| Product: |
A Bout de Souffle (DVD) |
| Date: |
17.07.01 (2051 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Dark and poetic, Fantastic direction and cineamtography
Disadvantages: Can be confusing
Breathless (official title A Bout de Souffle) is a fantastic film. Althoug it can be said that those film fans who hate foreign films may find it dificult to swallow, Breathless is, and will always remain, a landmark movie. There are other opinions here on this film that do it justice, films that talk of the brilliance of Godard's work, and therefore I have come to the conclusion that I will not write a similar opinion. Instead, I will write an opinion on French Poetic Realism, citing other movies from around the same time and also before it. I hop that this is useful to anyone who reads it, and I look forward to your comments.
French poetic realism was the style of film making in France in the late 1930s and I will hopefully attempt to show how it differes from the classical Hollywood narrative, and how it certainkly remains a massive influence on BREATHLESS.
INTRODUCTION
European Cinema, particularly for this assignment: French Poetic Realism; is critically praised throughout the world, mainly for its artistic look and feel, and for the issues that it deals with. This is compared to the classical Hollywood style of film making that is much more successful in terms of box office receipts, and that has a set number of unwritten rules for the way in which the film must read and flow. This opinion however, will examine these differences of classical Hollywood cinema and French poetic realism, and attempt to show how, although they are differences, there are also many similarities. The first thing that is important to establish is exactly what French poetic realism is and how it came about.
David Robinson says: “out of the poetic realism of the immediate pre-war period there developed a new vein of poetic romanticism.” This gives us an idea of where this poetic realism stems from. It states that it comes from before world war two broke out. The term refers to 1930s French cinema, and the importance of it formi
ng a French national identity. Film from this period, including others, include Pepe Le Moko and Le Crime de Monsieur Lange ; and these will be discussed later in the essay.
In order to present the arguments I wish to make, I will write this essay in a particular order. The first thing that I am going to talk about is the social and cultural contexts in which these films were made.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT
It is important to understand that as in many countries, although not as strongly hostile, France did have a north and south divide. The north was considerably richer than the poor farmers in the south. However the majority was in the south, and therefore this was the main target audience for French film makers in the 1930s. It was to be important that the films they made appealed to everyone and helped to unite the people of France through the construction of a national identity. The films were to be made to appeal to French people, and therefore have a French look and feel, i.e. they must instantly be recognisable as being French. They would also have to show the French way of life, showing happiness and unity, but also showing the problems of 1930s France, and how it was possible to get from this unity and success.
There are a number of political issues that must also be considered when thinking about this time (late 1930s). One of these is the rise of Fascism in Italy and Germany, and Communism in Spain. This resulted in fear of these movements throughout Europe, and would therefore have been addressed within French Cinema. In the mid 1930s There was a coalition of the left wing political parties and their aim was to stand up against the rise of the extreme right, i.e. fascism. Therefore these fears were being combated in society and politics as well as being represented on the screen. However, in America there was no such political problem and at this time their own concern was not on political problems in Europe, but on
their own economic problems, following a series of major and minor economic depressions. Le Crime de Monsieur Lange was made in 1935 and was released in 1936. The film is about a man, Amedee Lange, who is a writer, and who kills a corrupt man, Batala. This is an important representation of the problems of this time: showing a measly employee of a publishing house who kills a greedy, evil, dictator type man (the reflection is that of the nation of France and its left wing political representatives, fighting off the oppression and uprising of the right, fascist enemies). Dudley Andrew Says of this film: “Le Crime de Monsieur Lange is an unpretentious film about an unpretentious hero, a popular representation replete with popular images (dime novels, posters, a low-budget movie in the works). It deserves to be in the forefront of anything deserving the name, ‘The Popular front’, the movement whose official programme was published just days before the film’s premiere in January 1936.”
This statement proves that the film and the political and social situation in France at the time were almost mirrored together, and without doubt serve as reflections of each other.
GENRE
Genre is a widely explored area of film studies. Although there is much written about American film genres (that of Classical Hollywood) there are distinctions that can be made between these of America and those of the French Poetic realism era of the late 1930s. There are also similarities which I shall also discuss in more detail later. Barry Keith Grant says: “Stated simply, genre movies are those commercial feature films which, through repetition and variation , tell familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar situations. They also encourage expectations and experiences similar to those of similar films we have already seen.” Grant is obviously here referring to the conceptions of genre in American cinema - but this statement can
also be used to describe genre in French cinema of the 1930s. The film I am going to use to explore this idea of genre is going to be Pepe le Moko. By watching this film you can see that it is undeniably influenced by American gangster films of the 1920s and the 1930s. However, with this poetic realism film, it is not as simple as merely calling it a gangster film. There are many differences to be found and these are what I will concentrate on first. In Pepe we have a restricted knowledge of where he came from and how he got where he is at that moment in time, but in American gangster films we see the rise and fall of the main character. Also, in American films we have a distinct feeling of the crimes committee by the gangster are wrong, and in the end he pays for the crime in a just way, however in Pepe his death at the end is suicidal: self inflicted closure because of loss. Therefore, although he dies, as recommended by the Hollywood production code, he does not die by the hand of a figure of justice for the crimes he has committed, but instead because of his own despair and loss of love. Also there is the constant feeling that although the hero has money and respect, he does not have true happiness; as is a feature of the American gangster films. However, although he finds what can make him happy, he can not have it because of his lifestyle, and is punished at the end of the film with his dark demise. So, we can see differences and similarities between the genres of Hollywood and French poetic realism. I will now talk about the uses of stars in French cinema
STARS IN FRENCH POETIC REALIST CINEMA
In Classical Hollywood films, the star was an essential factor in the success of a film. A star would be created by a studio, and then marketed and given many similar roles - sometimes even becoming more important to the construction of the film than the narrative story itself. There are considerably less stars, however in French (or all European ) cinema.
The films that are made rely more on the stories they are telling and the mood in which they are set than on gimmicks such as stars and special effects. Although there will be film stars in these French films which the French audiences will have seen before, they are not as widely marketed as stars from the American film Industry. In actual fact, at the time the French audiences would have recognised Hollywood stars more than they would have recognised French film stars. There were a number of famous and successful actors and actresses in France at this time, but they were made popular by their performances in successful and acclaimed films, and not by mere advertising and promotion campaigns by big money studios.
After this short section on the star system I am now going to talk about the subject treatment within French Poetic realism, as opposed to that seen in Classical Hollywood Film.
SUBJECT TREATMENT
There are certain themes that Classical Hollywood Cinema could never deal with, and others that could only be addressed in a very restricted way. In this section I will explain what these are and also how European Cinema, due to having no production code as Hollywood had, could address these themes and problems in a much more open and less restricted way. An example of these restrictions on Hollywood is the gangster film, which had a certain number of rules that it had to follow. These included that the acts of violence and criminal activity could not be shown on screen; the criminal must pay for his crimes in a just way and no acts of lust or sexual activity may be shown or openly suggested. But, for example in Pepe Le Moko we see many of the acts of violence, including his own suicide at the end of the film; although in similarity to Hollywood, the shootings in this film resemble those in Classical Hollywood film making and graphic violence is not shown. But in this film he is never caught by the policeman trying to catch him by getting him to
go into the town, and therefore never actually pays for the crimes he has committed in any way. Instead he kills himself because he loses the woman he loves. Also in this film there is an open suggestion of sexual interest, in that Pepe and the main female character meet in secret (away from his girlfriend) to quite clearly, make love. Therefore it can be seen that these French films of this period allow certain subjects to be approached that could not be in Hollywood. Even political subjects were openly suggested, with much less subtlety than can be found in Hollywood, who never seemed to take any gambles with their Filmaking: it always seemed to be financial security that they were trying to secure - not a deep political or important social message.
MODES OF PRODUCTION
In French cinema of the 1930s, there was a big difference in production modes and methods than that of Classical Hollywood Cinema. There are many factors that I wish to mention, and this I shall do now. Hollywood was a monopoly industry, with the big money, big power studios controlling what films were made and how those films were made and distributed etc. However, in France in the 1930s, there were only two large corporations , Paramount and Gaumont, and these were known as the majors. The other production companies were independent and were known as the minors. Already we see how the systems of film productions were different. These studios in Hollywood allowed economic stability: everything worked by a way of financial ability and there was a system of profit that allowed further films to be made. However , in France there was financial instability and when the depression hit in 1935 Paramount withdrew their finance from French film production.
Another factor that was prominent in these production differences was that the studios in Hollywood often employed the same staff of writers, directors and actors/actresses etc., from film to film; and they had normally signed long term
contracts with these studios. However in France, as in the rest of Europe, There was a ‘creative team’ that worked merely on one film, and then if that film was successful they would move onto another project. This Hollywood job security was therefore not present in France, where there was a lot more instability. It is also important to remember that Hollywood was creating and using state of the art technology, whilst France was way behind with inferior technology and therefore inferior production methods and techniques. An example of this problem is the introduction of sound. While Hollywood was using perfected synchronised sound techniques, France was having problems with their inferior versions of the sound system. But the similarity that we can see here is that Paramount was an American studio investing in French Cinema and Gaumont itself was a big studio that could afford to invest in bigger budget movies. So although these studios were a minority in French Cinema at this time, and not a monopoly as in Hollywood, there is this slight similarity that can be seen. I will end this section with two consecutive quotes from the book ‘Film Art’: “Studios and large distribution firms have ready access to large amounts of capital and usually can ensure the distribution and exhibition of the films they decide to back. The independent filmmaker or group often has trouble gaining access to money or to audiences.”
“But many filmmakers believe the advantages of independence outweigh the drawbacks. Independent production can treat subjects that large-scale studio production ignores.” This last quote also backs up the previous section, where I discussed the use treatment and attitude towards certain subjects.
FILM STYLE
The most important subject to consider when talking about the similarities and differences between French cinema and Hollywood cinema, is that of film style. Here we can see many thin
gs that are similar, and also many things that appear to be quite different.
The first thing that we can notice as being similar is that the way that the film actually flows in term of narrative is quite similar to that of Hollywood. This, in my view, is to give the maximum of entertainment and to appeal as best it can to the mass audiences that will be going to see a lot of these Hollywood productions. It would also have been used to keep the attention of the audience and not to confuse them (as maybe a montage film from Russia, or another avant-garde style may do).
But despite this there are many differences that have to be consider. The first of these is the mood of the whole film (poetic realism) when compared to one from the classical Hollywood style. The films are much darker and are extremely pessimistic. The characters are shown to be multi-layered and instead of using cause and effect and action to motivate the character development, the characters search within themselves for psychological advancement. For example, in Pepe le Moko, the main character is searching for a happiness in a woman, and he risks his security and his glamorous life for this psychological reason. In a Hollywood film he would have been greedy and looking for more money, planning the next crime that would make him happy.
But this is not the only difference in French poetic realism. For example, in Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, there is a 360 degree pan that blows away the rules of continuity that are found in classical Hollywood film. There is a lot of camera movement in these films than in Hollywood, and the actors appear to express themselves and their character’s feeling much more openly than in Hollywood. The lighting in these films is much darker than in Hollywood also. For example, in Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, there is a moody, film noirish feel about the movie. In terms of narrative structure, the films can be seen as being very different. For examp
le, the characters have a goal, although normally psychological, and whereas in Hollywood a goal is often achieved in an uplifting and ‘happy’ ending, in French poetic realism , the characters seldom achieve their goals. There is often a fatal failure at the end of the film that allows it to be distinguished from these American films. Another thing to point is that we have restricted knowledge of the character. In Hollywood, we would be given a detailed background to the character’s life before or during the principal events of the film. However, In French cinema of this period, we are just thrust into a world that these characters inhabit, and we are normally invited to make our own minds up about what has happened to these people in the past.
To Back this argument is this quote from David Robinson : “Duvivier found his happiest metier in a series of films of powerfully romantic atmosphere and the fatalistic tone which seemed to dominate all the most popular French films on the eve of the second world war. The prototype of the group is Pepe le Moko.”
CONCLUSION
French Poetic Realism was the French cinematic style of film making in the late 1930s, and originally comes from 19th Century literature, that was very pessimistic and fatalistic, dealing with issues such as madness, alcoholism and crime within the French working classes. In this assignment I have explored the social and cultural contexts in which these films were made, how the genres in classical Hollywood cinema and French cinema of the late 1930s differ and how stars are constructed and shown/marketed etc. I have also explained how These mainly independent French film productions allowed riskier subjects to be featured, whereas they couldn’t be used in Hollywood productions, and also how the film making styles and the way in which these films are produced are the same and how they differ. Throughout this essay I have shown the similarities and differ
ences between Classical Hollywood Cinema and French Poetic realism. I will end now with a quote from Andrew Dudley.
“This helps to explain the dominant look and themes of French cinema in the 1930s and their conservative aesthetic. Performance values lorded it over every other concern; French audiences were more attuned to acting , including song and dance, than to story and certainly so-called ‘cinematic values’ like camerawork and editing. Nearly everyone concerned with Filmaking in France around 1930 was engaged, consciously or not, in reshaping known and popular entertainment forms to the exigencies of the movies”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin Film Art: An Introduction, McGraw-Hill, 1997
Dudley, Andrew Family Diversions: French Popular cinema and the Music Hall
Grant, Barry Keith Film Genre Reader II, University of Texas Press, 1997.
Robinson, David World Cinema , Eyre Methuen, London, 1973
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