Children of Paradise
Children of Paradise (original French title: Les Enfants du Paradis) is a two-part French romantic drama film by Marcel Carné, produced under war conditions in 1943, 1944, and early 1945 in both Vichy France and Occupied France. Set in the theatrical world of 1830s Paris, it tells the story of a courtesan and four men — a mime, an actor, a criminal and an aristocrat — who love her in entirely different ways.
| Children of Paradise | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Marcel Carné |
| Written by | Jacques Prévert |
| Produced by | Raymond Borderie Fred Orain |
| Starring | Arletty Jean-Louis Barrault Pierre Brasseur Marcel Herrand Pierre Renoir |
| Cinematography | Roger Hubert |
| Edited by | Henri Rust |
| Music by | Maurice Thiriet Joseph Kosma (pantomime) |
| Distributed by | Pathé Consortium Cinéma |
Release date |
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Running time | 190 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Box office | 4,768,505 admissions (France) |
It has received universal critical acclaim. "I would give up all my films to have directed Les Enfants du Paradis", said nouvelle vague director François Truffaut. In Truman Capote's The Duke in His Domain (1957), actor Marlon Brando called it "maybe the best movie ever made". Its original American trailer positioned it as the French answer to Gone With the Wind (1939), an opinion shared by critic David Shipman. A 1995 vote by 600 French critics and professionals named it the "Best Film Ever".