I Want to Go Home (1989)

Director:

Alain Resnais

Writer:

Jules Feiffer (writer)

Release Date:

7 September 1989 (West Germany)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Joey Wellman, a cantankerous American cartoonist, accepts an invitation to come to an exhibition in Paris...

Plot Keywords:

Party | Cartoonist | Meeting | Lecturer | Song

Awards:

2 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Adolph Green	...	Joey Wellman
Laura Benson	...	Elsie Wellman
Linda Lavin	...	Lena Apthrop
Gérard Depardieu	...	Christian Gauthier
Micheline Presle	...	Isabelle Gauthier
John Ashton	...	Harry Dempsey
Geraldine Chaplin	...	Terry Amstrong
Caroline Sihol	...	Dora Dempsey
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Catherine Arditi	...	La boulangère
Albert Benchamoul	...	Un vieux villageois
Françoise Bertin	...	La cliente de la marchande de légumes
Patrick Bonnel	...	Le boucher
Charlotte Bonnet	...	La femme chauffeur de taxi
Jean Champion	...	Le chauffeur de taxi / Taxi driver
Emmanuelle Chaulet	...	La secrétaire de Gauthier / Secretary of Gauthier
Jean-Marc Cozic	...	Tintin
Pierre Decazes	...	Le garagiste
Tony Dias	...	Valentina
Guillaume Farny	...	Bateman
Georges Fricker	...	Roxy Darcel, le compagnon de Terry
Alain Fromager	...	L'étudiant dans le bureau de Gauthier
François-Eric Gendron	...	Lionel Cohn-Martin
Raphaëline Goupilleau	...	L'étudiante dans le bureau de Gauthier
Isabelle Habiague	...	La jeune femme qui chante
Lucienne Hamon	...	Mme Roget / Mrs. Roget
Peter Hudson	...	Le Spectre
Jacques Le Servot	...	Spirit
Jean Prévôt	...	Un vieux villageois
Anne Roussel	...	La jeune femme fatiguée / The tired woman
Ludivine Sagnier	...	La petite fille de la place du village
Agnès Seelinger	...	La domestique du manoir
Gisèle Soban	...	Elektra
Anne Teyssèdre	...	La jeune femme dans le bureau de Gauthier
Nicolas Trong	...	Le jeune homme dans l'avion
Isabelle Turpault	...	Catwoman
Vitaliy Versace	...	Son
Michel Weinstadt	...	Corto Maltese
Isabelle Wolfe	...	Laureline (as Isabelle Canet-Wolfe)
Abbes Zahmani	...	Le Concombre Masqué

Also Known As:

Je veux rentrer à la maison (France)
Chce do domu (Poland) [pl]
Tahdon kotiin (Finland) [fi]
Thelo na gyriso spiti (Greece) (DVD title) [el]
Voglio tornare a casa! (Italy) [it]

Runtime:

Germany:100 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Italy:T | West Germany:12

Company:

Films A2

Franco-American relations will surely get a boost if this film is shown to the concerned people.

Before shooting "I want to go home", if Resnais had thought of keeping somebody in mind, it is quite possible that he must have had ruminated about both American and French public. "I want to go home" shows why French fascinate Americans so much. It is a fairly honest portrayal of why French have all the respect for Americans. It is so hard to believe that this comic film was made by Resnais. For the last five decades, he has remained a highly intelligent intellectual cinéaste who has excelled in making difficult films about memories. Watching his films can be likened to a concentrated reading of a "stream of consciousness" oeuvre. Not only will this film charm die-hard francophiles like Paul Auster, Johnny Depp, William Fiedkin, Jim Jarmusch, Hal Hartley and John Malkovich but also fans of comic strips as it is not so often that one comes across a feature film in which there is a happy marriage of cartoons and film. Through this quirky work, Resnais has advocated popular culture as in today's world Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Garfield are as relevant/necessary and useful for everybody as Flaubert, Stendhal and Sartre. "I want to go home" is a light film which provides a multiplicity of meanings for its viewers. On an elementary level it explores cultural differences between French and American people. On another level it is also a tale of an amicable reconciliation process which happens between a father meeting his daughter after many years. This emotional turmoil has been shown in a very dignified indeed subtle manner. Although it might seem odd, this film makes it absolutely clear that French have a penchant for admiring those American artists who have been ignominiously rejected/ignored back home in USA. One classical example is Samuel Fuller. He enjoys a bigger, dedicated fan following in France than in United States of America. "I want to go home" is a film which can be understood by all kinds of artists. It speaks of different arts like cinema, comics etc. This is why Resnais has collaborated with great artists like Enki Bilal, Jules Feiffer and John Kander. The highlight of this film is the fact that it shows how all arts are interrelated as well as mutually beneficial. In "I want to go home" the characters alternate between serious mood and comic mood. This is because people can't always remain funny or serious. Resnais makes us all imbibe a logical lesson that in our daily lives we have to react according to the situation in which we find ourselves. Lastly it is high time that it is said that although Americans might abhor French or vice versa, the truth is that both of them cannot live without each other.