The Art Of Crime ( L'Art du Crime) - General Discussion

[Door County Cherry]

Quote

A policeman teams up with an art expert to investigate crimes

 

[Crashcourse]

Any info on where, when to watch?

[vadare]

Bonjour!

Si vous plait, allow me give y'all a more informative synopsis of this series.

Capt. Antoine Verlay is a rough-around-the-edges police officer in Paris. Good news: he's good at his job. Bad news: he's managed to piss off almost every superior officer in the force except one, the head of the Art Crimes Division, where he winds up. More bad news: he knows next to nothing about art. So instead of pairing him up with another cop, his new partner is an art historian.

Florence Chassagne is an art historian working at The Louvre. She has followed in her father's footsteps, so art history and interpretation comes second nature and still has the power to thrill her. She's a little quirky (she rides a bike everywhere) but professional (she doesn't dress over-the-top boho). Most importantly, she's smart as a whip and, as the series progresses, she develops a knack for police work.

Suffice it to say, both Antoine and Florence are in their mid-to-late 30s, attractive, and (at least newly so in his case) single.

And they couldn't be any more different.

And they start out by annoying the merde out of each other.

He describes her as a "bookworm" & a "champion pain in the ass."

She describes him as "an uneducated cowboy who thinks Botticelli is a brand of pasta."

This ain't y'all's first rodeo...you know where this is headed.

Mix in a great supporting cast, snappy dialogue, a heaping helping of daddy issues, and incomparable artwork (they film in both the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay) and you have a show that is, in my opinion, worthy of your time.

There are currently four seasons (Seasons 1 & 2 have six approximately 1-hour episodes, Seasons 3 & 4 have four), so it's an easy weekend binge. Each storyline comprises 2 episodes and is based on the works of at least one famous artist. (They start us out easy with da Vinci.) All of them are available on MHz, which is a premium service you tack onto your Amazon Prime. It's rated TV-14. (Yes, the double standards surrounding nudes in paintings being art but no one can have sex is replete.)

If you decide to give this show a chance, please go ahead and watch all of Season 1 before you make any decisions. The first 4 episodes are a little clunky (thankfully, they decided early to kill one of Florence's big idiosyncrasies) but by the last two the show has pretty much found its stride.

If you like a good crime procedural with plenty of humor, wit, and building sexual tension (and you understand French or don't mind subtitles), then give this show a chance.

Edited August 20, 2021 by vadare
Wanted to add more information

[Mondrianyone]

On 8/18/2021 at 2:42 PM, Crashcourse said:

Any info on where, when to watch?

I Googled, since I was curious, too, and no one answered your question. There are four seasons, available on Amazon Prime but with a subscription to something called MHz Choice, which I've never heard of. There's a free trial, and then it's $7.99/mo after that. I may try to binge-watch during the free trial and then cancel. Enough with the subscriptions to a new streaming service every time you want to watch a single show.

[Crashcourse]

Thanks for the information.  I'm tired of the streaming stuff, too, so I might binge during the free trial, then bail. 

[vadare]

Not to sound snarky, but the information y'all were seeking is in the third-to-last paragraph of my entry.

And I feel both of y'all on the premium subscription thing. If I hadn't already purged 5 subs I wasn't using I'd've binged & bailed, too, but I found a bunch of stuff on MHz that intrigued me, so I hung onto it & killed Showtime & Cinemax.

And Season 5 is in post-production and will be released in France in December, so Lord knows when MHz will get it. (Season 5 will only be 2 ninety-minute episodes. I believe it was heavily truncated thanks to Covid.)

[Mondrianyone]

3 hours ago, vadare said:

Not to sound snarky, but the information y'all were seeking is in the third-to-last paragraph of my entry.

Sorry, my bad, I was skimming and I thought the whole post was a synopsis, so I skipped over the channel info. You buried the lede as they say in newspaper lingo.  😞

[vadare]

1 hour ago, Mondrianyone said:

Sorry, my bad, I was skimming and I thought the whole post was a synopsis, so I skipped over the channel info. You buried the lede as they say in newspaper lingo.  😞

Sorry...my bad. Hope you enjoy it! Looking forward to hearing y'all's thoughts & opinions!

[Irlandesa]

While this is too late, the first "season" was on Prime last month for free.  Prime does that every once in a while.  They offer the first season of shows offered on some of their other channels to induce people to signing up.

Every month, this blog writes a post about what European TV shows are coming to streaming services.  At the end, there's usually info about what shows Prime is showing for free for a month.

https://theeurotvplace.com/

I thought I would love this and watched the first episode but it didn't really click. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by Irlandesa

[vadare]

1 hour ago, Irlandesa said:

While this is too late, the first "season" was on Prime last month for free.  Prime does that every once in a while.  They offer the first season of shows offered on some of their other channels to induce people to signing up.

Every month, this blog writes a post about what European TV shows are coming to streaming services.  At the end, there's usually info about what shows Prime is showing for free for a month.

https://theeurotvplace.com/

I thought I would love this and watched the first episode but it didn't really click. 

First of all, thanks for the info re: watching European shows on streaming services.

Did you just watch the first episode or the first two/first storyline? It's kinda hard to know how to group them together since every storyline comprises two episodes.

And yes, I even described the first 4 episodes/first 2 storylines as a little clunky. Frankly, 

Spoiler

the vertigo storyline was dragging everything down & making Florence look kinda pathetic, so I was glad they got rid of it quickly.

But you can still get a 7-day free trial of MHZ if you want to try it again, binge & bail. 

[Irlandesa]

39 minutes ago, vadare said:

But you can still get a 7-day free trial of MHZ if you want to try it again, binge & bail. 

Yes.  Although it's one I'm considering because there are so many foreign shows that interest me.

[vadare]

So I found out one of my co-workers at another campus (we communicate via MS Teams) speaks French, so I suggested this show to her. She is watching it while she works & she's sending me little updates. It's hysterical!

[Milburn Stone]

We are returning to this show and now can't remember which season was the last one we saw. I know we completed Season 3, but after that it's anybody's guess. 😊 So, I've tried googling to find the American premiere dates of seasons 4-7, because that would at least point me to an answer, but finding the info is proving surprisingly difficult. Any help appreciated.

Edited to add: Wait, I think I figured it out. Went to Amazon Prime website (should have thought of that in the first place) and from episode synopses, it looks like we will pick up with season 5. (First season whose synopses don't trigger deja vu.)

 

Edited January 6 by Milburn Stone