On the evening of July 26, local time, the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics kicked off smoothly. The entire opening ceremony was full of all kinds of wild ideas and flashes of the spirit of the times, and also ran through the cultural achievements of the host country from ancient times to the present. It is worth mentioning that from the Lumière brothers who invented movies and projectors to the "New Wave" that set off a revolution, they were all born in this land. Therefore, it is no surprise that movie elements are everywhere in the entire opening ceremony.

Minions

At the opening ceremony, the naughty Minions not only stole the "Mona Lisa" from the Louvre, but also organized the Olympic Games themselves.

Minions steal the Mona Lisa

As we all know, Minions appear in the animated film "Despicable Me", and "Despicable Me 4" is now being screened around the world. Although this series is produced by Illumination Entertainment, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, an important part of its behind-the-scenes team is Mac Guff Ligne, a special effects production company rooted in France. In 2011, Illumination Entertainment completed the acquisition of Mac Guff Ligne and, on this basis, expanded the entire animation production team.

Minion weightlifting

Jules and Jim

During the opening ceremony, the scene of three young people chasing and playing on the stairs was jokingly called a plagiarism of "Burning Winter" by many domestic netizens.

Playful young people

In fact, this clip is a tribute to the classic work "Jules and Jim" (also translated as "Jules and Jim") directed by François Truffaut, the flag bearer of the French "New Wave". Later, including Bertolucci's "The Dreamers", Alfonso Cuarón's "Y Tu Mamá también" and Chen Zheyi's "Burning Winter" can be regarded as modeling on the mountain.

Jules and Jim poster

A Trip to the Moon

During the opening ceremony, a tongue-in-cheek animated scene of a balloon flying over a moon with a "one eye" was intended to pay tribute to "A Trip to the Moon" by film pioneer Georges Méliès.

Opposite the one-eyed moon, there is the little prince.

This 14-minute short film, inspired by Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon, was produced in 1902 and is the first science fiction film in human history.

Poster of "A Trip to the Moon"

Train Arrives at the Station

During the torch relay at the opening ceremony, a mysterious parkour runner broke into the Musee d'Orsay, and suddenly a train broke through the curtain and rushed in. This scene was from the Lumière brothers' "The Arrival of a Train in a Station."

train

On December 28, 1895, the Lumière brothers played this documentary short for the first time using a movie projector at the Grand Café in Paris – and thus the film was born.

Poster of "Train Arriving at the Station"

Playtime

The bird's-eye view of the Paris street scene at the beginning of the opening ceremony was obviously a tribute to a famous scene in Playtime by French comedy master Jacques Tati.

Tribute to the scene of "Playtime"

This dialogue-free film, produced in 1967, depicts the bizarre experiences of provincials in the modern metropolis of Paris with its colorful images and melodious sounds.

Stills from Playtime

Alice Guy

One of the most moving parts of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics was the golden statues of ten outstanding women in history. Alice Guy was one of them. Like the Lumière brothers and Méliès, she was a pioneer of film art. A few months after the Lumière brothers screened the first film in history at the Grand Café in Paris, Guy completed the film "The Cabbage Fairy". Today, it is recognized as the first fictional work in film history.

Alice Guy

However, just as it took a century for the Olympic Games to go from excluding women to achieving a completely equal number of male and female athletes, Alice Guy's name was also buried in the dust for a long time until it was vindicated in recent years.

Poster of "The Cabbage Fairy"

《New Bridge Lovers》

Thomas Joly, the director of the opening ceremony, had previously revealed that the opening ceremony would pay tribute to the classic work "The Lovers at the Pont Neuf" directed by Leo Carax. However, after watching the entire opening ceremony, it seemed that there was no relevant content. However, in the scene where a group of young people held up colorful flags and paraded around Paris, the bridge they passed by was indeed the most famous bridge in Paris, the Pont Neuf.

New Bridge

Although it is called the Pont Neuf, it is actually the oldest bridge in Paris. It is known to many people because of Leo Carax's "The Lovers of the Pont Neuf".

Stills from "New Bridge Lovers"

Joan of Arc

At the end of the opening ceremony, a female knight rode a white horse to the scene and completed the handover ceremony of the five-ring flag. The image of this female knight easily reminds people of the hero Joan of Arc. In the history of film, the story of Joan of Arc has been adapted into the screen many times. The female knight at the opening ceremony can be said to be exactly the same as the image of the protagonist in the 1999 film "Joan of Arc" directed by French director Luc Besson.

Female Knight

Stills from Joan of Arc