# Same Old Song
**Same Old Song** (*On connaît la chanson*) is a 1997 French musical comedy directed by [Alain Resnais](https://www.edgepedia.org/alain-resnais) in which six Parisians cross paths over real estate, romance, and class differences while periodically lip-synching snippets of pre-recorded French pop songs. Written by Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri, who also play leading roles, it was dedicated to the British screenwriter Dennis Potter and became the biggest hit of Resnais' career in France.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/) • [2](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/29021.html) • [3](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/04/same-old-song-2/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *On connaît la chanson* (France, 1997), 120 minutes; French release 12 November 1997[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/) • [4](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification?visa=87716) |
| Director / writers | Alain Resnais; screenplay and dialogue by Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri[2](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/29021.html) |
| Musical device | Actors lip-synch 36 snippets of pre-recorded French pop songs, about a third of them pre-1940[5](https://www.summaryplanet.com/Music/Songs-in-Contemporary-French-Cinema.html) |
| Main cast | Pierre Arditi (Claude), Sabine Azéma (Odile), Jean-Pierre Bacri (Nicolas), André Dussollier (Simon), Agnès Jaoui (Camille), Lambert Wilson (Marc), Jane Birkin (Jane)[2](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/29021.html) |
| Awards | Silver Bear and seven Césars, including best film, three acting awards, screenplay, editing, and sound[6](https://www.tcm.com/articles/220532/same-old-song-alain-resnais-same-old-song-offbeat-1997-french-musical-on-dvd) • [7](https://www.cinema-francais.fr/les_films/films_r/films_resnais_alain/on_connait_la_chanson.htm) |
| Box office | Estimated budget €7,900,000; gross in the United States $32.4K[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/) |
| Reception | 71% Tomatometer (17 reviews) and 81% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes; 7.3/10 on IMDb[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_old_song_1999) • [1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/) |
## Spoilers
### Premise and plot
The film follows half a dozen Parisians who repeatedly cross paths as they move through the city. Claude (Pierre Arditi) is married to the frustrated Odile (Sabine Azéma), who wants a new apartment. Her former lover Nicolas (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is also looking to move and turns to the real estate agent Simon (André Dussollier) for help. Simon has a crush on Camille (Agnès Jaoui), Odile's sister, who is dating Simon's boss, Marc ([Lambert Wilson](https://www.edgepedia.org/lambert-wilson)).[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_old_song_1999)
Jonathan Rosenbaum, the American film critic long associated with the *Chicago Reader*, described the film as a comedy about real estate and class differences that captures Paris in the 1990s, periodically revealing Resnais' surrealist roots.[3](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/04/same-old-song-2/) The characters include an unhappy salesman who writes radio plays on the side, a tourist guide, and a ruthless property developer.[9](https://www.timeout.com/movies/same-old-song) Camille, the tour guide, is writing a history thesis on "The yeoman of the year 1000 at Paladu Lake," a running joke in which no one appreciates how interesting yeomen are, and the film traces her bout with panic attacks and depression alongside a romance with the handsome sleaze Marc.[10](https://www.sfchronicle.com/movies/article/Resnais-Latest-Is-Just-Pleasant-Lip-Service-2782197.php)
## The lip-sync device
The film is dedicated to the memory of Dennis Potter, the British screenwriter whose television musicals *Pennies from Heaven* (1978) and *The Singing Detective* (1986) pioneered the device of characters bursting into lip-synched song to express feelings they cannot voice in ordinary conversation.[9](https://www.timeout.com/movies/same-old-song) • [1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/) Resnais applies the device to several generations of popular French song: the actors lip-synch 36 snippets of pre-recorded French pop music, of which about a third are pre-1940 recordings by performers such as Arletty, Josephine Baker, Dranem, Henri Garat, Gaston Ouvrard, and [Édith Piaf](https://www.edgepedia.org/edith-piaf).[5](https://www.summaryplanet.com/Music/Songs-in-Contemporary-French-Cinema.html)
The treatment differs from Potter's. The interludes last no more than seconds, the songs are not staged as fantasy productions, and no one on screen notices that anyone is singing; the lip-synched dialogue works like recitative in opera.[10](https://www.sfchronicle.com/movies/article/Resnais-Latest-Is-Just-Pleasant-Lip-Service-2782197.php) The songs serve as cross-references to the characters' moods and are not always bound by gender; in one example, a Nazi commander during the Occupation receives Hitler's order to destroy Paris, and then the voice of [Josephine Baker](https://www.edgepedia.org/josephine-baker) singing "Two Loves Have I" comes out of his mouth.[3](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/04/same-old-song-2/) • [11](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-15-ca-22400-story.html) In another moment, [Jane Birkin](https://www.edgepedia.org/jane-birkin), in a cameo, "sings" a snatch of one of her own songs.[9](https://www.timeout.com/movies/same-old-song) André Dussollier's character sings "Vertige de l'amour" with the voice of Alain Bashung while playing a Republican Guard horseman.[2](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/29021.html)
## Production
Resnais had previously worked with the writing-acting couple Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri, who scripted his two preceding features and costarred in *Un air de famille*; they wrote the screenplay and dialogue here and took the roles of Camille and Nicolas.[3](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/04/same-old-song-2/) • [2](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/29021.html) The crew included the cinematographer Renato Berta, editor Hervé de Luze, composer Bruno Fontaine, and production designer Jacques Saulnier, with Bruno Pésery producing and AMLF distributing.[2](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/29021.html) Shooting ran from 13 January to 9 March 1997.[12](https://areq.net.storage.googleapis.com/lang/fr/On_conna%C3%AEt_la_chanson.html) The film was a co-production among French, Swiss, British, and Italian companies, including France 2 Cinéma, Vega Film, Greenpoint Films, Arena Films, and Caméra One.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/) • [8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_old_song_1999) The French classification authority issued its visa on 22 October 1997 with a 123-minute duration, and the film opened in French theaters on 12 November 1997.[4](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification?visa=87716) • [1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/)
## Reception and awards
In France the film was Resnais' biggest commercial hit, and it "truly cleaned up" at the [César Awards](https://www.edgepedia.org/cesar-awards), winning best picture, three best-acting awards, and honors for best screenplay, editing, and sound, with additional nominations for Resnais and four others; it also received a Silver Bear.[3](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/04/same-old-song-2/) • [6](https://www.tcm.com/articles/220532/same-old-song-alain-resnais-same-old-song-offbeat-1997-french-musical-on-dvd) • [7](https://www.cinema-francais.fr/les_films/films_r/films_resnais_alain/on_connait_la_chanson.htm)
Critical opinion divided along lines of musical familiarity. Rosenbaum called it fun, different, and at times mysterious, while noting it is less popular among viewers unfamiliar with the music.[3](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/04/same-old-song-2/) The *Los Angeles Times* called it a sure-fire charmer even though the songs are by and large unfamiliar to non-French audiences.[11](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-15-ca-22400-story.html) The *San Francisco Chronicle* found it light but amusing, arguing that aside from perhaps Édith Piaf and [Maurice Chevalier](https://www.edgepedia.org/maurice-chevalier) the singers would be unrecognizable to most Americans, and that at 120 minutes it should have been 100 at most.[10](https://www.sfchronicle.com/movies/article/Resnais-Latest-Is-Just-Pleasant-Lip-Service-2782197.php) *Time Out* criticized the characters as too banal for their romantic longings to matter, weakening Resnais' point that clichéd passions simmer beneath the blandest exteriors.[9](https://www.timeout.com/movies/same-old-song) The critic David Sterritt, writing for [Turner Classic Movies](https://www.edgepedia.org/turner-classic-movies) in 2008, judged it an instant crowd-pleaser but well below the level of Resnais' greatest work.[6](https://www.tcm.com/articles/220532/same-old-song-alain-resnais-same-old-song-offbeat-1997-french-musical-on-dvd) Aggregated scores sit in the moderately positive range: 71% among 17 critics and 81% among audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, and 7.3/10 from about 4,700 IMDb users.[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_old_song_1999) • [1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/)
## Place in Resnais' career
Resnais, whose earlier landmarks include *Hiroshima Mon Amour* (1959) and *Last Year at Marienbad* (1961), had grown lighter in tone over the four decades after those works, and *Same Old Song* sits close in spirit to [Jacques Demy](https://www.edgepedia.org/jacques-demy)'s sung-through *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg*.[11](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-15-ca-22400-story.html) In scholarship on music in contemporary French cinema, the film is treated as a special case of the musical: the sounds emerging from the actors' mouths are in principle non-diegetic, since the characters are not singing within the story world, yet the songs are woven into spoken dialogue rather than staged as numbers.[5](https://www.summaryplanet.com/Music/Songs-in-Contemporary-French-Cinema.html) Resnais returned to a real-estate theme later in *Private Fears in Public Places*, and the film's use of pre-existing songs was cited as a precedent by later French film composers discussing their own work.[6](https://www.tcm.com/articles/220532/same-old-song-alain-resnais-same-old-song-offbeat-1997-french-musical-on-dvd) • [13](https://inter.pyramidefilms.com/pyramide-international-catalogue-t.html?collection=telechargements&file=fichiers&id=1650&task=download&xi=0)
## References
1. [Same Old Song (1997), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119828/)
2. [On connaît la chanson (Alain Resnais, 1997), La Cinémathèque française](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/29021.html)
3. [Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Same Old Song," Chicago Reader (2000), republished 2023](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/04/same-old-song-2/)
4. [Visas et Classification: ON CONNAIT LA CHANSON, CNC](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification?visa=87716)
5. [Songs in Contemporary French Cinema](https://www.summaryplanet.com/Music/Songs-in-Contemporary-French-Cinema.html)
6. [David Sterritt, "Same Old Song – Alain Resnais' Same Old Song," TCM (2008)](https://www.tcm.com/articles/220532/same-old-song-alain-resnais-same-old-song-offbeat-1997-french-musical-on-dvd)
7. [On connaît la chanson, cinéma-français.fr](https://www.cinema-francais.fr/les_films/films_r/films_resnais_alain/on_connait_la_chanson.htm)
8. [Same Old Song, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/same_old_song_1999)
9. [Same Old Song, Time Out](https://www.timeout.com/movies/same-old-song)
10. [Mick LaSalle, "Resnais' Latest Is Just Pleasant Lip Service," San Francisco Chronicle (2000)](https://www.sfchronicle.com/movies/article/Resnais-Latest-Is-Just-Pleasant-Lip-Service-2782197.php)
11. [Kevin Thomas, "Charming 'Song' Mixes Music, Affairs of Heart," Los Angeles Times (1999)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-15-ca-22400-story.html)
12. [On connaît la chanson, fiche de production (AREQ)](https://areq.net.storage.googleapis.com/lang/fr/On_conna%C3%AEt_la_chanson.html)
13. [Pyramide International catalogue interview on pre-existing songs in film](https://inter.pyramidefilms.com/pyramide-international-catalogue-t.html?collection=telechargements&file=fichiers&id=1650&task=download&xi=0)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Musical and music films (individual works) › Musical films of the 1990s and 2000s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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