I haven’t seen this one here:
In Paris, every apartment, restaurant and most streets have a view of the Eiffel Tower.
I’m guessing Americans believe the Tower has ALWAYS been there, and Paris was planned in a radial pattern around this oddly industrial-looking natural feature?
It’s not about the fact that bedsheets can cover one person up over their chest while the other is only covered to their waist. It’s about whether people do this after sex IRL.
This particular pose seems to be either rare in, or totally absent from, the experience of many people, hence the reactions to it. You can put me in the ‘totally absent from’ group.
This strikes me as a convenient shorthand for “Paris is where this scene is happening.” You put a view of the Eiffel Tower somewhere in the shot, and you don’t have to belabor the point to the viewer.
Now if the movie is set in some era prior to the construction of the Eiffel Tower, that would be problematic. Is that what you’re trying to say?
However, as by far the tallest building, and located near the center of Paris, the Eiffel Tower is far more visible from most of the city than the major landmarks of most other cities. Most of the buildings in central Paris are only about five stories tall. If you are in much of central Paris, you wouldn’t have to walk more than a few blocks to get a view of the Tower. It’s much more visible than say the Empire State Building is in New York.
Every buddy cop murder investigation must involve:
- The team must be interracial, and…
- The investigation must involve a daytime visit to a strip club where some woman is auditioning.
I assume this is for:
- Audience appeal
- Boobs
People using a person’s name while talking to them. “I’m telling you, Joe, the killer was right here!” Every TV show does it without ever seeming to notice how unnatural it is.
“How long do I have, doc?”
“11”
“11 months, 11 weeks, what?”
“10”
I keep remembering the comment by a Parisian that the best view of Paris is from the Eiffel Tower. “Because then you can’t see the Eiffel Tower.”
(Which is how I feel about the London Eye…“Let’s take a beautiful, stately historic city and put a glossy ferris wheel in the middle of it!”)
[slight hijack, honest question]
Are there building and zoning restrictions in Paris that prevent skyscrapers from blocking the Tower’s view, or competing with it? Of all the major metropolitan cities I’ve seen pictures of, Paris, from recollection, seems utterly devoid of high-risers.
[/SLHQ]
Tripler
The Wikipedia pictures suggest it’s a sprawling metropolis.
I don’t know the answer to that, but Washington, DC is the same.
In DC’s case, it’s due to a peculiarity in the zoning regulations that proscribe a certain maximum height for a building based on the width of the street - to prevent the “urban canyon” effect. It has the practical effect of limiting heights to around 5 stories.
ETA: the fact that DC was designed by some guy from Paris might not be a coincidence.
You see this on TV/Movies all the time: Guy walks into a bar, orders and pays for a drink, has a few terse words with somebody and walks out without touching the drink.
Bullshit! If I buy a beer, I’m drinkin’ that sucker!
Happens with cigarettes, too. Light one up, take maybe one drag, then abandon it. I don’t smoke, but I doubt that is how that really works.
Also, that Evelyn McHale link absolutely froze my shit up! Beware!
I suspect every apartment in Seattle has a view of the Space Needle, too. 
As I understand it, the ground underneath Paris is limestone. It is great for carving sculptures, but too soft to make a good foundation for tall buildings.
I believe there is a prohibition on tall buildings in Paris dating back to the '70s. They wanted to keep the skyline low and romantic, not all cluttered up like in the US.
Yes, there are height restrictions. In the historic center most buildings are five stories. In 1973 a height restriction of 37 meters was put into place after a 210 meter tower was constructed, but has since been relaxed. There are tall buildings, but mostly in outlying districts.
Especially the ones facing East on the lake.
Which leads me to my pet peeve in this area - establishing shots of landmarks that are nowhere near the place being established.
Two examples: there was a House Hunters set in our town which used the Golden Gate Bridge as an establishing shot - though it is 40 miles from us, more or less, and sure as hell can’t be seen.
We just watched an old Storage Wars set in Hayward California, a town just north of us, which had them driving their trucks all over San Francisco. They must have been hella lost.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere the movie I saw (don’t remember the title) that opened with a woman taking photos as she walked past the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Each time she snapped a shot, the screen showed what she was supposedly looking at.
I’ve been to Venice, and I can assure you that none of those inserts matched what she would have seen from her location.
Likewise, the opening sequence in Val Kilmer’s The Saint came as a shock to anyone familiar with the geography of Moscow. Believe me, you can’t run from the Ukraine Hotel to Red Square in less than ten seconds.
That might be a factor.
Another factor is that a crapload of the city was built before the advent of steel-frame buildings, elevators, and so forth so building 4 or 5 stories high was pretty much the limit for most of the history of the city.
Right. It is often said that there is a law that no building could be taller than the Capitol, or sometimes the Washington Monument, but it’s actually based on street width.
As with Paris and the Eiffel Tower, it means that the Capitol and the Washington Monument can be seen from most parts of the city.