by Allan Fish
(France 1931 83m) DVD1/2
Aka. Freedom for Us
Pre-Modern Times
p Frank Clifford d/w René Clair ph Georges Périnal ed René Clair, René le Henaff m Georges Auric art Lazare Meerson
Raymond Cordy (Louis), Henri Marchand (Emile), Rolla France (Jeanne), Paul Olivier (Paul Imaque), Alexander d’Arcy (Gigolo), Jacques Shelly (Paul), Germaine Aussey (Maud), André Michaud (foreman),
René Clair is a definitive example of the director who has been through the full hyperbole of critical opinion. His films were originally seen as groundbreaking and as a director of feather light comedies he was unsurpassed. However, in the eighties and nineties he became unfashionable and, in my opinion, this was simply down to one thing; availability. Clair’s best films, that is to say A Nous la Liberté and Le Million, were never seen in the UK and very rarely in the US (and even then in faded insufficiently subtitled prints) so that if critics were mentioning him at all it was for his later American films. Though I Married a Witch, It Happened Tomorrow and And Then There Were None were marvellously enjoyable entertainments (two of the three are listed here), they were not as innovative as his French work. The same thing happened to the contemporary Lubitsch in America, who is now fêted for Ninotchka and Heaven Can Wait, rather than for the real ‘Lubitsch touch’ films of the early thirties because they were never seen and his later films were. But it had become unfashionable to like Clair, just as Carné and the poetic realists became unpopular with the Cahiers du Cinema generation.
The fact is that they do Clair an injustice to slight him. Nowadays A Nous la Liberté is known mainly for its being copied by Chaplin in Modern Times and, for sure, there are many marked similarities. But it could be argued that Clair himself borrowed from Chaplin, not only his shorts but in the central relationship, which is reminiscent of Chaplin and Mack Swain in The Gold Rush (as well as Chaplin and Harry Myers in City Lights, though Clair could not have seen that while making his film). The story follows two convicts as they are about to bust out of prison, only for one of them not to make it. The one who escapes to freedom slowly becomes a powerful phonograph magnate, while his friend is eventually released to unemployment and misery. That is until he gets a job at the very plant owned by his old friend…
Clair makes many statements in the film. Not just the obvious ones about individualism – man makes his own destiny and can amend his ways or continue on his criminal course as he chooses and each man is more than a number on a production line – but also about freedom in general. Considering it was made in 1931, some of the subtexts are quite disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi Germany; a teacher gets his class to robotically chant “work is mandatory because work means liberty”, as close an approximation to the gates of Dachau and Auschwitz’s “Arbeit Macht Frei” as could be offered; the factory foremen wear badges on their left forearm and the factory logo is everywhere to be seen as if on a political rally; the women are all almost identical in their Aryan nature, etc, etc. But Clair was a humanist and he was making a statement, just as Chaplin was to do in Modern Times. Chaplin was no stranger to being influenced by French films, having said that he owed so much to the silent comedian Max Linder in his early days and Clair himself was actually flattered by Chaplin’s film five years later. By this time Clair had left France after a few less successful ventures, but it is safe to say that with this film and Le Million, which shall be covered further down the alphabet, he helped move talking pictures into a new age of fluidity that was quickly seized upon by not only Chaplin but Lubitsch and Mamoulian as well. And forget that talk about it being a milestone of interest for film buffs as that is pretentious rubbish. It’s just a damned fine film, and the Freedom for Us of the title could just as easily apply to both the camera and its numerous captivated audiences over the intervening decades.
How ‘A Nous la Liberte’ made the Elite 70:
Allan Fish’s No. 20 choice
Sam Juliano’s No. 27 choice
Great article on one great movie musical I’ve actually seen. The film’s main song has been stuck on me for a long time since I first saw it, and the film itself is really good, filled with a message to cherish and comprehend. Great article Allan!
This a a wonderful, concise and effusive essay by Allan on a tremendous film that, I’m totally ashamed to admit, I forgot about completely as I felled out my ballot. The structure of the mucical number, the perfect choreography and plotting are like out of a dream. I saw this on old VHS tape sbout ten years ago. The tape itself dat in the foreign film section of the video store I ran. An old woman across the street rented it every week without fail. After six months of this happening, I finally took it home (to her casternation, pissed somebody else rented HER movie). I was insanely curious to find out what this crazy old woman was up to. Well, I found out. What a wonderful film! When I shut the doors permanantly on the store I went to the old ladies home and presented her with the tape. “Now I understand”, I said. Whenever I see this film I secretly thank that little old lady and her insanity for this film…
For me as well, it’s been quite some time since I saw this- my college days digging in the vhs bins at the Urbana library. I do recall it being a charming film, but I would have to see it again in the context of the musical countdown to see how it stacks up to the others on this list. For some reason I don’t remember the music as well, perhaps because it was in French.
This farsical, satirical film contains more music than any other Clair film from this period, and it’s wonderfully integrated into the film, making this one of the great musical comedies in the history of the cinema. It views with LE MILLION as Clair’s best film, period, and it’s a splendid musical delight that showcases the possibility of the form.
Your view of the film as a melting pot of different elements is excellent as always.
Darn, I did see Le Million and another film with ‘Roofs of Paris’ in the title, but not this. Still, I would assume the joyous spontaneity in those other films is here, and it’s nice to know that there are even more musical interludes. Clair is a real original, even if Mr. Fish makes a case for the Chaplin influence in his very fine review.