is the fact that Alice is friends with the real Lisa. Yet Alice has been keeping Max and Lisa away from each other because she has been secretly in love with Max before he even met Lisa. In Wicker Park the only difference in plot are the characters' names-Max, Lucien, and Alice in L'appartement are Matt, Luke, and Alex in the remake, also the American movie is set in Chicago instead of the Paris setting of the French film.

The film climaxes in the second to last scene as Max figures out that Alice has been lying to him and everyone else, so he confronts her in a café when she is meeting Lucien; the same scene is also the climax in Wicker Park. In L'appartement after Max confronts Alice, she confesses that she was wrong but only did it because she loved him. She also gives him her diary right before he leaves to go meet Lisa. Alice then ends her relationship with Lucien even though he is still unaware of her relationship with Max. Max, in the meantime, reads the diary and never goes to meet Lisa. Instead he goes to the airport to catch Alice before she leaves the country because he decides he loves Alice now. Lisa goes back to her apartment when Max does not show up and gets blown up by a jealous ex-lover who has been stalking her, and Lucien ends up all alone. Here the story begins to turn to tragic ending which shocks the audience that expects Max to find Lisa but instead the plot takes a disastrous turn for the characters.

Max does not even find happiness in Alice because she tricks him into waiting for her while she gets her luggage but instead she gets onto a plane for Italy. Max realizes that Alice is leaving, and as he sees her getting onto the plane his girlfriend, Muriel, shows up because he has supposedly returned from Tokyo. So in the end, none of the characters end up with whom they love, creating a tragically sad ending. The same scene in the café takes place in Wicker Park as well. Matt confronts Alex about her lies and deceit, however, she does not give anything to Matt that explains her actions and he leaves to actually meet Lisa. The airport scene is changed because Matt is still intent on finding Lisa. After he misses her in the park, he goes to the airport to find her before she leaves the country. Right before Matt gets to Lisa he runs into his girlfriend, Rebbecca, and tells her that their relationship is over because he has found his lost love. Then Matt and Lisa are reunited and the film ends blissfully. Wicker Park has the same plot of L'appartement until its happy conclusion that follows Roffman and Purdy's Hollywood Formula.

Sound also is important in perceiving the cultural difference in the conclusions of Wicker Park and L'appartement. Wicker Park uses background music in the last scene to heighten the dramatic aspect of the happy ending. As Matt is chasing after Lisa in Wicker Park and later searching for her in the airport the background music helps to convey his anxiousness and frantic need to find her. Then later, when Matt and Lisa are finally reunited, the background music conveys the happiness and intense emotion of the two characters. In a review about the film, Hewitt notes that "the delicate, desperate music...is impeccable." In American cinema, music is important to further and create the feelings that films try to convey. American audiences often want an uplifting, idealistic story and music helps to convey this point just like with the blissful ending in Wicker Park. The background music helps to connect the audience with the "delicate" and "desperate" emotions of the main character, Matt, and at the end of the film also creates the classic romantic happy ending.

In contrast to the dramatic background music of Wicker Park, L'appartement uses ominous, low background music and instead shows the emotion of the characters through cinematography and editing. Miles Mimouni, the director, uses a lot of close-ups to show emotion and heighten the drama. The director uses a close up shot of Lisa as she looks out of her apartment window with her jealous former lover in the background right before he blows up the apartment. Lisa's facial expression reveals her knowledge of her imminent death and also of her sadness for not finding Max. The director also uses close-up shots of Max and Alice at the end of the film when he realizes that she is leaving as he is embracing his girlfriend. Max's face reveals sadness but also an understanding of what Alice is doing-she knows she cannot be Max's lover and also friends with Lisa after what she did. The close up of Alice reveals her sadness in leaving, but the fact that she knows she has to leave.

Wicker Park also uses cinematography and editing to convey what is happening in the scene. The director, Paul McGuigan, uses a lot of overlapping double-shots as to convey what different characters are doing at the same time. As Matt follows Alice to the café when he is going to confront her the director uses an overlapping shot of him looking out of the cab in half the screen while there is a separate shot of Alice walking into the café. The director also uses another overlapping shot when Matt rushes to meet Lisa at the park before she leaves. The shot shows Matt in the cab again and he is obviously distressed and upset. On the other side there is a shot of Lisa waiting in the park for Matt. David Noh notes that "[McGuigan] uses a battery of bewildering flashbacks, as well as trendy split-screens, freeze-frames, differing film speeds and sound effects to texture things. The medium indeed becomes the message..." The cinematography conveys the message of a confusing love mystery and intense emotion that culminates in a happy ending.

L'appartement and Wicker Park are representative of their respective film cultures and audiences when one analyzes their differing conclusions. Wicker Park, like other American movies such as Sommersby and Three Men and a Baby, have happier endings compared with the French films that they remake because they adhere to the Hollywood Formula and they are what American audiences enjoy. American cinema differs from French cinema very much on this point-French cinema does not have the same type of Hollywood Formula in American cinema and therefore films can have many different styles. This translates into a difference between American and French culture in terms of movies because American audiences have come to expect happy endings whereas French audiences necessarily do not. American audiences want and expect happy endings because of the Hollywood Formula, and the Hollywood Formula lives on because of the American culture it has created.

Bibliography

Noh, David. Wicker Park. Film Journal International 107.10 (Oct 2004): 46(1).

Roffman, Peter and Jim Purdy. The Hollywood Social Problem Film: Madness, Despair, and Politics from the Depression to the Fifties. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1981. 1-9.

Wicker Park. Saint Paul Pioneer Press. St. Paul, MN. (Sept 1, 2004).