by Allan Fish
(France 1959 99m) DVD1/2
Aka. The Four Hundred Blows
I want to live my own life
p Georges Charlot d/w François Truffaut ph Henri Decaë ed Marie-Joseph Yoyotte m Jean Constantin art Bernard Evein
Jean-Pierre Léaud (Antoine Doinel), Claire Maurier (Mme.Doinel), Albert Rémy (Mons.Doinel), Guy Decombie (teacher), Patrick Auffay (René Bigey), Georges Flament (Mons.Bigey), Yvonne Claudie (Mme.Bigey), Robert Beauvais (director), Claude Mansard (magistrate), Jacques Monod (commissioner), Jeanne Moreau (woman chasing dog),
Though one gives nods to Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo, if one had to name one iconic face of the nouvelle vague it would be Jean-Pierre Léaud. His career spanned the movement’s beginning, with this Truffaut masterpiece, and was still around for its death pangs with Eustache’s La Maman et la Putain. In the interim, his character from Coups, Antoine Doinel, made four other appearances for Truffaut, taking him through to his mid thirties, but though all full of interest, they pale beside Truffaut’s astonishing debut.
Antoine Doinel is a twelve year old boy who is continually punished for misdeeds at school, often when not his fault. He has only one real friend, the fellow rebel René, and his parents regard him very much as an irritant. Briefly his mother takes an interest in him on the proviso that his grades improve, but when his inspiration by Balzac for an essay is taken as plagiarism and he is sent to the director, he runs away. Finally, he is caught with a stolen typewriter from his father’s place of work and is sent to a correctional institution from which he can only dream of one day escaping.
The film is dedicated to the late André Bazin, who literally died within 24 hours of the film’s commencing shooting. Certainly the co-founder and revered editor of Cahiers du Cinema would have welcomed Truffaut’s film, for it represented the movement’s ethics in a way that even Godard rarely matched. At first the Dyaliscope wide ratio seems a strange choice, but the widescreen was shown to be a liberating optical process. And liberation was what both Truffaut’s camera and Léaud’s protagonist are chasing, and which the latter finally finds as he reaches the sea with its infinite horizon. In many ways one has to credit his D.P. nearly as much as Truffaut and his young star, for Henri Decaë’s visual stamp is equally evident. The ratio may be different, but there’s the same sharpness as his work on Melville’s Bob le Flambeur. It’s more realistic and less stylised than Melville, but it’s still the same Paris. Yet the visuals are merely the window dressing, the real beauty lying in the realism; the cruelty of his mother, a hard-faced, selfish woman who would as soon send Antoine to an orphanage and had wanted him aborted, and his father who cares for nothing but his motor club, the teachers who would not listen to reason, the whistles to enter school, the bunking off to the cinema and the fairground. And yet, amongst the realism, nods to other cinematic icons, such as Léaud’s eternal chequered jacket, like a mini Brando in On the Waterfront, and the stealing of a picture of Harriet Andersson in Summer With Monika from a cinema.
It’s often overlooked that it was released at the beginning of a revolutionary period on European cinema; the angry young men plays and kitchen sink films were revolutionising British film and theatre, Antonioni and Fellini were taking radical departures from their previous styles, and fellow French masters such as Rohmer, Rivette, Godard and Resnais waited in the wings. It’s a time capsule like no other; Léaud’s face caught in time in that final freeze-frame that surely influenced Marker’s La Jétée. It’s the face of greatness, and Léaud is astounding as Antoine (especially in a Talking Heads style monologue to the psychologist), not forgetting Auffay as his friend René (who returned in Love at Twenty). The title may refer to the French equivalent of the last straw to the dromedary, but one could view this with pleasure as often as you like and it would still remain fresh. It would also make a fascinating double bill with Pialat’s later female equivalent, A Nos Amours, but even that modern classic must bow to Truffaut.
Perhaps the seminal work of the New Wave, and Truffaut’s greatest film.
This is a great film. It was the first feature-length French film I saw, and it has stayed with me over many years. That final freeze frame on the beach remains unforgettable.
This is my hands down favorite film of the New Wave; one of the most affecting, beautifully-shot film ever. What was it about anamorphic black & white.
A very nice piece, Allan.
Thanks, Rick, I can’t blame you for feeling like that. It may not quite be my favourite new wave film, but there’s no arguing against anyone naming it so.
This is a lyrical examination of adolescence and juvenile delinquency, and so many of its scenes are seared into your memory. It’s between this and Jules and Jim for top Truffaut film.
Nice review.
Personally, I found the film to have minor but worthwhile virtues, which, coming at the tail-end of what was considered an overly elborate and emblamed ’50s French Cinema tradition -was a breath of fresh air, taking the camera onto the streets and out of the studios to show the city – the way the Americans had a decade earlier and which had already been done to beguiling effect in ‘The Red Balloon’.
An interesting addition to the autobiographical ‘coming of age’ genre of film-making. It’s finer virtues are of an expression of supressed anger and misunderstanding by the authorities and of being good-looking whilest shooting and running loose on the streets.
The famous freeze frame ending would have meant more if I’d felt a bit more for the character, whereas it was almost over-welmingly, poignantly touching and poetic in the recent ‘The Lives of Others’.
Unfortunately, the later Antoine Doinel cycle of films are mild, trifling bores. Personal film-making, yes – boredom too. Something I’ve associated with him.
As for his film criticism, the snatches of his views I’ve caught make him out as a pompos, elitist snob in the worst possible way.
Despite this, there are two movies that he made that are mightily impressive, both revolving upon on his two cultural passions; books and movies. They are ‘Fahrenheit 451′ and ‘Day for Night’
…and I hope there’s another of his as good as those that I’ve not seen from my limited exposure to him.
You make some excellent points there Bobby!
I hear what you are saying in regards to the freeze-frame, but this character did move me deeply. Still I applaud you mentioned of that German masterpiece!
I agree the other Doniel films are minor, but JULES AND JIM rivals this film as the director’s greatest, and you do need to see TWO ENGLISH GIRLS, SHOOT THE PIANO PLYER, THE WILD CHILD, and SMALL CHANGE. Th efirst two are near-masterpieces, and will certainly in all likelihood alter your summary assessment of this important New Wave helmer.
I do like FAHRENHEIT, but DAY FOR NIGHT, oddly was always distancing to me.
Thanks once again Bobby, for your stellar input.
hey Sam, thanks for the recomendations. Will watch.
I’ve seen ‘SHOOT THE PIANO PLYER’, found it was ok – but I generally get bored with films that are homages to films genres. It seemed like yet another nod to US movies. Though I do look forward towards seeing ‘Breathless’.
As for ‘JULES AND JIM’ – saw it and enjoyed the diverting compendium of cogested camera tricks, in clear feverish emulation of Welles’ ‘Kane’ but found the characters and narrative not half as interesting. It seemed to suffer Scorsese syndrome – the habit of being so flashy with the visuals that they create a distanced emptyness from any channels for empathy, connection and real viscreal feelings. Except for film lecturers, their students and critics. Though both ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Goodfellas’ would rank – for me – among the great masterpieces of the 20th century.
Bobby J, some rather sweeping dismissals here.
Besides a respectable body of work, Truffaut was a major influence on the other major figures of the French new wave, and must be respected for having started as a film critic and then moving onto actually making films. [An aside: I often wonder what major film-makers would make of a lot of the film 'criticism' in the blogsphere.] Godard’s Breathless was based on a scenario by Truffaut. Shoot the Piano Player is one of the great noirs – it is not homage just as Kurosawa’s Stray Dog is not homage – and Truffaut’s juxtaposed use of white (the snow) in that film as a malevolent darkness is unique in film noir, and perhaps can be traced back to Poe’s atmospheric novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. A true appreciation of Jules et Jim requires a different sensibility to that which informs Citizen Kane and Scorsese’s early work. As for being ‘pompous’ or an ‘elitist snob’, I never knew the guy, but in any event is really beside the point. His demonstrated interest in Hollywood b-movies and his championing of the auteur is sufficient evidence that his taste in film was neither snobbish or elitist. Also, like most of the new wave films, Truffaut’s films are deeply of their time, and need to be appreciated without the benefit of hindsight, and saying Jules et Jim suffers from ‘Scorsese syndrome’ is questionable.
Hi Tony, you make some good points….
1/ Yes, I agree “he has a respectable body of work” – but respectable is faint praise for his reputation. And the word respectable was a word that he hated.
2/ “Truffaut was a major influence on the other major figures of the French new wave” – not just the French New Wave, but the New Hollywood of the ‘70s too. But so was D.W. Griffith and George Melies, Edwin S Porter in the silent period an influence for subsquent. They were a clique and were influencing each other.
3/ “and must be respected for having started as a film critic and then moving onto actually making films.” – No more than some of the British directors who were tea boys and had to work their way up, or for that matter – those who were photographers (Kubrick), directors of photography (Jack Cardiff), writers (Sturges, Wilder, Houston), theatrical directors (Welles, Mendes)
4/ “Shoot the Piano Player is one of the great noirs” – I would have to respectfully disagree. Film noir was a style of film-making, not a genre – that’s why there’s a western noir (‘Persued’ (1947)), a woman picture (‘Mildred Pierce’) and a marvellous fantasy (‘Alias Nick Beal’). It took three ingrediants to make a film noir;
a) The Substance – the criminal underbelly and the other ugly side of life hidden from most, full of crime, dirty deeds, lust and betrayl, often adapted from pulp literature which had been exploring in magazines like The Black Mask a long time before. No of which had been really touched upon in the “Dream Factories” of the ‘30s.
b) The Style – the low-key moody black and white lighting, production and art design set in the real world of offices, apartments, and dens of vice. Much of the lighting was usually due the fact that it was economical and effective. ‘Farewell, My Lovely’ (1944) was shot in 20 days.
c) The Mood – anxiety and foreboding, due to the war and post-war disillusionment, trying to cut up a bit of ‘the American dream’, and even perhaps to female emancipation during the war as more and more women went to work in the factories, or perhaps that anxiety was always there. The femme fatale – ‘deadlier than the male’.
A touch of cold-war paronia kept it bubbling intermittently until the mid ‘50s.
All three stems for film noir died.
The Substance – died due to the HUAC Senate hearings – where it became impossible to criticse any fabric of American society, unless you wanted to be deemed as giving ammunition to the enemy. Tv plays soon were taking a look at the seamier side of life.
The Style – The low-key lighting was replaced by widescreens, colour, brightly lit sets, plusher productions.
The Mood – was altered by the mid ‘50s consumer society and a boyant econmny.
Film noir was dead. Since then, films that are classed as film noirs are usually ‘retro noirs’ or ‘neo noirs’. Film noir was an unconscious reflection of the times by film-makers, whereas these later noirs are fully self-conscious and that’s why I term them homages. If the French did do film noir, it was the ‘poetic realism’ of say something like ‘Pépé le Moko’ (1937).
5/ “A true appreciation of Jules et Jim requires a different sensibility to that which informs Citizen Kane and Scorsese’s early work.” – Good point, Tony. My sensibility wasn’t set on auto-mode to compare the two. I just read stacks on the making of movies by the makers themselves, who influenced them and why and how and how the production came about. It knocks off many delusions of ‘autuership’ when all the interweaving threads are compiled. I was talking about the accumaltion of trick effects; newsreel footage, photographic stills, freeze frames, wipes, masking, and voiceover narration and a whole host others and all very nice but distancing too. Whereas Welles made it organic and because he loved magic in real life, was able to involve and entrance.
Anyway, the lineage of influences runs:
‘Citizen Kane’ > ‘50s reissue – John Frankenheimer, William Friedkin, ect.
> The French New wave > ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ > The New Hollywood (Coppola, Scorcese, Spielberg)
> Film Courses,
6/ As for being ‘pompous’ or an ‘elitist snob’, I never knew the guy, but in any event is really beside the point. His demonstrated interest in Hollywood b-movies and his championing of the auteur is sufficient evidence that his taste in film was neither snobbish or elitist.” – He may of loved some ‘b’ movies but so did other critics, including Dilys Powell.
As a critic, he closed off as much pleasure for his readers as he opened up by loving ‘b’ movies.
These are just some of the directors he had no time for as a critic; Rene Clair, John Ford, William Wyler (unlike his mentor André Bazin), Billy Wilder (again unlike his Bazin), John Houston, David Lean, ect, ect. He and ilk had little to say about Soviet silent cinema and had no time whatsoever for any British movies. No Powell and Pressburger, no Carol Reed, no Roeg.
In May 1957, editor of Cahiers, Truffaut once remarked:
“The British cinema is made of dullness and reflects a submissive lifestyle, where enthusiasm, warmth, and zest are nipped in the bud. A film is a born loser just because it is English.“
His influence was pervasive, acidicily corrosive and toxic. Like a mind virus, they spread far and wide….
Not surprisingly, when Cahiers chose their 100 films of the 20th century, not ONE British movie was on the list.
“It’s a little surprising for sure,” said John Baxter, a Paris-based, Australian writer, film critic and cinema biographer. “But the French film industry, and especially Cahiers du Cinema, has long had a rather suspicious view of British movie-making. A couple of years ago someone wrote in Cahiers that there was no such thing as a “British” film. They were all metis, in other words mixed-blood, hybrid or mongrel films, influenced by other cultures and especially by Hollywood……You can imagine the jury competing with each other to make statements to one another with the most obscure selections. ”
Oh, and they had no time for the honest craftsman who lovingly made his film and often crafted a masterpiece. So no Michael Curtiz (so no ‘Casablanca’), no Fred Zinnemann, no Robert Wise and all of their works.
Here is some of the wisdom from the magazine by others:
“Fuller is to Welles as Marlowe is to Shakespeare” (Luc Moullet).
“You can describe Hiroshima Mon Amour as Faulkner plus Stravinsky” (Godard).
“Truffaut did not succeed in stamping out the scourge of “quality,” he did cast the notion into deep disrepute,” says Dave Kehr, “some say, cynically, in order to undermine the reputations of the elder French filmmakers and prepare the way for himself and his fellow Cahiers critics to emerge, just a few years later, as the Nouvelle Vague……Rereading Truffaut’s article today, one is struck by how moralistic and conservative it is. One of his main complaints against Aurenche and Bost is that they are not respectful enough of the clergy. He also objects to the use of vulgar language, nudity, and excessive sensuality; at one astonishing moment, he denounces The Wages of Fear for “the pederastic relationships” among the main characters. This reactionary tendency represents the dark side of Cahiers in the Fifties, along with a refusal (though it does not appear in Truffaut’s initial piece) of all political comment as the young turks of Cahiers struck out against the established critics and the respected filmmakers of the day, often in highly intemperate language (when, many years later, Truffaut put together a collection of his criticism under the title The Films of My Life, he carefully omitted any trace of the personal attacks that had made his early reputation; he was no longer willing to risk his international standing as the embodiment of Gallic wisdom and tolerance).”
(Dave Kehr, Cahiers Back in the Day, FILM COMMENT, September/October 2001)
Their influence and bias based upon a twisted idealogy where they choose their Film Gods capriciously and those bias spread to other European countries, and critics;
Andrew Sarris in the US continued the revolution:
Here he is talking about ‘Casablanca’, “the most decisive exception to the auteur theory”, to which the film historian Aljean Harmetz responded, “nearly every Warner Bros. picture was an exception to the auteur theory”
Film Studies courses were founded throughout the US and UK and taught on their bias. When Sarris wanted to put Billy Wilder in the top pantheon in his seminal book, ‘The American Cinema’ – the bible for autuerists, he was persuaded not to by his friends. 30 Years later he made a profuse apology and corrected himself.
Never had criticism done so much harm to good viewing.
5/ “Also, like most of the new wave films, Truffaut’s films are deeply of their time, and need to be appreciated without the benefit of hindsight” – I judge them on their effect upon me, not their historical place. Besides, as you yourself say; “most of the new wave films, Truffaut’s films are deeply of their time”, which means that they are dated and time bound and only accessible via historical hindsight, not great works for the ages that are timeless. I simply judge a film it’s impact, even if it has a reputation.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree
I still think that ‘Farenheit 451’ and ‘Day for Night’ (1973) are superb, so maybe I’ll be proven wrong.
Superb stuff, bobbyj, though I have mixed feelings about it.
Re the statements about film noir, I have already gone still further on that subject in an essay on noir on this site, suffice to say those who think noir began in the 1940s, or even in the 1930s French poetic realist school are myopic.
I have always had a deep resentment of Truffaut as a critic – I honestly feel he wrote a lot of pompous bollocks, while he was at the forefront of a generation that have raised Douglas Sirk, Nick Ray, Jerry Lewis (please, no), and others to reputations in the stratosphere they are not remotely deserving of. I may have several Ray films and a couple of Sirk films in my list for the book, but I wouldn’t give absolute top marks to any film either made.
Truffaut was a master, and yet he was a master I wouldn’t pick amongst the absolute pinnacle of French film-makers – I’d place Renoir, Bresson, Carné, Ophuls, Gance, Godard, Resnais, Melville, Cocteau and Vigo all ahead of him, to name but 10.
I love Truffaut, and rate several of his films very highly. Infact, I rate Deux Anglaises et le Continent his greatest work, but though you’re right to say he was of his time, that could be seen to be true of so many directors of that era, from Antonioni to Resnais to even the Japanese new wave culminating with Oshima and Yoshige. the same also applies to virtually any British film made in the kitchen sink/swining sixties strain, from Room at the Top (terribly archaic) and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning through A Hard Day’s Night to the early works of Ken Loach. This doesn’t mean they’re not still great films, they are. Likewise the works of Bogdanovich, Rafelson and Pakula in seventies America, all very much products of their time, but still milestones in modern American film.
As for the film in question, LQCC, it’s the one film of Truffaut’s that arguably above any other could be seen as timeless, for though of its period, it also speaks very much to the here and now. One can look at things solely for their effect on oneself, but I consider myself a film historian more than anything else, and do not allow mere emotion to cloud judgement whatsoever.
BTW, Fahrehnheit 451 was a mess. La Nuit Americaine, though nearly great, falls some way short of Fellini’s 8½ or Godard’s Le Mepris.
Thanks Bobby for your you comprehensive response. Yes, we can agree to disagree, but let me respond to some of your points.
Perhaps I should have used the word ‘respected’ when I spoke of his body of work , and I was speaking generally of course. Personally, I think many of Truffaut’s films are excellent. Truffaut moved from film criticism to film-making, and this is materially different from the examples you cite.
As to film noir, I did not refer to it as genre, and agree it is not. Equally, there is no such thing as a noir template. Classic film noir did not end with HUAC. Kiss Me Deadly, The Big Combo, Touch of Evil to name a few came well after.
That the New Wave directors were iconoclasts and their films must be understood and appreciated with that in the forefront.
Allan, is there not just a whiff of pomposity and of the film snob in your post? Sorry, but your post is all about name-dropping, film-dropping, and unbounded pontificating. Can’t we simply discuss a film on its merits? Even Nicholas Ray gets the blow-torch – how do you justify such a sweeping condemnation? In friendship-veritas…
Bobby J:
As always thanks very much for the exhaustive response.
Your position alas on the masterpiece JULES AND JIM has little support among legions of our finest film critics on both sides of the Atlantic. (a point you noted with a bizarre further dismissal)
Leslie Halliwell gave the film four stars (his highest rating) in his famed film guide, praising every component in the film.
Pauline Kael, Dwight Macdonald, Andrew Sarris, and even David Thomson,(who has issues with other Truffaut films) have lauded the film as a singular masterwork, a position seconded by Georges Sadoul and the entire French contingent, who are critical of their own material.
For years this “Janus” film has screened in French film festivals as a crowned jewel, and is widely adored and respected by art house crowds. I completely reject the “Scorsese syndrome” attached to film, finding not an ounce of merit in it. JULES AND JIM is lyrical cinema, and its images are haunting and linger in the memory long after the film is viewed.
Here’s what Kael said, and it powerfully shoots holes in any argument with the director’s style or intent in this film:
“Eliptical, full of wit and radiance, this is the best movie ever made about what most of us think of as the Scott Fitzgerald period (though the film begins much earlier); Truffaut doesn’t linger–nothing is held too long, nothing is overstated, or even STATED. He explores the medium and plays with it. He overlaps scenes; uses fast cutting, in th emanner of BREATHLESS, and leaping continuity, in the manner of ZERO FOR CONDUCT; changes the size and shape of the images, as Griffith did; pauses for Jeanne Moreau to sing a song (Boris Bassiak’s ‘Le Tourbillon’). Throughout, Georges Delerue’s music is part of the atmosphere; it’s so evocative that is you listen to it on the phonograph, it brings back the emotions and images–such as Jim and Catherine’s daughter rolling on a hill.”
And it’s funny you mention Sarris, since he just recently said this about SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, a film you seem to dismiss: (Sarris says in fact that it’s his favorite Truffaut film!!!!)
“SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, with a screenplay by Marcel Moissy and Truffaut, based on the novel Down There, by David Goodis, crowns Film Forum’s remarkable Festival of French Film Noir and Thriller classics with a one-week run from Sept. 5 through Sept. 11. This, my favorite Truffaut effort, which I book every year in my International Film History Class, was nonetheless in its own time his Parisian flop between such runaway hits as The Four Hundred Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) (1959) and Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim) (1961).
Still, with cinematography by Raoul Coutard, music by Georges Delerue, and a cast consisting of Charles Aznavour, Marie Dubois, Nicole Berger, Albert Rémy, Claude Ransard, Daniel Boulanger, Michèle Mercier and Richard Kanayan, Shoot the Piano Player has risen steadily in critical esteem over the years until now it is universally considered a masterpiece of the film noir genre. It is not to be missed.”
Notice he said SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER is now universally considered a MASTERPIECE of the film noir genre. The film has come a long way!
Ironically, with all this talk about the “Scorsese syndrome” it’s more than interesting to note that Scorsese himself thinks JULES AND JIM is one of the greatest of all films.
For those in the vicinity, Firsco’s Castro Theatre is screening a Truffaut double-feature on March 11: The 400 Blows and Jules et Jim. Details
Thanks for that Tony. I bet Alexander has this down as a possibility, even though I’m sure he’s seen both multiple times. This, however, is a special treat.
Hey Tony and the other guys, nice to hear from you
Here’s my little answers to some of the points brought up…
1/ Tony, agreed…. “Classic film noir did not end with HUAC. Kiss Me Deadly, The Big Combo, Touch of Evil to name a few came well after.” – As I said, ‘Kiss Me Deadly’, and ‘The Big Combo’ were mid ‘50s, the tapering end of the styles evaporation. Whilest ‘Touch of Evil’ owes as much to noir as it does to being ‘Wellesian’ and is often considered by film historians as the final noir.
I agree that you didn’t call it a genre. My point was that as a style, it was finished and genuine noir is gone. Everything else is ‘retro-noir’ – such as the Ceon’s work, ‘Body Heat’, ect, ect.
2/ Hey, good to hear from you too.
Just to clear clarify my position…
a) “Your position alas on the masterpiece JULES AND JIM has little support among legions of our finest film critics on both sides of the Atlantic. (a point you noted with a bizarre further dismissal)” – As I noted in my main reply, especially in reference to French bias and how they got transmitted thru film academia, and the US critics – I sometimes think that mainstream critics have a herd–like mentality and paid way too much respect to those French critics. In social socialogy, I think it’s called ‘Mind Viruses’ – ideas passed from person to person.
Trauffaut was one of Scorsese’s heros and was chosen by him as one of Time’s magazines cultural heroes of the 20th century. Which doesn’t faze my impression at all. And confirm how the syndrome.
I watched the movie and then read the capsule reviews.
Halliwell’s actually gave it two stars in all of Leslie Halliwell’s editions of the celebrated guide, but after his death John Walker gave a huge amount of stars to all of the New Wave and anything thing else of transitory passing value. But then he also gave 4 stars to ‘The Return of the Jedi’. Hmmmm,
And all of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, even when the last one was a bore.
Oh, and he also took away 26 stars from 26 different ‘30s and ‘40s film masterpieces, including ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, ‘The Letter’, ‘Wuthering Heights’ (notice his prejudices against Wyler mirror those of the French).
As for the original critique; “The plot bores before the end, but the treatment is consistently and the acting almost equally so.” – LH, 7th Edition.
From ‘Time Out’, 5th Edition: “has dated a little and the influence of Renoir is more obvious now that we have some distance from the New Wave’ The lightning changes of mood from pathos to whimsy and back again still make it watchable, though.”
I whole-heartedly agree with the above, neither condemning the film nor praising them to the skies.
I have no respect whatsoever for David Thomson, he’s all over the place; his piece on Wilder, Ford and Wyler in the Biographical of Cinema are savage pieces, full of holes, half-baked thinking, ill-thought criticisms. Sarris is in the same boat as can be discerned by my quotation of regarding ‘Casablanca’. As for Pauline Keal, when she was on form, she could be a superb critic (her review of ‘The Godfather II’ is one the greatest pieces she ever wrote)….so long as I become aware of the bias, favouritism, ego and politics (she disliked anything to the left of right). For an insight into how Warren Beatty used her and how others in the industry got a good vibe from her, I highly recommend Peter Briskind’s ‘Easy Riders, Raging Bulls’.
Sam, I whole-heartedly agree with your view that “JULES AND JIM is lyrical cinema, and its images are haunting and linger in the memory long after the film is viewed.” But for me it had no soul, I didn’t feel for the characters, I didn’t feel anything when one of them passed away. I have a ‘little man’ inside of me, just like Edward G. Robinson’s Barton Keyes in ‘Double Indemnity’.
As Keal never states what “the Scott Fitzgerald period” is, it’s hard to counter that it’s the best film of that time period.
I much prefer the Keal quotation than the Sarris one, it’s bit more evocative of the experience of watching the movie.
“Notice he said SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER is now universally considered a MASTERPIECE of the film noir genre. The film has come a long way!” – Shame on him, film lecturers would fail him. A genre is SF, Fantasy, Horror, Women’s Picture, Western, Crime movie, comedy and full of symbols and icons. Film noir is a style and mood.
But Sam, thanks to you guys, I’m going to give “Jules” and “400 Blows” a second viewing.
And Allan, I’m going to order ‘Deux Anglaises et le Continent’ for a watch. Looking forward to it.
I agree that the wonderful ‘Room at the Top’ and ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’, ‘Alfie’ and others like them are intensely of representative of their time, but they are also timeless universal classics for the ages, I could show them to my 18 year old computer-game playing, MTV watching nephew and he would go ‘wow’, the same way he did watching Buster Keaton’s ‘One Week’ (1920), ‘The Honeymooners’, ’12 Angry Men’, ect. Whereas, if I tried showing him ‘Birth of a Nation’ (1915), ‘Caligari’ (1921), and some of the post-war non DeSica Neo-Realist films and many of the French New Wave – they lack that ‘wow’ factor. Interesting for film buffs who can have an appreciation of film history but faded because their innovations are so commonplace. A milestone movie fade as much a mildrew in the morning sun.
I can’t remember who said this, it might have been a critic in a 1 hour ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ BBC documentary – but it went along the lines of the greatest film made by the New Wave was ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, i.e., their influence was more important in transmuting ‘Citizen Kane’ through to a new generation of film-makers.
I will have to watch far more to make a comprehensive judgement.
I love ‘Fahrenheit 451’ – bold the lyrically mournful music, like the poignant dying pangs of a beached art-form, the photography with it’s luminous red fire-engine careening about, Cyril Cusack as a suspicious fireman supervisor, a meaty and prescient theme of dumbing down of the masses from the book, all elegantly conveyed by the director.
Interesting discussion, guys.
Hey Bobby. Re Bonny and Clyde, I think we are talking more Joseph S. Lewis and Gun Crazy more than Orson Welles and Citizen Kane.
I second the views on the British new wave.
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts from today until March 7 is screening Godard’s 60s films. Details
Fair enough Bobby.
Needless to say I won’t judge the brilliant Mr. Thomson, or any other great critic, by the oscillation of agreement on particular films. I am well-aware (and have discussed it over the phone with Allan on a number of occasions) of Thomson’s inexplicable aversion to most of Kubrick and Ford, but so what? Every critic worth his or her salt won’t be towing the company line, and there is NO critic that you, I or anyone else will agree with all the time, in fact not even most of the time. Kael called Bergman’s masterpiece SAWDUST AND TINSEL “powerfully awful” and Kauffmann HATED both Godfather films. Simon hates Godard with a passion. Everyone has their taste and eccentricities.
When a critic is not there to back up your own firmed up judgement or sentiments, this does not invalidate or compromise his or her opinions. Mr. Thomson is absolutely one of our most erudite critics, as is Mr. Kauffmann, Mr. Sarris, Mr. MacDonald, Mr. Bazin, Mr. Simon and Ms. Kael among others.
Bobby, I think it’s rather obvious what the “Scott Fitzgerald” period is that Ms. Kael referes to here, but I’ll leave it at that. In any case, in the event you are confused as per her level of enthusiasm, she’s gone on in later volume to call the film a “masterpiece” as most of our best critics have likewise asserted.
In my opinion, Kauffmann and Kael are the greatest film critics of all-time (Agee might have been had he not been taken from us at so young an age) yet I disagree with their summary judgements 50% of the time. Their greatness will not and cannot be judged by the frequency I agree with them. LOL!
Again, I thank you fotr your sustained insights here at WitD.
hey Sam, good to hear from you. You make some good points.
I’d like to address them but my PC is down for a week at least, so I’d like to get back to them when I don’t have to use my brother’s PC for a more detailed response.
Hello Bobby!
You have been sorely missed around here. I am very sorry to hear about the PC.
Well, I just discovered this thread and both enjoyed the discussion and wish I’d been around to take part in it.
Bobby, I think you are too harsh on the auteurists. Through the “director-as-artist” theory they imparted two vital components to film criticism and appreciation: a romanticism and a formalism. On the one hand, they were able to fuse the intense pleasure of watching a movie with an appreciation of its virtues, in a way few film critics had in the past, and they directly tied cinema’s artistic and entertainment values together in a way many previous writers had been unwilling or unable to. On the other hand, they directed our attention to what’s on screen, to the meaty essence of the film – diverting criticism (perhaps only temporarily) from its penchant for literary analysis, and making us look nose-to-nose at film as its own medium.
The spirit of auteurism provided a vital tonic for the system, and I think it’s fair to say it played a huge part in kicking off a golden age of cinema lasting from the 50s to the 70s. While it is certainly flawed, I think it’s done much less harm to film appreciation than the rigid, humorless pseudo-scientific, heavily politicized approach that took hold around the 80s and has dominated academic film culture ever since, dragging it further and further from the vital juice of the mainstream. That’s certainly something that Truffaut could not be accused of, for all his other flaws.
And yes, the “certain tendency” polemic is almost startlingly reactionary, its politique d’auteurs almost an afterthought! I’m glad Kehr brings this up, as it’s something that surprised me when I finally read the famous essay and haven’t heard mentioned much. Godard too fell to the right but I think this was because the French left of the time was a bit stale and dogmatic (the Communists in France, as opposed to the U.S., were very “official”, a part of the establishment so to speak): when the flashier new left of the 60s arrived, obviously he got on board (though that ultimately became pretty dogmatic, too).