Filming in Ménilmontant, the 20th arrondissement of Paris
The old village climbs a hill, its main street rising 50 metres between the boulevard and rue des Pyrénées. Père Lachaise sits on the lower slope.
What Ménilmontant looks like
is the spine of the old village, climbing from place Jean-Ferrat at 54 metres above sea level to rue des Pyrénées at 104. Cars travel uphill only, buses and bicycles come down the other way.
Partway up, Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix is built into the slope, with 54 stone steps before its west door and a bell tower that rises 78 metres above them. It dates from the late nineteenth century.
Farther up, place du Guignier is a small square with a stone building for the Paris sewer service on it, green doors tagged with graffiti under the city's coat of arms cut into the stone above them. There is a market on the square twice a week.
Notre-Dame-des-Coptes, on rue de l'Est nearby, occupies a former Paris electricity substation. Stone arches sit behind iron gates on the ground floor, and an iron balcony rail patterned with Coptic crosses runs along the front above them.
tops the hill. A cast plaque on the wall there gives 128.508 metres, the highest point on the city's public land. Below it on rue Saint-Fargeau, a stone carriage gate with a carved head stands at number 6 bis, dark green doors under a round arch.
A stretch of the old petite ceinture railway runs along the edge of the area, now a cobbled path between iron railings with stone steps at one end. Père Lachaise covers the lower slope in 44 hectares of cobbled avenues shaded by about 4,000 trees, its main gate facing boulevard de Ménilmontant.
Shot in Ménilmontant
Albert Lamorisse shot Le Ballon rouge here in 1956, and much of what is in it has gone. The staircase on rue Vilin was cleared, along with the school and one of the two bakeries. So were the steep steps of passage Julien-Lacroix, where Pascal finds the balloon. The waste ground where the older boys corner him is the Parc de Belleville now. The flat at 15 rue du Transvaal is still there, and so is the bus stop where rue des Pyrénées meets rue de Ménilmontant. Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix appears in the film and is still standing. The Bourne Identity's car chase turns off rue du Transvaal into the narrow passage Plantin and down its steps onto rue des Couronnes. All three streets are still there today.
Paris, je t'aime, 2006
Wes Craven directed the twentieth arrondissement segment and shot it in the cemetery. Frances and William are in Paris before their wedding. They walk the cemetery paths arguing about whether he has any sense of humour. It comes to a head at Oscar Wilde's grave, where she tells him she could never marry him and walks off. He runs after her, trips, hits his head on the monument and finds Wilde standing behind him. Jacob Epstein carved the tomb in 1912. The lower half has been behind glass since November 2011, so it no longer looks the way it does in the film.
Public stairways link the streets on Telegraph Hill the same way they link Ménilmontant's climbing lanes, with apartment buildings and gardens stacked close along the steps rather than one grand staircase. The Filbert and Greenwich Steps run at a similar pitch to rue du Télégraphe, between backyards and porches rather than a formal park. Wood siding and bay windows give Telegraph Hill away in a wide shot, so a tight frame on the stairway and its railings holds the match better than a wide one. Try searching public stairway steps now.
Cerro Concepción climbs from the port in narrow lanes and public staircases between houses, the same kind of climbing streets and steps that run off rue de Ménilmontant. A funicular takes some of the traffic up the hill, which this quarter has no equivalent for. The painted corrugated metal cladding common on Cerro Concepción is distinct from Ménilmontant's rendered and brick fronts, so a wider shot would need to avoid the colour. Try searching narrow lanes and staircases now.
Alfama climbs steeply below São Jorge Castle, its lanes turning in tight bends with stairs cut into the steepest parts. That is closer to Ménilmontant's climbing streets than the wider avenues elsewhere in Lisbon, though tiled facades line the stairwells on the lower lanes. The glazed tile facades give Alfama away in any wide shot, so this works best in a tight frame on the stairs and the render walls above them. Try searching climbing lanes with stairs now.
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