five minutes of fame : handout

Amélie & Photo booths

Lauren Finkelstein

Big Claim : The photo booths serve both symbolically and physically as a mechanism that isolates and paradoxically frees those who are inside the booth from the outside world.

 

I.      Both Amélie and Nino try to make sense of his/her own life through observing and trying to understand the lives of others.

                                               i.     Nino obsessively collects images from underneath photo booths throughout Paris

                                              ii.     Amélie carefully observes others, like they are specimens. She, almost scientifically, brings together Joseph and Georgette, since she herself cannot fall in love.

II.     Photo booths allow the person within to create an image of oneself exactly how he/she wants it, where “truth and fiction easily communicate” (Hines). This creation of self and of one’s reality is seen in the film’s cinematography and dialogue.

                                               i.     A comical “x-ray” of Amélie’s heart when she looks at Nino

                                              ii.     Amélie playing with imaginary friends at a young age

                                             iii.     Pictures and painting come alive and speak to both Amélie and Nino

III.   The enigmatic and isolated nature of the photo booth strip—who is taking the picture, why, why did he/she keep it or rip it up, what was he/she thinking—appeals to these two “oddballs” who have never truly connected with others and thus feel as if something is missing.

                                               i.     Nino becomes obsessed with trying to uncover who the Mystery Man is—he appears 12 times in the photo album

                                              ii.     The game Amélie plays with Nino, dressing up and posting signs—detatched but invested.

“Pages full of dual ID photos carefully reassembled by some odd ball…some family album”