T Magazine: Whit Stillman, Director of ‘The Cosmopolitans,’ on Paris’s Most Timeless Places

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 25 September 2014 | 17.35

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A view of the Seine in Paris, where Fashion Week is now taking place.Credit Bertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

"I found the economics of Manhattan just … impossible," said the American director Whit Stillman, seated at a café in Paris. "It was an exceptional time when Paris was a lot cheaper than living in New York." Stillman moved to France in 1998 after making a trio of movies that examined the group dynamics of hyper-articulate youth: "Metropolitan," "Barcelona" and "The Last Days of Disco." During nearly a decade there, he explained, he "started having a social life in Paris with these expat types — colorful Fritz types."

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The director on the set of "The Cosmopolitans."Credit

Fritz is one of the characters in Stillman's new Amazon-produced show, "The Cosmopolitans," about a group of expatriates muddling their way through precarious relationships and personal aspirations in Paris. Stillman, who now splits his time between Los Angeles and Pensacola, Fla., when he's not in France, is fond of listening to French radio and revisiting expatriate touchstones. "I don't think the 'cliché' tag is very fair for these places because they're quite eternal," he contends. Here, he lists his favorites of "the classic places that remain classic," as he puts it, in the City of Light.

Auteuil: a day at the races
"My favorite thing in the world is the steeplechases at Auteil. It's very accessible; there's a metro that goes right there; you walk onto the beautiful green. I only bet very sparingly when I have a strong feeling. I never bet more than two euros at a time. I usually lose about 8 euros in Auteuil, but I feel that's like a movie ticket. I can afford a movie ticket."
Route d'Auteuil aux Lacs, france-galop.com.

Jardin des Plantes: botanical wonders
"I think the Jardin des Plantes is fascinating. When I had a daughter in school, I used to criss-cross it so many times. Or just go walking around myself."
57 Rue Cuvier, jardindesplantes.net.

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From left: the steeplechase at Auteuil; under the trees at Jardin des Plantes.Credit From left: Dominique Faget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Ed Alcock for The New York Times.

La Palette: a chic café
"The really fashionable thing is the terrasse of La Palette — and that's good for me, because I actually like going inside La Palette. It used to be too crowded inside, and now most of the year you can get space because they're all outside. It's quite a visual treat seeing the people outside, they're all attractive. [Laughs] And it's very much like the world of 'The Cosmopolitans.'"
43 Rue de Seine, cafelapaletteparis.com.

Café de Flore: the trusty standby
"Most of the French reviews of 'The Cosmopolitans' were good, but one guy mocked us because the Flore appears. But if people have to quickly say a place to meet, they say the Flore because everyone knows where it is, and it's easy to get to. And now everyone says, 'Oh no, we won't go to the Flore, we'll go to Le Rouquet, it's farther down Saint Germain.' Now it's cool to say we'll go to this other place. The Flore is too expensive for me generally. Unless, sometimes you're depressed and you want to have a Bloody Mary."
172 Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Ladurée on rue Royale: go for the coffee
"One of my things when I first got here was the café crème at Ladurée on Rue Royale. It was really good. The whole atmosphere was so civilized. And so I'd go there and write. I'd just been in a screenwriting seminar group. Then Ladurée was taken over by Paul and went down the tubes. But somehow the one on rue Royale had something." Otherwise, he says, "for a while, the most reliable espresso was McDonald's. Here it's a real wasteland of coffee."
16 Rue Royale, laduree.com.

Le Grand Véfour: dining with history
Stillman doesn't like "looking at the food as if it's an art gallery — with art you don't understand." However: "The exception would be places where you can find an interest based on the location, like Le Grand Véfour in Palais Royal, which is a 200-year-old restaurant. And once there was a decadent evening we were invited along to at Lapérouse … If I get to do a series, I want to film a night there."
Le Grand Véfour, 17 Rue du Beaujolais, grand-vefour.com/en/, Lapérouse, 51 Quai des Grands Augustins, laperouse.com.

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Clockwise from left: table setting at Le Grand Véfour; freshly shucked clams at Les Philosophes; the famous macarons at Ladurée.Credit Clockwise from left: Ed Alcock for The New York Times; Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times; Owen Franken for The New York Times.

Le Relais de L'entrecote: a prix fixe menu
"It's a set menu: salad, steak au poivre, frites. I have a friend in the film business here who loves that place, so I go there a lot."
15 Rue Marbeuf, http://www.relaisentrecote.fr/.

Le cinema: top places to catch a movie
Stillman insists that he's not a cinephile, but admits, "I adore old cinema from, like, '33 to '41. I think I like it because I like both the sociology and history of seeing old periods. L'Archipel did a retrospective of my films. Le Nouveau Latina is nice because it's our neighborhood place. I went a lot to Grand Action — I know the proprietor; I used to go there a lot when I was on Ile Saint Louis."
L'Archipel, 17 Boulevard de Strasbourg, larchipel.net/index.php/accueil/cinema, Le Nouveau Latina, 20 Rue du Temple, 75004, lenouveaulatina.com, 5 Rue des Écoles, Le Grand Action, legrandaction.com.

Chez Castel: Euro disco
"The place I'm glad is surviving is Chez Castel — the Annabel's of Paris. It would definitely be a Fritz hangout. There's the restaurant on the ground level, but the interest is the clubby old-style discotheque downstairs."
15 Rue Princesse, 75006, castelparis.com.


Les Philosophes: the anytime rendezvous
"It is a great place to meet, always. It's great if you haven't had dinner at 11 p.m. and you want to have a meal. It's amazing how they find a table for you. It's really efficient. And they have free wi-fi."
28 Rue Vieille du Temple, cafeine.com/philosophes.

Tango: a dance en plein air
"I'm not really good enough to put myself on display, but I love the fact that you can walk along the quais and watch the tango dancing. In one of the proposed episodes of the series, they go salsa dancing on Sunday night."
tango-argentin.fr/paris.html

Poilâne: for a sweet treat
"People are wild about the macarons but they don't appeal to me in the least," Stillman says. A chausson aux pommes, on the other hand: "It's so good and so virtuous … the apple has some kind of nutritional value." He gets his from Poilâne. "I like the story of Poilâne, that it was continued by their daughter. I always found that very inspiring. She was running the shop from Harvard."
8 Rue du Cherche-Midi, poilane.fr.

Divan du Monde: international music
"One of the many good things about Paris is the accessibility of the international music scene. When I was here in 1998, I was interested in Jamaican music and there would be a lot of historic musicians coming through. The atmosphere is very relaxed. It's fun seeing all those French kids with dreadlocks."
75 Rue des Martyrs, divandumonde.com.


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