Man With A Movie List

Director: Marcel Carné Year: 1945 - It's impossible to imagine what it would be like to be in France, bruised and battered, at the eve of its liberation from the Nazis, and to see this impossibly beautiful and poetic film celebrate life and love. There is so much that could be said about this excellent film, but for me this goes to show how so many directors, including Renoir no less, make their best films when they break out of the strong but "comfortable" film-making modes they had been accustomed to. This is almost certainly untrue, but I could so easily imagine Carné, observing how his genre of "poetic realism" had been adapted by America to tell mastercrafted but relatively empty stories about moral failings, and decided that he needed to show the world a little pure beauty. This film succeeds at that, and in our modern times it shines even more brightly.

Director: Marcel Carné Year: 1939 Run-time: 1 hr 33 min - Carné's films up to now have demonstrated that his model of poetic realism was a clear predecessor to film noir in their nihilism and broken men.  Le Jour Se Lève  continues those themes, but in a resolutely unromantic way that doesn't glorify the actions of its desperate lead.  As such, it's probably the strongest of Carné's films so far on the list.  The dialogue is rarely dressed up or snappy, but it creates a stifling mood that reveals how little hope the characters have for breaking out of their destinies. It's not a joyous film to watch, but it's a significant step forward for moviemaking. - This may be the last we see of Gabin on the list, although I haven't peeked too far ahead. If so, it would be an interesting note to go out on.  Gabin was unique among big film stars for his understatedness. He was always willing to let go of his ego to further the story.

Director: Marcel Carné Year: 1938 Run-time: 1 hr 35 min - Carné's second film of 1938 doesn't share all of the same film noir trappings as Port of Shadows , but it still reminds me a lot of the Marseilles trilogy in the tragic humanism of its hopeless characters. This film starts out as a series of inter-related stories centered at a Paris hotel, before merging those stories together. Carné doesn't shy away from themes that would never fly past the American Hayes code, and as such his early films have a brutal and refreshing honesty, even though I wouldn't claim this is an accurate representation of the French lower classes. Also like the Marseilles trilogy, there's a heavy focus on dialogue that makes this seem like it originated as a play (it was actually first a collection of short stories.)

Director: Marcel Carné Year: 1938 Run-time: 1 hr 31 min - This is the first of two Carné films on the list from 1938.  We haven't talked much about French poetic realism, the style pioneered by Pepe le Moko  (also starring Jean Gabin), but this is where that style heavily overlaps with what would become film noir (Wikipedia claims this was one of the first films to be called as such).  The tropes of noir are so heavily associated with post-war depression and malaise that it's pretty shocking to see these same tropes show up before the war - the French government agreed, and even banned this film for a time as not representative of the French spirit.  It's an excellent film, though. From my perspective, both of these early Carné works show clear ties to the Marseilles trilogy - this one, because of the persistent theme of the sea as a place for escape and loss of identity. - I am much more in love with the French acting style of the 30's than I am...