DRAMA | THE EDDY
ALL THAT JAZZ Netflix musical drama The Eddy, set among Paris’s vibrant jazz scene, fuses the convention-breaking camerawork of the French new wave with a modern sensibility
WORDS JUL I AN M I TCHELL / P I CTURES NETFL I X
W hen you’ve already directed critically acclaimed films like La La Land , First Man and Whiplash , where do you go from there? Well, Damien Chazelle’s next project is not a film, but rather an eight-part Netflix Original drama called The Eddy . Chazelle directed two episodes of the new series, which takes place in the vibrant, multicultural neighbourhoods of contemporary Paris, with the story revolving around the eponymous jazz club. And it’s filmed with all the freestyling improvisation of an accomplished musical ensemble. “What was most important to creating this show was an understanding of jazz,” explains Julien Poupard, AFC, who was DOP on episodes 3, 4, 7 and 8 of The Eddy , and is also known for his work on the 2019 film, Les Misérables . “I felt I had to feel like a jazz musician in order to be confident that my camera movement was in syncopation with the performances.”
DAMIEN CHAZELLE Chazelle himself is no stranger to
portraying music on screen. He studied filmmaking at Harvard and made live jazz performances a feature of his first film, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (which was shot in black & white on 16mm), before making the breakthrough hit Whiplash , inspired by his own earlier experiences as a jazz drummer at high school in New Jersey. His next film, the musical romance La La Land , is about a jazz pianist and recalls Technicolor musicals like An American in Paris . However, for the grungy nightclub scene in The Eddy , the director chose a vérité style, using the 16mm format, which, albeit not an officially recommended capture format for Netflix, was approved on the merit of the creative vision. “Damien wanted to shoot film, because he loves film and I’ve shot on film for the major part of my career,” explains cinematographer Éric Gautier, AFC, who
IMAGES The cast included Amanda Stenberg, Joanna Kulig and André Holland. DOP Marie Spencer below
18 DEF I N I T ION | JUNE 2020
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