YEAR: 1958
DIRECTOR: Louis Malle
PINBALL MODEL(S): Flag-Ship (1958, Gottlieb), Shindig (1953, Gottlieb), Cover Girl (1947, J.H. Keeney & Co.)
GAME LOCATION(S): Cafe-bar
NOTES: Though Malle himself decried the critical chatter that sought to place him among the ranks of the nouvelle vague corps of filmmakers, his choice to jettison the camera from the confines of the studio did open the way for certain congruities to arise between his early work and the then-forthcoming films of his peers.
If a kind of "realism" is the result of this anti-studio strategy, then these shots of bustling cafe-bars—all aglow in fluorescent and neon, and each marked by the presence of a pin-table—speak to the cultural landscape of Paris at the time. In this way, pinball is modernity itself, and its filmic presence can be interpreted as being emblematic of the anti-classical ethos of France's young post-war filmmakers.
