Claude Chabrol's American director thumbnails -- Cahiers Dec63/Jan64

Robert Aldrich

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 113)
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“In an intense collective exertion of imagination, most commentators on his last film asked, “Whatever happened to Robert Aldrich?” They did not recognize him. Nevertheless, the taste for theatricality that divides a screenplay into acts, these shots flung on the screen as if with a trowel, the characteristic cruelty which calls a hammer, a hammer and an old skin, an old skin, this occasional hysteria, these screams, effects so great that they become brilliant, those ten inspired shots in the last sequence. That is him, there is nothing else to say. An adversary of producers who mutilate his films when his back is turned, he has searched for freedom on the old continent. Sad experience. The “Big Knives” have skulked after him, to Athens, to Berlin, and as far away as the ruins of Sodom. After this disastrous European tour, his anti-Americanism quieted down, here he is again. Still enormous, still generous, once again relaxed. This is a force of nature. He needs obstacles his own size. He is waiting to shoot what amuses him, the day of the kill-joy has terminated.
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 113)
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John Brahm

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 115)
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His “great epoque” lasted three years -- 1945 to 1947. Then he is consumed by the TV’s Desilu Corporation. It is best for him to remain for us the faithful illustrator of Raymond Chandler (“The High Window” [“The Brasher Doubloon”] not released in France) and the auteur of the superb and frenzied “Hangover Square”, a film, first and last, a cacophony.
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 115)
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Edward Dmytryk

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 125)
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His experiences in the jails of the State, his weakness, his traumas make it impossible to separate his life from his work. His taste for money and for retelling his sad story, yield for ten years only uninteresting films. We might, however, retain some minutes of “The Sniper”, the tempest in a teapot of “The Caine Mutiny”, but, maybe, most of all, “The End of the Affair”, the best cinematic distortion of the mediocre universe of Graham Green. With time the anguish moves into the background, the guilt complex disappears under the dollars. The dearer, the happy moments are, the rarer they are and Dmytryk becomes once more the mediocre filmmaker of “Crossfire”. Finally, he can stand himself.
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Phillip Dunne

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 127)
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He debuted with “Prince of Players” a commercial failure. From the next three films, one likes only some novelistic scenes and unusual details. Dunne finally knows commercial success - in the USA - with “Blue Denim”. From then on, this graying gentleman was considered by the absurdists at Fox as a specialist on teenagers. Let us hope, for Dunne’s sake, that his youth will pass before his death.
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 127)
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Martin Ritt

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 160)
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He represents all that separates the viewpoint of Cahiers from that of the studio executives. None in Hollywood would think of doubting Ritt’s talent; here, no one envisages its existence, reality or possibility. From the efforts of “No Down Payment” to the failure of “Paris Blues” while passing by squalid Faulknerian masquerades, everything in this work is just pettiness, grayness and mediocrity. Who has it right? The executives or us? Us, of course.
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 127)
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William Wyler

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 179)
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Cinema is evolving and is still young. Some qualities of the past reveal themselves, with use, as so much defect. Wyler sums all this up. For a long time, he was, let’s not forget, a great man for cinemanes. What was that all about?
First off, a dramatic apparatus well-oiled and conventional. The most naive plays of the era of the New Deal, radical-socialist best-sellers, the first evocations of the Southerners. all this conveyed in a style, aseptic, polished, honest and sometimes awkward (repetitions, an approximate linking of effects, a monotony of tempo, descriptive movement that is artificial and too slow) which astonishes only through the perfection of the machinery and lighting. As for acting, Wyler conceives of it exactly as Bernstein fire, meaning in a psychological tradition which would enchant Paul Bourget, for example. These types of works quickly become dated .
But there is something more serious. Our man surrendered. For the love of money. He, most of all, is looking to keep his reputation as a major director for the major companies. After the “Ben-Hur” of Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt, he threw, pay heed, in the sweetened remake of one of his earliest successes “The Children’s Hour”. Our artist is now preparing “The Sound of Music”. One must be, most naive, most languid, most pedantic to hope in Wyler.

Jean Douchet on the "young turks"

In his “French New Wave” (by Jean Douchet; in collaboration with Cédric Anger; translated by Robert Bonnono), Jean Douchet writes of “a second, younger group [of filmmakers], born between 1928 and 1932, [which] is represented by Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, Jacques Rozier, and Jacques Demy.” (page 11)
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He says of them, “There was a ritual aspect to the young cinephile’s behavior that consisted mainly of wandering around movie theaters, closely examining the stills of current or forthcoming films, fantasizing over the posters, imaginatively creating a climate of fear and danger around themselves....They compared films, categorized them. Gradually a list of favorites took shape: Goupi Mains Rouges by Jacques Becker, Lumières d’Ete and Le Ciel est à Vous by Jean Grémillon, Douce by Claude Autant-Lara, Les Visiteurs du Soir by Carné and Prévert, Le Destin Fabuleux de Désirée Clary and Le Malibran by Sacha Guitry, Les Anges du Péché by Robert Bresson, and a few others. These were the films they saw over and over again. But the film that received the most attention was Le Corbeau by Henri-Georges Clouzot: the film had a profound effect on these adolescents and to them represented the summit of cinematic art." (pages 21-22)

Jacques Rivette's American director thumbnails Cahiers 1963

What follows here are my translations of the thumbnail critiques which Jacques Rivette wrote for the Dec63/Jan64 issue of Cahiers du Cinema.

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John Cassavetes

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 117)
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“The point-man for the departure: with “Shadows” the New York School, which had been talked of for a long time with nothing grat being shown, becames reality. At the center of the film, play finds its motor role which, more more than the equivalent of a Greenwich Village comedia dell’arte is the backside of the drop everything rigor of a Charlie Mingus. “Too Late Blues” admits its sources. An improvisation on a sentimental lullaby, Miles Davis known by heart, Cassavetes is a naif playing the old fox. He films naive old foxes and disillusioned ingenues, who rush to strike blows which they fear being on the receiving end of. He is the Marivaux of an accessory slackness.
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 117)

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Shirley Clarke

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 118)

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“The Connection” intrigues; “The Cool World” justifies. Closed universe of drugs or gangs, Shirley Clarke in the beginning shuts herself up with her subject, this is, more than any bet, test or literature, only an expedient, the legitimacy of the initiates. Then, the adventure. There is a game of identity being played here. But so squarely, so absolutely, the physical contact becomes a rite of knowledge: Dissolving herself in it, watching them, mimicking them, all the way to madness. She is repaid one hundred-fold and it is, around the young blacks of “The Cool World” that a society knits itself, discovers itself, and recreates itself around us with its codes, its class structure, its language and customs, anthropological synthesis in action, maybe. But also, the truth of the legendary confrontation between the Greeks and the Trojans, and, surprisingly, the Wolves and the Pythons “signify” nothing other than themselves. This is a news item and not a tragedy, a life lost and not an inquest. For America’s tradition is that of a physical cinema, which expresses nothing which is not mingled of the flesh and blood of heroes. This is where today, it maintains direction.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 118)

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Morris Engel

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 128)
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“Minor, domestics chronicles: marriage, kids, quarrels, reconciliation.
Something like an intimate diary. A genealogy, a family album, a tale of deeds and again New York, always a new beginning. The principle is simple: let us share in the action, one way or another -- at once the concierge and the friend, taking this one’s side, then that one’s, knowing no more, strolling, eyeballing the passers-by, returning, meeting up with mama who overwhelms for fifteen minutes with her eloquence and her tears, going out again, crossing through this world reconciled, feeling in the way, returning home, The End; something similar. Everyone gets what he or she wants, no one is forced, you like it or you do not. Ruth and Morris do not begrudge you. Who worries about you? ( It may seem so, but they do not lose sight of you out of the corner of their eyes.)”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 128)

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John Frankenheimer

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 131)
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“He has (let’s overlook the discredit which is that of all yes-men) a sense of the times. “The Manchurian Candidate”, six months ago, was no more than a wild fantasy, its track and intent ill-defined: and now, as we know, it is History. Will current events dominate the ad campaign for “Seven Days in May”? Let us hope that this is not the intention of those two old crows, Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster... Meanwhile, this little honest Johnny knows the art of drowning fish: the unbelievable is strange but true, or so it seems. (But, in Hitchcock, it is the opposite; it is the truth that is unbelievable and the art is in fishing it out.)”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 131)
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Two notes. First, the December63/January64 appears to have gone to press on (or shortly after) November 26 1963, four days after the assassination of John F Kennedy. Second, the parenthetical reference to “yes-men” in the first sentence from the way in which Frankenheimer was brought in as the director of “The Train” replacing Arthur Penn who spoke of this incident in a short article which appears in the “Petit Journal du Cinema” section of the September 1963 issue of Cahiers du Cinema.
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Henry Hathaway

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 133)

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“This is not someone, this is not anyone. For years at Fox, the Jack-of-all-trades who shot and edited unflappably, as he was paid to do. Then, every five years, he awakens and he dreams while awake. This was “Niagara”, pure article of sex and Technicolor, and maybe, “North to Alaska” a pure rodeo where all doings are allowed, only their number counts, it was “Legend of the Lost” where the extravagance of appearances is only the false likeness of a dream. A Borges of the wild state. A meteoric filmography, but where is Henry hiding?
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 133)
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John Huston

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 136)

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“The geometric place of fifteen years of misunderstandings, it might be simpler to consider, once and for all, this ex-screenwriter as an “illustrator“: some appreciate the refined eclecticism of his readings, others regret that he does not abstain from showing off his intelligence. A dilettante from another century stumbling through ours, he escapes his world by virtue of Bogart and dark humor. But, this hoax, which begins so easily, only the Lord know how to halt. and one must be diabolically stronger than this petty demon to return parry his thrusts. From too serious to pure humbug, but always all one or all the other. yielding up only the inertia of his dialectic and not its process. But it is precisely those who re-arrange the sober sequencing of the pages of books and compromise the binding, to whom goes, more and more, the essential of its cares.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 136)
Note: Even before Rivette became a critic, it was not unusual to dismiss a film director who was thought to merely “met-en-image” or photgraph the screenplay as an “illustrateur”
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Elia Kazan

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 137)

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“It is, first off, the organic, the biologic, and the corporeal that he wishes to depict, beginning with them (whence all the Calibans) or finding them in all uses and methods, then the conflicts of the former or latter and the confrontation of the quick and the dead, or who is being born and who is about to die. So, every time, a plan of variation of more or less great amplitude. This being the object of the film more than the poles. Since what it is about is the vitality, not the specters, who endeavor, somehow, to compel it or define it. This which, from the first period, the one of needs, still holds, and breathes under the rubble, has been for several years the subject of his work. That is to say that it is cinema, fixing it, moving it. the so-called eternal and assured bad present, which we lose, which we win in order to lose, in its turn and in the end of accounts, neither an ending nor an account. As they say, life, neither so good nor so bad, - lived.”
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Ida Lupino

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 144)

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“Fails completely to tell any story whatever. Her tricks are so naive, her efforts so exaggerated that they are moving, but at the wrong moment. Her strength: drawing with a few gestures, a female character who is defenseless or disarming and always the victim, in the final accounting of circumstances which she has created, the misfortune of virtue? Rather, its ambiguities.“
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 144)
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Robert Montgomery

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 152)

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“Has remained in the lake in the eyes of French critics, too happy to be able to push Hollywood into the trap of set-mindedness. (But since we, without jealousy, admire in the novel what we refuse to admire in film, the charm of the declaimed “I”, whose center-absence restores the lens (objectif) to mystery). “Ride a Pink Horse” was a victim of his modesty, or more profoundly, the same ambition: to see the world indirectly or from the other side of the mirror. In order to see it as more true than the truth. And his latest film, exalting Admiral William Halsey, who saved Guadalcanal,is through the clearness of its execution an example of a war film reflected, thus reversed, as if Montgomery does not return images by chance.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 152)
Note: Montgomery directed “Lady in the Lake” in the first person. The photo of Montgomery that was published with this critique was a still from that film showing Montgomery’ reflection in a mirror.”
The French word “objectif” is translated either “lens” or “objective”
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Robert Mulligan

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 152)

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“The least that we can say is: “He really took us in.” Who is the auteur of “Fear Strikes Out”? The producer?, the screenwriter?, the director of photography? someone else? Undoubtedly. But not this hard-working director who indifferently submits his knowledge of linking shots on a Clarence Brown-like axis to the last avatars of the Great Thinkers, Rock Hudson and Gregory Peck. He would have been a winner, before the war, at Irving Thalberg’s MGM. Today, with the major stars and producers, the Oscar candidates, he is the man of the hour.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 152)
Note: in 1957, when Robert Mulligan’s first film “Fear Strikes Out” was given a limited one-week run in Paris, Jacques Rivette became one of that film’s first French champions. His questioning of the ultimate authorship of Mulligan’s films is interesting. In 1964, Mulligan was the director half of the team “Pakula-Mulligan”. Some five years later, the producer half of that team, Alan J Pakula, took his place on the set as a director and Pakula became one of the major directors of the 70s and 80s.
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Russell Rouse

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 162)

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“Each of his films is built on a more or less brainless wager. Nobody speaks one word (but it is not a silent film, “The Thief ”); A little short pudgy man falls head over heels for a towering knock-out, an otherwise grim drama, “Wicked Woman”); Basques drive off a horde of Indians in a single bound, (but a turgid Western, “Thunder in the Sun”). By virtue of theory or obstinacy, he reaches a kind of well-polished obviousness of absurdity; aware or not, he has chosen, once and for all, excess.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 162)
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Don Siegel

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 164)
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“Baby Face Nelson” is a masterpiece. An utter harmony of subject, material, writing and acting, all sufficient and necessary, from which arises an austerity which is pure poetry. Meanwhile, the same precision with no doubt but with no purpose, arises as much from a polished feeling of “I-could-care-less“ as from know-how. “Baby Face Nelson” is an riddle, but not one of the Sphinx’s.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 164)
Note: Another article in that “American Cinema” special issue, “Le Musée Secret” by Bertrand Tavernier reveals that some eight years after its release in America, Siegel’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” had still not been released in France.
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Jack Webb

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 175)

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“He is single-minded in the idea department, maybe, for want of having a lot of them. But “Dragnet” and “Pete Kelly’s Blues” (let’s ignore the rest) owe to this doggedness an imperturbable seriousness and a remorseless conviction which hangs on to the place of invention, and gives, in the absolute implementation of common places, the force of bias and esthetic wager. Who loses wins where innocence puts it full in the face and the pockets.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63/Jan64 (page 175)

Bertrand Tavernier -- American director thumbnails-- Cahiers dec63-jan64

The December 1963/ January 1964 issue of "Cahiers du Cinema" was dedicated to the state of American cinema. One article written by various Cahiers contributors included thumbnail critiques of active American directors. The following critiques are Bertrand Tavernier's contribution to that article. These are my translations.

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Richard Bartlett

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 114

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“Completely ignored by the critics, this rather unselfconscious series-B filmmaker - although one not appreciated by distributors - specializes in with neither action nor fisticuffs. To make up for that, moral reflection and religious parable are concealed behind humor and gentle preciosity. He has crossed paths with Martin Ritt and his confreres on the road to Hollywood TV.”
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 114

Hubert Cornfield

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 120”

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“A director through his love of cinema, he has taken it at the bottom of the ladder, - minor detective films shot in 10 to 15 days, but varied with symbolism and European in spirit, primary here. Why should he wish to raise himself above his subject if the genre’s principle is precisely to make it seem that you can see no further than the tip of your nose. Now Cornfield knows narration as well as any one of the old Warners: The hold-up in the rain in “Plunder Road”, for example. but now when it is the Stanley Kramers who set the tone, it is not proven that that one is the tone for him.”
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 120”

Michael Curtiz

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 122”

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“Going with ease from one genre to another, from the western to the detective story, from social drama to pirate tale, Curtiz leaves no trace of his passage. A Warner’s legionnaire, he prototyped that famous style - as much scenarist as technical - that was the trademark of the company. a victim of the norms of production when the script was bad, he benefited when it was good. Less than an artisan, he is a worker specializing in the middle-ground: happy in the collage of the unsurpassed materials of the era ridiculed as “prestige”. Clever at systemitizing the findings of others, at enlisting Errol Flynn in unpretentious swashbucklers. Leaving the mother-ship, Warners, he unlearns his metier. “The Egyptian”.”
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 122”

Morton Da Costa

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 122”

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“Trademark of a Broadway director, from his first screen-test, its qualities and faults assert themselves. (As is found in the unreleased in France “The Music Man”, another filmed play). A decided taste for shouting heros, human cataclysms, scenic paroxysms, and decorative exuberance which is answered by an undeniable penchant for vulgarity and aggressive sentimentality. In the best of cases, a cyclone sweeping across the screen, in the others...”
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 122”

Gordon Douglas

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 126”

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“He has filled at Warners, the spot left open by Curtiz. More talented for westerns or science fiction than for swashbucklers (passing modestly by his penchant for hawkish, anti-Red panegyrics. Places his camera on the level of a man, unhappily, neither a tall man or a great man. Everything is filmed from a low-angle.”

Roy Enright

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 129)”

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Pre-WWII “succes d’estime”, he was Randolph Scott’s ‘man’ before Budd Boeticcher. A director of Westerns precisely when no one favored the genre. He owes his obscurity to this singularity: a serious style in series scenarios, an offhand and Nicholas Ray-like use of color (“The Man of Texas”), considerable use of space, and a taste for violence that presages the contentiousness of the “modern” western. Fingers crushed pulverized by rocks, spurs digging into cheeks, agony lasting a full round of bullets. Making us want to see more.
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 126”

Henry King

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 138)”

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Before succumbing to Daryl Zanuck, Cinemascope and Deluxe color, he crossed with an Olympian calm through the crises, the storms and the fashions of Hollywood. Covered with honors, and recompensed, and periodically anointed ‘director of directors’, King lived goldenly, but his commercial success should not conceal his merits from us. The most ‘Warners’ of Fox directors, he often gave proof of ambition (from the ‘Griffithean’ ‘Tol’able David’ to the remarkable ‘Twelve O’clock High), always, of honesty (‘The Gunfighter’), of sturdiness (’The Black Swan’). Academic and solid on his bad days, solid and classic on his good days, he depends on his subject. He knows how to reverse the proposition. Has just given up whittling the likes of Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald to return (is it a revival?) to tales of adventure.”
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 138)”

Note: Henry King was at that time preparing “The Undefeated”. The project would be filmed in 1969 by Andrew McLaglen.

Joseph H. Lewis

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 142)”

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A too brilliant technician, who, one might say, suffers ‘Great Director Complex’. He holds the subject to be not worthy of him (that is always the case). There is a debauchery of tracking shots and camera tricks, but without objective or rails. More at ease, in the final account, helming low-budget Westerns, 15 days of shooting, nothing like calligraphy to calm you, which obliges him to be concerned in what he is constrained to tell.”
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 142)”

Lewis Milestone

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 150)”

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Not hilarious. As bothersome to view as to analyze. He deserves the most sinister director Oscar, if this word did not also imply ‘left’ which Milestone has not been for a long time. Forced to preach against war with childish arguments in interminable discourses, he sensed the falseness of his position, and turned coat. This was enough to change a little the sense of his films, already so esthetically comfortable, to prefer ‘glory’ to ‘fear’, the hills of Korea to walks in the sun. But, if the ethics changed, the mannerisms remained, especially the never changing tracking shot, a figure of style which Milestone raises to the high level of an institution.
As always, in seeking out the less ambitious or less celebrated productions, one finds the most interesting works. Not the comedies or agricultural films, but “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” or “The General Died at Dawn”. But all this is not enough to have him die on Okinawa. We need a birth notice. And where to look? To the west?
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 150)”

Note: The French title for “Pork Chop Hill” is “La Gloire et la Peur” which literally translates as ‘the glory and the fear’
The French title for “All Quiet on the Western Front” is “A l'Ouest Rien de Nouveau” which literally translates as “to the west, nothing new”
The French title for “Halls of Montezuma” is “Okinawa.”

George Montgomery

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 151)”

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“Of all American actors, he seems the least foreordained to become a director. But, without doubt, tired of being directed by mediocrities (Ray Nazzaro, Paul Landres) in tenth-rate westerns, he decided to establish himself behind the camera and produce, write (and act in) his own stories, and take advantage of the occasion to regild the fortunes of Filipino cinema. The results, for the moment, are conclusive and both his films, through their non-chalant tone and the originality of their digressions recapture, straightaway, the great American cinema of adventure which flourished a few years ago. Can anyone imagine, at this time, a more beautiful compliment?”
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 151)”

Robert Parrish

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 154)”

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“His films disconcert from the first look. One finds, only to a small degree, the Hollywood qualities; rapid rhythm, directorial ideas, effective narration, or the influence of American genres (westerns, thrillers). An out-of-date cinema, disenchanted, in search of a Romanesque and linear style, where reflection counts more than action, and intelligence or sensitivity more than dramatic impact. Whence this lyricism, this taste for (good) literature, these moral pre-occupations? Parrish’s heroes are rootless and everywhere lost. They are on the nostalgic pursuit of an inner peace and the lucidity that only the love of a woman can bring to them. The sadness of “The Wonderful Country”, “The Purple Plain” or “In the French Style” evokes that of Henry David Thoreau. Simple films, elementary feelings. It is necessary in Parrish’s work to search some other ambition besides story-telling.”
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 (page 154)”

Note: Some twenty years later, in 1983, Bertrand Tavernier and Robert Parrish would co-direct, and co-star in, the documentary “Mississippi Blues”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01EEDB1638F933A15750C0A963948260

Joseph Pevney

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63-Jan64 (page 156)

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“Once upon a time, Hollywood’s barometer; through the yearly number of his films, one judged the state of American cinema. Universal’s veritable Stakhanov, he adapted himself conscientiously to that company’s five-year-plan. Mixing carefully the house blend, two-thirds sentiment, a little action “peel”, a dash of melodrama, pretty colors, and George Nader, Jeff Chandler, Julie Adams, he added nothing of his own invention, changed not a comma of the script, making a functional and unvaried “mise-en-scene”. But that respects ends by giving his films an unexplainable charm and, sometimes, an appearance of rigor. after two attempts at independence, Pevney has become one of the numerous directors unfinished.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63-Jan64 (page 156)

Charles Walters

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63-Jan64 (page 175)
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“Of the four musketeers of musicla comedy, he is the Aramis. Elegaic and stylized, he promenades with his heroes on all the roads of the map of tenderness, singing, dancing and weaving a tender trap. More than anyone, he knows how to make Lili cry, the pretty farmer’s daughter laugh, and the bell of New York to jump into the air.
But as we all know, the map is not the territory. It happens then that he strays into unfriendly regions where Doris Day and the matriarchal joke run rampant. Overtaken by events, he does nothing to save the situation. There is his weakness. But, tomorrow, he can leave once more, best foot forward; the best way for a choreographer.”
“Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63-Jan64 (page 175)

Note: The French title for “Summer Stock” is “Le Jolie Fermiere”

Paul Wendkos

from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63-Jan64 (page 177)

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“For the moment, a man of disappointed ambitions. From avant-garde to “Gidget” while passing through three or four “intellectual” detective stories and two brisk military strips. Like a cold shower which leaves us at the state of assumptions (casting contributes there). This is, it seems, a follower of the the “one shot, one idea” method, good or bad thanks to which we never get far but this way justifies the truant attention.”
from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63-Jan64 (page 177)

Some unrealized Marcel Carné projects

from "Ma Vie à Belles Dents" ("My Life with Gusto) by Marcel Carné
Some unrealized Marcel Carné projects:

1939 “The Postman Always Rings Twice” with Jean Gabin, Michel Simon and Vivian Romance

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1945 “Mary Poppins” with a screenplay by Jacques Prevert

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1945 “The Mask of Red Death” with a screenplay by Jacques Prevert

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1946/47 “Candide” with Gérard Philipe and Louis Jouvet as Pangloss

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1951 “La Reine Margot” with Anna Magnani

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1960 “Les Dimanches de Ville-D’Avray” (filmed, two years later by Serge Bourguignon. (English title “Sundays and Cybele”)

Marcel Carné on François Truffaut

from Marcel Carné's "Ma Vie à Belles Dents" (My Life with Gusto) page 297.

"If the critics as a group found the film “a failure but not unworthy” “Terrain Vague” would, however, earn me the most unforeseen compliment...from François Truffaut himself! The one who had so often vituperated me in the pages of "ARTS" , who had declared that I “photographed Prevert’s films”, wrote me a card from Carcasonne. He told me that he “had read some unjust articles” (and me, wow!): he had seen the film “in the middle of a packed and eager audience and had reacted exactly as it”... Three days later, he sent me a letter in which he declared to me, that since his postcard from Carcasonne, he had “thought over “Terrain Vague” much and that his feelings were yet more strongly reinforced.”

Notwithstanding, he signed his letter, “Admiringly yours”... I did not answer him. What could I say? That, while thanking him for his letter, I regretted that he liked my film only after having ceased his collaboration at “ARTS”."

Cahiers and Georges Lautner -- 1960-1967

In France, in the early 1960s -- glory days of the New Wave --, Georges Lautner was the young director who most exemplified the idea of les films de scenariste. Not simply did Lautner exemplify this but also he often worked with Michel Audiard a screenwriter who had clashed with the "young turks". While inventorying Jacques Rivette's record on the conseil des dix, I noticed that Rivette had on a few occasions rated Lautner films at two stars. A two-star rating on the conseil meant "to see" and for a film meant to be just commercial, that would have to be considered something of a complimentary. I decided to explore Lautner's experiences with the conseil des dix.

La Mome aux Boutons

This film was not reviewed in Cahiers. Its release in Paris was noted in the December 1959 issue with the comment,
“ A rather sympathetic enterprise. There is a sort of eccentric freedom in the way Lautner, in a 28 day shoot, attempted to save an unsavable comedy.”

Marche ou Creve

This film was not reviewed in Cahiers. The June 1960 issue noted its release and commented,
“The story of a secret agent who wants to quit the trade, despite friends or enemies. Stoutly encumbering. A lot of ideas, a little humor, some verve, some invention. Lautner often enough attains his target to leave us waiting with a great deal of interest for his next film."

In the conseil des dix, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut both gave the film two stars while Eric Rohmer and Luc Moullet both abstained.

Arretez les Tambours

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This film was reviewed in the March 1961 by Michel Delahaye. It read in part,
“In brief, Lautner is not yet the French Sam Fuller that some have called him. But the comparison is not absurd, The spirit as well as the style of “Arretez les Tambours’" is not without evoking the far-away Fuller. Fuller’s foes are Lautner’s foes, both having the reproach of “confusionism” heaped on them.”

Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, and André Labarthe each gave the film one star in the conseil des dix.

Le Monocle Noir

This film was reviewed in the October 1961 issue by Michel Delahaye. Quoting from that review.
“Lautner is here at ease which was not the case for his preceding film. He owes this to a less sensational subject, (But he would be capable of tackling such subject, exactly on the condition of not considering them sensational) to a crew more homogeneous and more flexibe, knowing exactly where he is headed and how to persuade everyone to go in a bloc in the same direction.”

In the conseil des dix, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, and Michel Delahaye all gave the film two stars.

En Plein Cirage

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This film was not reviewed in Cahiers. Its release in Paris was noted in the May 1962 with this comment,
“Starting with a detective story which is worth as much as any other, Lautner, who seems to be ill at ease, renounces playing his game and treats the subject with contempt and he treats the subject with an unequal verve to a cascade of effects and winks of the eye which, if they do not save the film, permit him, however, to show that he has decided not to let himself be imposed on.”
This film does not appear to have been considered by the conseil.

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Le Septième Juré

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This film was not reviewed in Cahiers. The June 1962 issue noted its release in Paris and commented,
“With this film, which is built on all the worst conventions of French cinema, falls dead into the trap from which he had extracted himself in “Arretez Les Tambours”. Some very dull wiliness of direction (and two shots borrowed from Orson Welles) aggravate things even more. Pierre Laroche’s dialogue is worse than ever. The trial is one of the most boring and false that ahs ever been shown on film."

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In the conseil des dix, Louis Marcorelles gave the film one star. Michel Delahaye, André Labarthe, Jacques Rivette and Jean Douchet all bulleted the film.

The December 1962 issue of Cahiers du Cinema was dedicated to the New Wave. One article provided a filmography, a capsule biography and for some a capsule critique for young French directors.
Lautner’s critique read:
“A sporadic talent, capable of transforming assembly-line scripts into films promising (“Marche ou Creve“) and then successful (“Arretez les Tambours”); breeziness, sizzle, imagination, here is the young director who can give French cinema what it most lacks -- commercial production which, within its own conventions, would be revived by the scrappiness and masked ambition of the filmmaker.
Unfortunately, Lautner has not yet learned how to disengage himself from the ruts of our worst tradtion. “Arretez les Tambours” often becomes entangled there and “Le Septième Juré” never leaves it. Unable, we’d say, to sniff out some of the traps or to acquire the power to avoid them, maybe, he should surrender with more confidence to the small shrewd genius which is dormant within him.

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L’Oeil du Monocle

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This film was not reviewed in Cahiers. The January 1963 issue noted its release and made this comment.
“Returning to a genre and a style which profit him more, Lautner greatly works on and develops the tone, the types, and the tics which made the first ‘monocle’ film successful. And another success is certain. Lautner lines up a series of scraps of derring-do, which at least, had they been used in a detective story ten years ago would have led to shouts of “Genius”. But it is also worrisome: You sense complaisancy rising. You wonder if Lautner will not settle comfortably into the cushiness of exploiting this into a complete factory.”

In the conseil des dix, Jacques Rivette and André Labarthe gave the film one star. Jean Douchet abstained.

Les Tontons Flingueurs

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Not reviewed by Cahiers. The film’s releease in Paris was noted in the February 1964 issue with the comment,
“The misadventures of a thief who has retired with his automobiles who is called one to once more be an imtimidator by executing the last wishes of a minor crime boss. A congenial re-bottling of comfortable series films in the Gabin style. (Audiard let’s himself go) Smooth work, perfect actors but Lautner uses the parodic tone developed since ‘le monocle’ to freely. Clever flashes of mischieve might show his true way.“

Jacques Rivette and Jean Douchet both gave the film one star.
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Des Pissenlits par la Racine
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Reviewed in the May 1964 issue of Cahiers by Jean-Claude Biette. That review said in part,
“I say out loud, paradoxically, “Des Pissenlits par la Racine” marks the triumph of intellectual over commercial cinema. This film, which almost everyone leads us to beleive is only a commercial “product”, plays its own game and finds itself - for better or worse - face to face with its own veritable proposition.”

Michel Delahaye gave it three stars.
Jacques Rivette gave it two stars.
Jean-Claude Comolli gae it one star.
Jean Douchet bulleted it.

Le Monocle Rit Jaune
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This film was not reviewed in Cahiers. In November 1964, on its sortie in Paris, this comment was recorded.
“In stringing out the monocle, Lautner does anything, pleasantly, if you will, but anything. See with your eyes, listen with your ears, the traditional tricks receive a new coating, the routine remains. But with Lautner it isn’t necessary to worry that this film fails, the next will be better. At least, let’s hope so."

Jean Douchet gave the film one star.
Jacque Rivette and Michel Delahaye bulleted it.
Jean-Luis Comolli abstained.

Les Barbouzes

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This film was reviewed in the February 1965 issue by Jean Narboni. A quote from that review,

“From on film to the next, what is clearly to be remarked in Lautner’s work is a quite original will to mix preciosity with truculence, intellectuality with commerce, the jousting of gangsters with esthetic refinement, the strains of a harpsichord with the click of a “silencer“, in sum to detail the settling of accounts in an atmosphere “gallant feast”."

Jean-Louis Comolli and Jacques Rivette gave the film two-stars.
Michel Delahaye gave it one star.

Galia

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Not reviewed in Cahiers but this comment by Michel Delahaye appeared to not the films release in Paris.
“This is what defines the merits and limitations of the film. The merits: on one side, the totla absence of cynicism and immoralism. demystifactors and, on the other side, a few scenes well come upon, well started and well elaborated. The limitations: The sceanrio-support is too much or not enough constructed and at the heart of that “Galia’ is free too much or not enough. In brief, Lautner continues to be a filmmaker of some beautiful flashes (most on-key to here in “Les Tontons Flingueurs”, the result of having found his ideal scenarist-accomplice."

Michel Delahaye gave the film two stars.
Jean-André Fieschi and Jean-Louis Comolli gave the film one star.

Nous Ne Fâchons Pas

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Also not reviewed , Jean-André Fieschi wrote this comment on its release.
“With Lautner, it will now be convenient to speak of mythology. From Lino Ventura to Mirielle Darc, passing through the more and moreesoteric dialogue of Michel Audiard, all the constitutive elements of this mythology are meticulously indexed and exploited. “Nous Ne Fâchons Pas” indicates three new ideas: The setting (the Côte d’Azur ) the scope-color (not beautiful) and an anglophobia channeled by an army of young britishers on motorcycles with guitars... Lautner nevertheless has an advantage over his sad brethren of appearing to amuse himself a little. He, alone, takes parody (of Grisbi, Bond, westerns or Richard Lester) seriosly, which obviously is not serious."

La Grande Sauterelle

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No full review in Cahiers, however, a mini-review by Jacques Bontemps in the “films sortis à Paris” in the February 1967 issue read,
“”Galia” formula disposes in a manner Lelouch. As Lautner is not made for this variation, one endures watching him whirl endlessly around from his “lovers” to the desperate search for a lyricism that is steadfastly refused to him. This is most dreadful, for it is dreadfully conceived, written, acted and directed. But in the lower world, the misfire is often more attractive than the success."

This film earned bullets from Jacques Bontemps, Michel Delahaye, and Jean Narboni from the Cahiers regulars. This is one of the few films to earn nine bullets from the conseil. Only Michel Aubriant of Paris-Presse gave it one star.

La Pacha

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Another film not reviewed by Cahiers, its release was noted and commented on, thusly
“In fact, ‘La Pacha’, prepared with quite a different screenplay was to have been set on a ship. (Whence, the title, which is what the captain of a ship is familiarly called.) Having not been able for a variety of reasons to do this, Lautner found himself with a most Godardian obligation, to improvise in a few days. Beginning from an abandoned novel, the results are not dishonorable."
This film was not considered by the conseil.

René Clair shows the difference between American and Eurpoean film.

Often times on Internet film boards, posters ask what is the difference between American film and European film. I think this story, from the French director René Clair - who spent World War II in Hollywood - which contrast Cecil B De Mille's film The Story of Doctor Wassell with the film about Corydon Wassell that Clair planned, explains the difference. It is taken from Clair's "Cinema yesterday and today. Translated by Stanley Appelbaum. Edited, and with an introd. and annotations, by R. C. Dale." from Dover Publications in 1972 pages 194-195

"Around 1942, during the darkest months of the war, which the United States had just entered, President Roosevelt one evening made famous the name of a modest hero. During one of his “fireside chats”, as his occasional radio speeches were called. He told the story of Dr. Wassell. This brave doctor (a navy doctor, I think) had saved a number of women and children, leading them through some jungle, in the face of various perils, to a place of safety.

"No sooner had the President ended his talk than C.B. [De Mille] had found the subject for his next production. And in the days that followed, perhaps the very next day, the newspapers announced that The Story of Doctor Wassell was going to be reenacted on the screen. A contract was signed with the doctor, who soon arrived in California. He was welcomed to the studio with all possible ceremony, then at lunch was seated on C.B.’s right. On that occasion, no doubt, he met the male star who was to portray him in the studio jungle beneath the sun of spotlights. Hollywood was not afraid to reconstitute war scenes at home and, since a number of actors were in the service, it was precisely those men whose health or age or some other reason kept them from combat, who were fought over to take the role of heroes.

"The good doctor surely had many opportunities to savor the irony of this parallel between fiction and reality. While the screenplay was being worked out – a long process in which he took part – I think he was surprised more than once by the addition of some sentimental or dramatic incidents with which the professionals saw fit to enliven the simple narrative of his adventure that he had given. I can picture the scene: “But that never happened!” “Leave it to us. We know what the public wants.” Probably after a few sessions not much attention was paid to his opinions.

"It seems that not much more attention was being paid to him personally. In the commissary he did not remain for long on the right hand of the Master. As the weeks went by, his table setting became gradually more distant from this place of honor. And one day when C.B. was entertaining important guests, I saw Dr. Wassell lunching at a small table along with a secretary.

"The last time I caught sight of him was during the shooting of the film which was to glorify his exploits on countless screens. The working day had just ended. Actors, bit players, technicians and assistants were leaving the studios, getting into their cars and departing in all directions to the cheerful hum of their motors, while, all alone at the corner of the street, the glorious doctor was waiting for the bus.

"This sight gave me the idea for a film which would tell the true adventure of Dr. Wassell – his mishaps among the artificial flora and made-up fauna of the cinema. I submitted the project to the high authorities of Paramount, but I was given to understand that war in Hollywood was not a laughing matter.

from René Clair's "Cinema yesterday and today. Translated by Stanley Appelbaum. Edited, and with an introd. and annotations, by R. C. Dale." from Dover Publications in 1972 pages 194-195

Godard's American Director Thumbnails

The December 1963/ January 1964 issue of "Cahiers du Cinema" was dedicated to the state of American cinema. One article written by various Cahiers contributors included thumbnail critiques of active American directors. The following eight critiques are Jean-Luc Godard's contribution to that article. These are my translations.

Richard Brooks

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 116

"He is the American intellectual type, the Sergeant York of 'mise-en-scene', complete with the brushed-back short military haircut and the pipe, a judgment confirmed by his photo above. 'Lord Jim' and it new frontiers will prove meanwhile that Brooks pushes Kennedy-ism leftwards and that he is quite how Kazan has described him: a screenwriter whose lion-heart does not divert him away from his filmmaking duties. The career of this progessive is thus exemplary in its progression and if he panoramics, trackings or close-ups as if he were practicing the conjugal act, it is henceforward all to his honor. the heritage of the grand american primitives from 'The Blackboard Jungle' to 'Elmer Gantry' is cleanly outlined: The direct and physical command of the real which closes ranks trimly with the distance of reflexion and wisdom."
Cahiers du Cinema Dec63-Jan64 page 116.

Charles Spencer Chaplin

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 118

"He is beyond all tribute since he is the most outstanding. For what else can be said? He is the only cineaste, in any case, who can bear, without misunderstanding, that so misleading qualifier 'human'. From the invention of the sequence shot in 'The Champion' to that of cinema-verité in the final speech of 'The Great Dictator', Charles Spencer Chaplin, while remaining on the margins of cinema has in the end filled that margin with more things (other words to use: ideas, gags, intelligence, honor, beauty, movement) than all the other cineastes collected in the remainder of the 'cahiers'. Today, we say, 'Chaplin' as we say, 'da Vinci' or rather we say 'Charlie' as we say 'Leonardo'. And what more beautiful homage in the middle of the 20th century to pay an artist of the cinema, than to quote Rossellini's words after he saw 'A King in New York', 'This is the film of a free man'."
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 118

Stanley Donen

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 126

"With the complicity of Vera-Ellen, Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day and Suzy Parker, he confirms the famous saying 'Cinema means turning pretty things into pretty women'. He danced all summer long, and it was one wondrous summer. Then, like the grasshopper, Stanley Donen vanished with charm and the luggage. Today, he is a prodigal old youth who is sliding slowly down the slope of 'negulesconnerie'. The dance on the table of 'Seven Brides', the elegant reframings in the rain along with the eccentricity of Donald O'Connor, the unionism in striped pajamas, the gracious photos of a Parisian model and the buffooneries of the New York Yankees, where has all this gone? Alas, from indiscretions to charades, soon nothing will remain of this Angeleno Becker, except the stamp of the lightness of pre-war film."

"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 126

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Stanley Kubrick

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from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 138

"At the start, gaudiness in coldly copying Ophuls' tracking shots and Aldrich's violence. Then, he enrols in commercial intellectualism by following the international paths of glory of another K, another Stanley, an older one who also takes himself for Livingstone. But whose heavy-handed sincerity will finally triumph at Nuremburg, while the light-footed exorbitancy of Stanley Jr. will darken under the pasty spirit of 'Spartacus' without ending by making the desired cardboard. 'Lolita' justified the worst pessimism. Surprise: It is a film simple and lucid with a justness of dialogue that shows America and its sexuality better than Melville and Reichenbach. And shows that Kubrick should not abandon cinema on the condition of filming characters who do exist rather than ideas which no longer exist except in the desk-drawers of old screenwriters who believe cinema to be the seventh art."

"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 138

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Richard Leacock

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from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 140

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"On the other side of the Atlantic, 'cinema-verité' is translated 'candid camera' and this Candide, Richard Leacock, is effectively more than a title, who pursues the truth relentlessly without even asking himself on which side of the Pyrennes his lens is located, this side or that side? Then, whose truth is it? In not separating the cause from the effect, in mixing the rule up with the exception, Leacock and his associates do not realize (for cinema is nothing other than a realization) that their eye in the act of framing in the viewfinder is, at once, like the recording device which the eye is using. Yes, more or less, according to the case (more - Welles, less - Hawks). But it is never uniquely that recording device which, according to the case, will remain recorder or become pen or brush. Deprived of this awareness, Leacock's camera, in spite of its honesty, loses the two fundamental qualities of a camera, intelligence and sensitivity. Nothing is served by having a sharp image, if the intentions are blurred. His lack of subjectivity leads Leacock to finally lack objectivity. After watching "The Chair", we know less of the lawyer than in "Anatomy of a Murder" and less of the electric chair than in some film starring Susan Hayward following the technique of melodrama. In the same way, after seeing "Primary", we know less about Kennedy than by reading Teddy White's book. [The Making of a President - 1960]. This can easily be explained by noting that Leacock's crew films at the level of a Gordon Douglas, not even of a Henry Hathaway or a Stuart Heisler. With, what is more, this fault - not knowing what they are shooting, nor knowing that pure reportage does not exist. Whence this childish mania for shooting in close-ups events which demand a long shot, of accompanying people to a place simply to follow them, of killing the topic by clinging to it? In sum, all the mistakes which no operator on Walt Disney documentaries would ever commit. As such, Leacock does know how to use a magic marker to annotate showings of Rouch. In brief, Honesty is not enough strike at the avant-garde. Above all, when one is not aware that, if reality surpasses fiction, the latter returns it with grace."

Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 140

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Adolfas Mekas

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from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 149

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"Placed alongside the two greats of the "New York school", John Cassavetes and Shirley Clarke, he seems something of a poor relative as we do not know when it is him and when it is his brother. 'Hallelujah' shows today by y+z that one must now reckon with brother Adolfas, for he is an ace in the domain of pure invention, that is to say working without a net. Turned according to the old principle of one idea for one shot, his 'Hills' make redolent with a fresh ingenuity and an astute gentility. There, physical exertion boldly skirts the intellectual gag. One gets excited and then smiles at nothing: a poorly-framed bush, a banana in a pocket, a drum major in the snow. This is life according to Ramuz, "As when one dances, one is pleased in the beginning, a cornet, a clarinet. One regrets at the end, head-turned, it is becoming night." "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 149

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Orson Welles

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from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 176

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"One night, in Hamburg, three people in the audience, the show begins. Orson Welles trods onto the stage and introduces himself. 'I am an author, a composer, an actor, a decorator, a savant, a gourmet, a financier, a ventriloquist, a poet. There are so many of and there are so few of you.' Without a doubt, 'The Trial' shows that it is not easy for a 'wunderkind' to age well. and we fear that his gigantic wings impede our Shakespearean albatross from threading on old Europe. However, let us be damned should we forget for a single second that he alone, with Griffith, - one for 'the silents', the other for 'the talkies' - have made this marvelous toy train in which Lumiere did not believe start. Everyone, everywhere, owes him everything."

"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 176

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Billy Wilder

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from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63Jan64 page 178

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“After seven of itching, he decided to no longer bring tragedy to the joke. But much to the contrary to bring the comic to the serious. He took out an insurance policy on cinematographic survival and success invited itself in. Progressively, he threw into the nettles the grand subjects ‘Humane’. Billy became one of the new greats of Hollywood and, while replacing Wyler and Zinneman in the hearts of the exhibitors, he established himself as the worthy inheritor of Lubitsch in the hearts of cinephiles. For he had found once again the soul of the kid, waggishly ’berlinois’, since ruse serves henceforth as tenderness and irony serves as technical know-how. From then “Love in the Afternoon” and Marilyn and in spite one, two, three false steps, ’Irma La Douce’, thanks to the finesse and the acuity of its Panavision, the clarity of the play of Jack and Shirley, the colors of LaShelle, which I like, And Trauner, This sweet Irma I say initials wonderfully a double ascension, at the box-office and as art. The result: a collection of qualities which suffice in a droll manner to transform worldly man into a unaffected cineaste."

"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 178