A steep hillside in the 20th arrondissement of white rendered cités and 1970s tower blocks. Rififi sent Tony's former girlfriend to warn him on the railway bridge over rue de la Mare.
What Belleville looks like
A hill here ties with Montmartre as the highest point in Paris, and the side streets run steep and straight up it. A shot down catches a tower block above the rooftops at the crest.
Away from the market street, courtyard cités run back from the pavement in rows of two and three storey houses, white painted render with colored doors and shutters and pink brick at the sills and lintels. A few of the passages between them are stepped rather than level, narrow stone cuts walled and planted with ivy.
Blocks of 1970s apartment housing stand among the older streets, some low with private gardens behind them, others rising into towers whose balconies catch the light above the surrounding roofs. On rue de la Mare, a steel footbridge crosses the old railway cutting with one of the towers filling the frame behind it.
is the market spine, its shopfronts lettered in Chinese characters beside steam table restaurants and grocers, with awnings out over the pavement. , one street over, runs behind a corner bar with a hand lettered awning and cafe tables set along the cobbles.
Shot in Belleville
In Rififi, Tony's former girlfriend Mado finds him on a railway bridge on rue de la Mare and tells him where Grutter is holding a kidnapped boy. The bridge still crosses the old railway cutting just south of rue Henri Chevreau.
Rififi, 1955
Mado tells Tony where Grutter is holding the kidnapped boy Tonio here. The bridge crosses the old railway cutting on rue de la Mare, just south of rue Henri Chevreau. Street View
What Belleville can double for
Noailles in Marseille, France
Noailles is Marseille's own hillside market quarter, its steep streets lined with Maghrebi grocers and spice shops much like Rue de Belleville. Nineteen seventies renewal blocks stand close by on the same slopes, so the two housing registers read the same way in a wide shot. Marseille's render runs warmer and more ochre than Belleville's white walls, so keep tighter frames or shoot under flat light to mute the color difference. Try searching Maghrebi grocers steep street now.
Rye Lane has the same mix as Rue de Belleville, market shopfronts with awnings out over the pavement and postwar council towers rising close behind them. It is the scale of the street beside the towers that matches, not any single building. English signage, right hand traffic and post boxes need dressing out or careful framing to keep them off camera. Try searching market street with council towers now.
Potrero Hill's streets run steep and straight at a similarly hard grade, useful for a shot that needs the grade rather than a Paris street specifically. Its wood frame houses and garage fronts read differently from Belleville's rendered cités in any wide shot. Keep the frame close on the roadway and the kerb. The building fronts give the location away first. Try searching steep straight street grade now.
.jpg)
