LAST METRO, THE (Le Dernier Metro)

Just as Truffaut's “Day For Night” (1973) took a behind the camera look at film production, THE LAST METRO explores the backstage world of theater. Catherine Deneuve plays Marion Steiner, the wife of the Jewish manager of the Montmartre Theatre. When he is forced to flee the Nazi occupation of Paris, he entrusts the theater to her care. The film depicts her efforts to continue her husband's work while dealing with various conflicting forces, among them a director with dubious loyalties, a strangely hostile set designer and a pro-Nazi journalist who has the power to close any show. Meanwhile Marion finds herself in love with her leading man. In Truffaut's words, THE LAST METRO is “a film of love and adventure which expresses aversion to all forms of intolerance and profound affection for those who have chosen the acting profession.” “. . . a gently comic, romantic meditation on love, loyalty, heroism and history. . .” -New York Times