J Paul Johnson
New this month to The Criterion Collection on special edition Blu-ray is a real treat: Jacques Audiard’s 2005 Cesar-winning breakthrough The Beat That My Heart Skipped, a surprisingly affecting neo-noir with a most unlikely protagonist. Tom Seyr is basically a thug, a violent fixer posing as a legitimate real estate broker but who spends most of his work time solving problems with his fists—or sometimes a broken piece of lumber, a crowbar, or a baseball bat. More than a few of the “problems” that need fixing come from his relationship with his dad, a shady entrepreneur with a taste for the quick score. Others, from Tom’s own maneuverings with a pair of equally shady, equally dull partners Sami and Fabrice as they chase squatters and immigrants from their dilapidated properties.
With his violent tendencies seemingly outnumbering his intelligence quotient score, Tom would hardly seem a sufficiently interesting character to carry a narrative, except for two things: one, he harbors a mostly-secret desire, and two, he’s played to perfection by Romain Duris. Duris, channeling the rubber-lipped cocky French cool of Nouvelle Vague icon Jean-Paul Belmondo, is like A bout de souffle‘s Michel, full of game and guile but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Duris completely sells the part with his workmanlike approach to violence, his frequent befuddlement, and a just-sly-enough smile that lets him bed any girl dumb enough to let herself (three of four named female characters in the script to keep count; the fourth is dating his dad).
And that secret Tom harbors? He aspires to be nothing short of a classical pianist. It’s a ludicrous conceit. And yet The Beat That My Heart Skipped—if the plot sounds familiar, it’s a remake of a mostly-forgotten New Hollywood vehicle called Fingers starring Harvey Keitel–somehow, like its protagonist, takes this absurdity seriously enough to make it work. Audiard’s is a film that keeps its audience guessing, using its practically preposterous audacity like the kind of cudgel its protagonist just might use to beat you over the head.
A chance encounter with a former teacher lights Tom’s long-dormant spark for the keyboard, and he begins the slow and arduous work of preparing for his big audition. In another guise, this plot could practically be a variant of Rocky, but there’s no sentimentality or melodrama to be found here. While it’s more than apparent to any viewer that Tom’s less-than-gentle knocking of the ivories probably won’t take him to Carnegie Hall or the Paris Philharmonic, that patently obvious assessment of Tom’s chops is one pretty much lost on the protagonist himself, and so Duris and Audiard play it straight: Tom hires a tutor, practices diligently, and steps back a bit from his workday shenanigans (to the chagrin of his colleagues-in-crime), even hoping to forgo a big score for a decent night’s sleep on the eve of his audition.
All of this is great, great fun, played to perfection by the stellar Duris and the rest of the cast. There’s no buying into or even rooting for Tom’s dream, so the joy of watching The Beat That My Heart Skipped is trying to figure out where it will go and how. On the surface, it’s neo-noir fare with its lonely, morally dubious protagonist and set in a world of criminality, but the absurdity of Tom’s quest creates a practically magical frisson from the juxtaposition of its two seemingly-disconnected pursuits: the genteel artistry of classical music versus the thuggish violence of the Seyrs’ low-rent crime operation.
Criterion does not grant the film a 4K UHD disc, but the high-definition digital master, approved by director Jacques Audiard, could hardly look more superb than it does on the package’s single Blu-ray disc. Blacks are pitch, colors even, and the detail stunning. Even a single gray eyebrow hair on Duris’ left side is consistently visible, like an ever-so-slight reminder his character will not forever be a young man. The DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack 5.1 surround captures both the kerfuffle of Tom’s criminal capers and the musicality of his piano performances with equal and clear consistency.
Special Features
Jacques Audiard. In this newly-commissioned 16-minute interview, the fast-talking director recalls the inception and production of the film, from his first seeing Fingers to the casting and coaching of Duris to the film’s visual and costume design. In French, with English subtitles.
2005 Berlin International Film Festival. Presented in a poor-quality–skittish, jumpy video with lots of pixelation—is the forty-minute press conference from its premiere at Berlin, conducted in German with an onset English translation. Audiard, Duris, fellow cast members Gilles Cohen, Linh Dan Pham, and Aure Atika, and producer Pascal Caucheteux.
Tonino Benacquista. In this eight-minute interview, conducted in French with English subtitles, the screenwriter discusses his work with Audiard to adapt the source film, James Toback’s Fingers, to contemporary Paris and an entirely new milieu.
Alexandre Desplat. Made at the same time as the Benacquista interview, this six-minute segment with composer Desplat (also in French with English subtitles) addresses both the film’s use of music (it uses pieces from Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and Brahms in juxtaposition with songs by The Kills, Sodex, and others) alongside his own compositions, though Desplat tends to focus more on working with Audiard than on his own significant contributions.
Deleted Scenes. A pleasant surprise is this 24-minute presentation of deleted scenes from the film, ones shot and fully produced and edited but deemed unnecessary to the final cut. Audiard provides commentary, available to toggle on or off, in French, with English subtitles.
Rehearsal Footage. This ten-minute segment—like the others, in French with English subtitles—shows Audiard working with Duris, Cohen, Atika, and Jonathan Zaccaï on line readings, the director providing occasional input.
Also included on the disc (Spine #1280) is the film’s trailer, and in the 12-page full color foldout, Jonathan Romney’s excellent essay, “Out of Sync,” all handsomely packaged with dozens of stills from the film in a smart, stylish design by Century. All told, with some 100 minutes of supplements and an excellent visual presentation, The Criterion Collection’s packaging of The Beat That My Heart Skipped very clearly passes its audition.
