Heidi Ellison
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Redecorated Home for Decorative Arts
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs, located in the Louvre’s 19th-century Marsan Wing, has finally reopened after a 10-year closure, during which both the building and its collection were extensively renovated and restored. The immediate impression is spectacular. Visitors enter the … Read More
La Rentrée Littéraire, Sept. 2006
Seasonal Literature It’s that time of year again. The biannual frenzy of book publishing in France known as the rentrée littéraire is upon us. Pull up an armchair and choose from a stack of over 680 freshly printed novels, around … Read More
The Science of Sleep
Stuck in Dreamworld
The new film, the first Gondry has both scripted and directed, stars that young actor the camera (and the audience) just loves, Gael Garcia Bernal. Oozing charm and boyish good looks as usual, he romps his way through this film … Read More
Nos Jours Heureux
Happy Campers
Nos Jours Heureux, directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, is the quintessential summer feel-good movie, recommended for adolescents and anyone who attended a French colonie de vacances (summer camp) in their youth. The critics were lukewarm on this one, … Read More
Ghosts of Saint-Michel
Saints Meet Sinners in City of Light
In his new thriller/murder mystery, Ghosts of Saint-Michel (St. Martin’s Minotaur), Jake Lamar, an American writer living in Paris, has used the sculptures on the city’s Saint-Michel Fountain, which vividly depict a triumphant Saint Michael vanquishing Satan’s forces, as both … Read More
Bed & breakfasts
Staying Chez l’Habitant The city’s new manual for bed & breakfasts. May 11, 2005; updated July 19, 2006 Paris is rich in hotels (with 75,000 rooms) but poor in bed and breakfasts (only 300 rooms). This isn’t surprising, since the … Read More
Changement d’Adresse
Moving Lovers
Changement d’Adresse literally begins with postcards of Paris as its hero (Emmanuel Mouret), a young French horn player freshly arrived from the provinces, examines racks of postcards depicting his new hometown. Once he meets the film’s heroine, Anne (brilliantly played … Read More
Château de Malmaison
Faded Roses The Salon Doré in the Château Malmaison. Photo: Thierry Vidal Known as Rose until Napoleon gave her the new first name that would follow his empress into history, Josephine (née Marie-Joseph-Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie) loved her … Read More
Musée du Quai Branly
New Parisian Monument Opens
The rest of the collection more than lives up to this highly promising beginning. France’s wealth of magnificent pieces from various cultures of Oceania, Africa, Asia and the Americas – formerly hidden away in the still-existing Musée de l’Homme and … Read More
Mini-guide to Avignon
Pont, Popes and Plays Tourists admiring the architecture of Avignon. Avignon, dominated by the imposing 14th-century Gothic fortress of the Palais des Papes and the adjacent golden-statue-topped Notre-Dame des Doms Cathedral next to it, is best known to the world … Read More