16mm film stock. While he spent some of his childhood
growing up in Paris – his father is French-American – he’s
never shot there. “It was incredible to be able to actually put
cameras on the ground and shoot in a place that gave birth
to things like the French New Wave,” Chazelle says, “as well
as being a place where some of the first iconic uses of jazz in
film have happened.”
He cites movies like Elevator To The Gallows by Louis Malle,
with its Miles Davis score, Jean-Luc Godard’s French New
Wave primer Breathless and the 1960s scores by Michel
Legrand for such classics as The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and
Bande À Part. This filtered down to the actors, who ploughed
through movies including 1983 film À Nos Amours, starring
Maurice Pialat and Sandrine Bonnaire. “We watched that to
pay attention to the father-daughter relationship,” informs
Stenberg (The Hate U Give). “We also had more contemporary
references – like Girlhood and Blue Is The Warmest Colour.”I
n a tiny club in the 13th arrondissement in Paris, all
life can be found. Love affairs, family feuds, money
matters... all bound up with one single musical genre:
jazz. The name of the club? The Eddy. “The Eddy is a
musical oasis for different kinds of people, all of whom
are struggling with lives outside of this club,” explains
Damien Chazelle. “But when they come in here, the idea is
that they find a universal language that they can share no
matter where they come from originally.”
No, Chazelle, the jazz-loving Oscar-winning director of
EZyEZEZg], has not jacked it all in to open his own dive bar
(though it’s probably crossed his mind). The Eddy is a new
eight-part Netflix drama. Chazelle directs the first two
episodes, which initially focus on ex-pat jazz musician Elliot
(André Holland) and his clarinet-playing teenage daughter
Julie (Amandla Stenberg). Others introduced include Elliot’s
ex-girlfriend, singer Maja (Joanna Kulig), and his business
partner at The Eddy, Farid (Tahar Rahim).
Famed for Steven Soderbergh’s The Knick and High Flying
Bird, Holland, who speaks English and French in the show,
thought it was a “nice marriage” of acting styles. “I’ve
heard that French actors tend to be more cerebral, whereas
American actors tend to be more physical. We want
to throw chairs and cry... which we do!”
he chuckles, sitting down with Total Film
in Berlin’s Hotel de Rome. “I think us
creating the family of this show was how
I imagine a band gets put together.”
The ‘family’ for The Eddy actually began
with producer Alan Poul (Six Feet Under),
who also directs two episodes, and
composer Glen Ballard, famed for producing
Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill.
Back in 2013, Ballard brought Poul a suite
of jazz songs that he’d written; he’d even
formed a band specifically to record and play
them. “I was completely hooked,” says Poul,
“and Glen said, ‘Let’s make a show about
a jazz club in Paris.’”
Shortly afterwards, Poul recruited Chazelle,
who had just unveiled his second film, the
jazz-themed Whiplash to huge acclaim at the
Sundance Film Festival. Chazelle was hooked
too, particularly by Ballard’s notion of
making The Eddy a contemporary jazz club.
“I think that a lot of times when you say
the words ‘jazz’ and ‘Paris’ together,” he
says, “people assume an older version of the city or the music
and we wanted to put it in a modern context.”MUSICAL CHAIRS
British-born Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials), the lead writer
on the series, began to think about how to make the show
“as representative as possible” of jazz. “Alan puts it
beautifully – that idea of everyone getting their solo, and
everyone’s solo feeling very, very different, and very reflective
of the character.” As the episodes progress, the baton is
passed and other characters, such as Farid’s wife Amira (Leïla
Bekhti) take centre stage. “It’s a really exciting way to get to
know every character in the show.”
While Houda Benyamina and Laïla Marrakchi direct two
episodes each, it was Chazelle who set the visual template for
the show, with nervy handheld vérité-style camerawork andSINGALONG
DamienChazelle
abovedirects
thefirsttwo
episodes
Joanna Kulig
playsa singerat
theclubright NETFLIXTOTAL FILM | APRIL 2020MAKING OF