 Locke du Creme. That's what I have to say to you guys today. Locke du Creme. This is the movie show here on Think Tech I'm Jay Fidel. It's one o'clock on a given Tuesday, and it's George Kasin and George is a movie reviewer person who joins me every couple weeks And we talk about movies because there are so many good movies You know our world has become just awash in good movies not only this year, but years years back It's a it's a joy to have all these movies and it's a joy to have George with us, too. Hi, George George, what do you want to review today? Locke du Creme du Creme. It's the art of crime. It's a great series Really good thinking, you know what they've done is they've linked up these art historians eminent art historians with the Special agency in France that deals with crime with stolen art art Pictures and sculpting and stuff like that. So it's it's very much French culture because as you know the art and and Wine are the big things I can get into that in French culture. So so they take that and then this guy Nicholas well the actors Nicholas gob and Antoine Vizalé or whatever he's a cop and he he was in the crime Regular crime section, but he had a run-in with the supervisor. So they transferred him where his friend Pardo is the chief and where they do Spent they focus on art crime stolen paintings and things like that forgeries and whatever so the whole plot is that this art historian Played by Eleanor gossip Bernheim She's the actress the chief protagonist and she helps him because he doesn't understand anything. He's a typical The typical cop, you know, that's really not into this kind of stuff at all. He's into the basics, you know Go in and find that the the criminal and blah blah blah. He knows nothing about all that Interesting right there, you know, we're having we're having a look inside the French police We're you know, and we we see so many cops and robbers and police movies in the United States So we think we're gonna get a break when we when we see the French police and that maybe they would know a little bit about art Because they live in the in the world center for art. He doesn't know anything about art and Zero and that's one of the challenges of the movie. So he's a dynamic character. He's always learning about art He's revisting the lessons But ultimately in each case he gives in and he actually learns about the art that is involved one piece of art for every every episode That a little bit he learns but it doesn't go in. It's like right exactly cases over and and they're And even her father who's another art historian He comes in he's trying to give him training, you know, like classes and it's like it's like talking with Rick wall And he's he really is resisting this and then they get into a little bit of that It's his childhood his father who's a prominent attorney had abandoned him and his mother When he was very young and there was this picture In the in the house they were living in of this little boy that he was being friends with you know When he was a kid he was talking to him and the father Kept the picture and and threw the mother and him out So that's why he's got a mental block and they get into the psychotic and one of the things I could say I this is on a tangent though The casting is phenomenal Because I've lived in France and I know the the personalities and my relatives over there And the casting is superb each of the roles whether it's the psych the two psychologists Whether it's the art historian daughter, you know, and the father whether it's the cop, you know, uh, Antoine Everyone is is perfect for the role. That's a luck and that's an aside. So bottom line it's an interesting interesting combination which we don't really see here because I mean, we've got the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of art and la art museum that they built, you know, recently that up on that hill, but I mean We don't have that kind of emphasis That the french dude french. It's like immersed in their culture like I was relating my father's first cousin He was a a patron for this famous artist and my other one of my other cousins on my other He is basically a physician. He retired and moved to as which is on the putt azure and he's a sculptor now So I mean art is so central to their culture also wine I mean my father's cousin is the patron he in his basement. He's got A wine cellar going wines going back to 1200, you know, that's the it's like a hobby Like people here collect coins, you know or stamps. They collect wine Very you bring you bring me back. George, you know, you make me want to go back to France because I'm a franco file I can I can make a decent stab at speaking the language and I really enjoy the place and I see it as so different from the u.s. And what you know one thing One thing I want to mention is that Years ago, my wife and I went to paris and we went to Sainte-Chapelle, which is a chapel across the street from Notre Dame And it's a place where you can see concerts, okay But it happens to be located In a police station in a police station So in order to get into Sainte-Chapelle, you have to walk through the police station And you see it all you see what the paris police are really like And they look like thugs. I'm sorry. I said that they are they are totally You know vulgar and noisy unkempt It's what they are And maybe I'm just thinking of the detectives and all that, you know in American television. You see the same thing I suppose But this was an example of that So you you may think That the French are all elegant and wear nice clothes and and live a high life Not everybody And in this case you're introduced to the police now I think what's very interesting is Take that in a country Which is generally speaking concerned about art which is which which claims to be you know a great art capital And it is in many ways in the museums and in the culture itself How do you deliver a bald bald headed Antoine who doesn't care and know anything about art? How do you make the show called the art of crime? How do you make that into a show that deals with art? Well, it's simple you give them a partner and the partner Uh and that father you mentioned they deal with art and they educate him So there's a constant education and in educating him about art They're educating the audience too, aren't they so you learn tons of stuff about You know european art visually the protagonist uh What was her first name? You know in the one Florence Flo Flo Florence that in in the movie. So Florence. Yeah, that's her name in the movie She conjures up all these famous Artists from centuries back really famous and they actually bring them in their costume With her visually and then she's talking to them on the screen and you actually can see because I knew these artists from before So it's pretty realistic, you know van Gogh Little trek to loose little trek and all these different famous You know artists and she it also it brings them from from the past into the movie Into the series tv series So you actually see what they look like and they start talking about their Art and what was important to them and what was what their problems were Trial, you know the problems and stuff. So bottom line is it becomes really realistic As an educational experience and for those who really don't aren't don't know our history, you know I mean the professor Jacques humain. I took a course on french art from Jacques humain at stony book So, I mean, uh, you know, and then I took Spanish art from leopoldo castello You know, and then I went you remember the name good for you George. I remember 70 almost 74 I don't have much Alzheimer's at this age and then Leopoldo castello and then in france at Sorbonne It was I believe it was madame gold Scheider Who was teaching l'art de France and they used to take us to those museums, you know and whatever I mean it was really interesting. They took us to the the louvre and God damn that really was there paintings and sculpture there too. So they so we got a pretty good broad perspective, you know But they also they also drill down on works of art that you may not have heard about Schools of art that you may you may have seen but works of art that are not necessarily the popular ones And some of them are very odd works of art, which makes the experience all, you know all the more profound You realize that and they're not kidding. They're not making it up These are real works of art very valuable works of art And you get to see them and understand them and place them in french or european history This makes a very educational experience You're operating on so many levels in this series to learn about french culture Learn about french police to learn about the practice of psychiatry in french And to learn about of course french art and to learn about crime That crime involving art, you know, I don't know if we see that much crime involving art in the u.s But in this in this series, we see every twist and turn you could imagine about how crime can be involved with art And every episode has another piece of art of some sort and another crime With that art. Can you talk about some of the crimes, george? Oh, I'm trying to think Okay, uh, one of them I think it was the first one is there was this eras and um She wanted this painting this famous famous painting. I if I remember correctly It was Leonardo da Vinci and he was sort of Had this sexual gay relationship or whatever with another with his assistant or whatever So he had painted this picture Of what this ostensibly, you know a woman, you know, it was the name of the mona via or something like that and and and um The little kid who was the kid sees this Some little kid. Oh, I see it was an Antoine's kid, right? Somehow comes to the police station, right? And and they and they they're studying this on the computer and and the kid says That's a man You know, it just it was just like you could tell so what was Leonardo trying to say, you know It was it's like interesting that was and the eras Because this was such a special picture, you know that had been lost or something They couldn't find the original right that um That this guy was Wanted to steal it, right? for and and uh You know, he went to steal it and then this other guy wanted to take it away from him like another criminal Who who was eventually you find out the criminal was the butler? Isn't it always the butler the butler for the for the eras That that was tired of just being a butler and he they figured out that that was the that was not That was the original because it wasn't a a copy. It was the original So it was worth millions right millions of dollars. So he kills the the The art historian that was that stolt was stealing this from from, you know, from wherever, you know They're thinking it was a copy right and then he stabs him and then this whole plot goes and then you see the butler acting very every one of these you know series It's always someone you see earlier that looks so innocent, right? And then and then and then they that's Just like you see on other shows. That's the one who actually did the murder, right? And another one is this this flow flows mother and and and the other Art historians wife passed away. She was an egyptologist and she was training this other woman In egyptology, right? So the thing is this whole plot goes with somebody gets gets murdered, right? And at the end You're wondering who would kill this this this this person, you know And it what what eventually happens is that her husband had died six months before And in egyptology, there was that they they go through all this, you know, they go through the mother's Files boxes of files and they find out this symbol, you know, and there's this other guy who's an egyptologist And then this woman By all whatever she was right and and who was the the student of the mother? And she knew enough to know that there was a way to bring back the dead But you've got to kill somebody To get their soul to bring back the dead and she desperately loved her husband So she wanted her husband back, right? So the plot ends the thing starts ends Basically, she decides she's going to kill entwined You know the cop the Minded cop There because he's going to kill and she she was able to knock him out And then she gives him an injection. She says you won't feel a thing. He's tied up already, right? And she's ready to stab him and then it's something about this scarab and this statue that was They're trying to get the statue And the and the necklace together because that's how the ritual goes to bring back the dead person, right? So she's about to stab, uh, you know Antoine right the cop and they all rush it. This happens time and time again just at the 11 hour 99 59 minutes They come in and save the person right before which never happens. Yes, it's good television But you know what? They're these characters that you talk about They're all flawed. They're all flawed. None of them is a is an american type hero type character Antoine the cop he's flawed. He's he's a klutz he's a all wrong athlete kind of guy But he's like I wouldn't call him bald. He's semi bald. He doesn't shave very much. Maybe that's very french And he's flawed and he breaks down. He doesn't he doesn't necessarily succeed It's it's luck that gets him out of these predicaments and the the woman low flow Eleanor Bernheim is the name of the actress She I wouldn't call her all that good-looking Anybody in this in this movie very good-looking, you know, you you enter into a You know a series with all french and all happening in paris You'd think somebody would be good-looking. No, not really And then she and she has all the Psychological issues and her relationship with with Antoine is so strange You would never see that in an american movie She's she not attracted to him From a romantic point of view or even a sexual point of view She's attracted to him because somewhere in her flawed psychology She needs to have him nearby Or she hasrophobia and and she Would fall down the stairway And it's weird because they you know, she finally realizes this that she needs him but not as a romantic object as a Stabilizing object in her strange psychology and then you have her father Who is a kind of nutcase and she has all these arguments with him about art history And he always gets in the way and messes in with her relationship with the police department She's kind of a contractor for the police department. She's hired to help Antoine understand About art because he they are involved with the unit that especially deals with cultural crimes cultural crimes It's the special bureau. It's a french acronym for But what I what I find interesting is is none of this none of these elements would be popular Uh and have been popular in an american series But in a french series They are because they they resonate with that sort of That kind of difference Viva la difference Between french culture and american culture and that's what attracts me That's what attracts me to foreign films because I want to see how they conduct themselves now Today, I want to see how their films are different So my wife and I spent a lot of time with foreign films because it's it's sort of like traveling george It's sort of like traveling So, uh, you know this, uh, I'm afraid I have to admit that I didn't see all of the episodes the way you have But was there a dynamic in the episode that they Changed over time from one season to another. Did these characters develop further? Yes, there's there's a there's a sub plot number one Because the world goes now the way the world is I found her very attractive You know, I started falling in love with her even I mean, I find her cute I mean, she wasn't raving beauty But there was something about her that I found attractive and maybe because I'm into french kind of culture And it didn't bother you. She always got in trouble. No, she was I mean, she's she's an interesting character, you know, she's not elegant kind of thing, you know She's sort of like a frumpy kind of you know times, you know, but the what's developing is how She and antoine Subconsciously they're drawn together From a romantic kind of thing and that's where we get when we get to the fourth Season it's developing. It's an undercut. He's dreaming about her Make, you know, making love to her. She's dreaming at night of making love to him And then season five that's going to be 2022 They're going to probably develop this further. They sort of leave it hanging, you know He's supposed to be marrying this other policewoman who has some background in art, you know But she's she doesn't work with antoine the same way that flow flow florence does, you know Where they actually can solve a case. She's not quite On the same level from an art historian kind of place, you know, so That's what's developing now in terms of they get into different different types of crimes, right It's always somebody gets stagged Does any I'm trying to think Don't forget the one with where where the the art A poor guy in the museum was was poisoned. You remember that one? Oh the what the woman It was it was the director the art that yeah, this woman was poisoned, right by I'm trying to remember and then and then yes, she was poisoned and then they're trying to figure out Why she was poisoned and it turned out. Oh, yeah her husband, right Was the what her husband was the ex-husband of this guy's mother who was a physician Who was there? in all these, you know shows, I mean he was there and and and He was the murder. He was the killer. He was psychotic and because he was resented the His father his biological father who had abandoned him and his mother He goes and he poisons the second wife, right? and then and then and then he also finds a way to to God, oh, it's you know to kill his father, right? And they think it's this other psychotic woman, right? that he was Dressing in in women's clothes and a wig when he was doing this or they thought it was a woman and he frames her, right? But at the end they find out it's this guy, right? He's a physician, right? And he literally poisoned his his his stepmother who didn't even know because the father just abandoned him What I thought interesting about that was that um, she was actually Giving a lecture. Yes about a huge piece of art in the loo And she fell down dead from the poison in front of her electric tour But what you know, this this takes me to the whole thing about the loo The loo plays a central role in this series you know, you you know the establishment shots of You know in the beginning of every episode and throughout um are the i am pay Entrance entryway the glass you know pyramid entryway into the loo and You know then you see Various galleries in the loo Some of the smaller galleries and some of the larger galleries Some of the most overpowering galleries with works of art Such as the one she was lecturing about Which were you know, which are like 40 feet wide and 15 feet high um a whole gallery of those, you know Half a mile long of these huge You know 400 year old paintings And you say to yourself boy, they are giving us a tour They are taking us through the loo and they're distracting us with all this crime Or shall I say cream stuff? But but the reality is they're putting the footage on the paintings Which is educational Then we begin to see those paintings and realize that these characters are living in a world of art and and the criminals The the crimes Always involves some degree of passion About the art So I mean I can see that a french audience would love this Because it takes you know, they're all either Antoine Or Florence, you know, either they know nothing about art or they know Something but it's not complete and a french audience Would would relate to one or the other of those characters or to the father who knows a lot about art And the audience could relate to those characters and this is their culture. They care a lot about it This is the identity of France. It's the identity of paris. It was makes it what makes paris paris Um, and so you live in a world of this art. You live in a world of passion about the art And that's what's so interesting about it. It's not really a crying show It's an art show And you show all the bozow Bozow architecture, you know at the louvre and other places. So it's it's basically As you say, it's a movie about art and art history But it's sort of linked in with crime, you know I guess there's a reason for that to draw people in you know, I mean, I've discussed before how Too much too much violence too much stabbing too much shooting You know, but the bottom line is the thread is is all art, you know It's all the different picture how how Florence and her father Analyze these paintings and how these psychotic people They they're playing out things in those in those historic pictures And and it's tied to the crime, you know Then then the psychotic person sees this picture and knows the picture what the picture, you know Those who are into it, you know into understanding it and then they work they play that out in real life You know and they go killing people, you know based somehow on that On what the picture the painter was trying to say and trying to do So it's it's a really interesting series. I mean, I went through all four seasons and it doesn't really Change that much what the changes is that subplot between Antoine And florals flow flow Then what's going on between them and the budding romance that neither one is aware of and he's going to marry this other Cop who's the other art historian who's not as good as Florence, you know in terms of getting to the the case resolved and solved so It's interesting and at the end of the fourth season They're they're really getting up to the climax of where these two are going to realize that they're in love with each other as Oil and water that couldn't be more different. You know the two of them But they need each other They need each other to do the jobs they want to do He wants to be a good cop But in in his present, you know assignment. He cannot be without her and she is this flawed psychiatric List of diagnoses Which who needs the it needs a call strong pop To sort of you know keep her stabilized because her father is making her crazy. No, no surprise about that So let me let me ask you this George, you know a few weeks ago We reviewed the cold war Okay, and that was black and white It was set in poland and paris And france, but I would say paris because in that movie paris was france And and it was both of them were european Both of them were, you know created by european writers directors actors And both of them gave the american audience a view into the period piece in europe And so, you know to compare them You know for me, uh, it's this i'll tell you what I my reaction to it um You are thrown into another world In into the late 40s in poland, which I You know really knew nothing about Like a salt of it, you know, I knew nothing about And for that matter, um, you know the the life of a policeman I only knew about it from san cheppell and those rough tough cops there on the way to the the chapel where where they played concert music string quartets And so they both introduced me to other other environments And and what you know, and of course that's very educational To know what what goes on or it could go on But more than that it's this It's it's that these are essentially american formats You know take take a series like that absent robbers crime It's an american format Um, and not so much the the polish movie. It's not really an american format, but somehow it's a movie that It's global that was a global movie. I thought But I think that's the point i'm i'm making is that you see it through the lens of an american viewer in each case And and you learn from it and we are living in a world now of movies like them And the question you ask and you ask the people you are Viewing with is would you like to be an american shoot them up marvel comics movie? You know, or would you like to see a european movie? you know french Spanish i told you about Love in rome with woody allen and i don't know if that's not really a spanish movie, but Or rather italian. That's not really an italian movie. It's um, it's an american movie made in europe And so what you have to you get the cross culture is what i'm saying. You get hollywood imposed Or you look at these movies through the lens Of american viewers looking at europe And you get the sense that there's a A combining of of the hollywood culture the american culture and the european i always i always believe That the people who make these movies have to involve a lot of americans americans both in the polish movie and and here in in the Art to cream, but you know what if you look Credit george, you don't see a lot of american names I think they would rather themselves I think copying us Or is this You know their Their invention Well, there's always cross fertilization. You know, I mean they when I was there in 68 going to school sub-bomb They was talking about I took a course addiction and they mentioned pronglay, you know all the all the english and american words That have come come into the french vocabulary, you know And then and then my cousin she was working for An american firm in paris. So, you know, I mean this was back in 68 So, um, you know, she had gone to seance public teak and learned business and so bottom line is this I mean american culture permeates everywhere. It's now permeating soviet union. I mean I I went to you know, and and That was before but i'm this i mean you go to muska. They've got these mansions. They've got the these malls, you know Basically american type, you know, so our culture Pretty much permeates our language, you know, english is a is a is an international language So our culture has permeated in france, you know, I mean So bottom line is yeah, there's influence as you're saying jade is there's a lot of influence And then what they did is they took that crime thing And they put this art in it to make it more french, you know but You know, there's no separation. I mean, especially now with the internet. I mean this I mean, you can talk to your relatives on zoom anywhere in the world and skype and you know that so I mean Yeah, this There's there's elements of an american police type of show in this right But these things happen everywhere, you know, I mean, but the the thing with the art that that's You know, we don't focus on art value here like they do over there. It's it's like gold, you know And and these things are worth millions of dollars But you know what, um, I don't think this series would be as interesting to me if it were in english Of course, I read the subtitles But it's in french and the inflections the language And the way they speak the language, which is obviously very fast That makes the the series special likewise to compare it again to You know the cold war that's in polish and some amount of french when they were, you know, citing paris But it wouldn't be the same in english. It simply would not And I think I want it to be in polish and I want it to be in french and I I enjoy the subtitles But I like to hear the language spoken It also goes to the proposition of other American students at school doesn't really learn a lot of languages or any languages And the american ordinary american citizen does not travel all that much to europe or asia for that matter Um, we are we are living more and more in a world of multiple languages And I saw some software yesterday where you write you write it out Okay in english And it comes back Not translated into french or spanish or Italian It comes back spoken to you With a voice that sounds live And i'm saying, you know artificial intelligence Has completely flattened All these languages around the world And we should treasure them we should treasure films With barn languages We should treasure these cultures, whatever they are Because they're going to disappear See i'm not the typical I didn't speak english until that kindergarten My grandmother had lived in italy germany Bavaria they left in 1923 where that crazy hitler was coming they he spoke in in the Hall and the city town center in melling in and they ran because they were foreigners and he was nuts So then they went to france or she lived in they lived in italy they lived in germany they lived in france So my grandmother spoke like five or six languages and she raised me because my mother was in the fashion thing working So my paternal grandmother, so I had I knew fibers. I and when I went to kindergarten I I the teachers would go cross-eyed because I was My sentences were in five different languages, right? So I grew up in that kind of a Multi-lingual and I know french. I went to school there. They spoke french in the house when I was a kid So to me those subtitles were just a little help, you know, so I got immersed in this So so my perceptions are a little different, you know Well, would you prefer a movie a european movie to be in english or the local language? Whatever it is local language because that makes it as you said that makes it more real I mean, I enjoyed the fact that this was in french It it it gave it a lot of color it You know the inflection I was totally understanding The personalities and I was saying the way they like I said that whoever did the the casting Phenomenal each one of that psychiatrist, you know, that's No, no, not the psychiatrist the psychiatrist that she was well casted the woman who was going to kill the egyptologist They were all casted As french people they were their characters were French, you know, right I mean you see that happen and you realize or you should realize The criminal mentality The criminal person it's different in french as it is in the us Anyway, so it's it's great to see the comparison Great to have a review of it from you george And we'll do another one in a couple of weeks We haven't made up our minds, but two possibilities are the last love letter And that woody allen movie I mentioned Love and wrong So we'll take a look at both of those. Maybe we could even compare them. Wouldn't that be something george kason The movie show right here on syctech. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, jim. Hello