Julien Duvivier and François Truffaut

In the spring of 1956, François Truffaut was contacted by Julien Duvivier who proposed that they collaborate on a film. They met in May at Cannes and discussed doing a project together called Grand Amour. As it happened, Duvivier was busy at that time making the film L’Homme à l’Impermeable. In August of that year, Duvivier wrote this letter to Truffaut: “Last night I had a strange dream. You and I were at Le Havre. We were about to embark for America on a huge ocean liner whose name I saw very clearly: "L’Atlantique"….I was inviting you on a trip!!! But when it was time to board, I noticed that I hadn’t booked your passage….You flew into a mad rage, and told me a few plain truths. So I went to see the chief purser, who remembered that I had crossed in 1948 and gave me a cabin. Then all of a sudden we were at sea and I was called to the telephone….I’ll never know who was calling me because at that point I woke up….I would like to have you as a collaborator, if you still desire as well. Let me know what you have been up to recently and what your plans are. Please see me as a friend who thinks highly of you and likes you.”
(Translated by Catherine Temerson and from “Truffaut” by Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana)
This “friend who thought highly of” him was a member of the jury at Cannes in 1959 that awarded Francois Truffaut the award for best direction for Les Quatre Cents Coups (The Four Hundred Blows). In fact, he was the senior director sitting on that jury.
Other film directors on the jury at Cannes in 1958:
Antoni Bohdziewicz (Poland)Michael Cacoyannis (Greece)Sergei Vasilyev (USSR)
and
Gene Kelly (USA) obviously best known as a dancer but also some directing.
and
Marcel Achard, the President of that jury, would mostly be known as a playwright and then as a screenwriter but he had directed the film versions of two of his plays and also co-directed two other films.In 1956, Truffaut had famously trashed the film Le Pays, d'où Je Vien which Achard had co-written. ( see Marcel Carné’s memoirs, Ma vie à belle dents for more info there)
The vintage newsreel from the 1959 Cannes festival included with the special features on the Criterion DVD of Les Quatre Cents Coups (The Four Hundred Blows) reveals a sequence at its finish - Jean-Pierre Leaud and Jean Cocteau in the theater for the Cannes showing of the film, cut to Albert Rémy, cut to a slightly overlit shot shot of a prosperous looking middle-aged man over which the narrator tells the audience that even the jury was impressed. That last shot was of Julien Duvivier.

from The Films in My Life by François Truffaut ; translated by Leonard Mayhew. New York : Simon and Schuster, Touchstone Edition 1985, c1978
“When I met Julien Duvivier a little while before his death, and after I had shot my first film, I tried to get him to admit - he was always complaining - that he had had a fine career, varied and full, and that all things considered he had achieved great success and ought to be contented. ‘Sure, I would feel happy ...if there hadn’t been any reviews.’” (page12)

“When I was in Los Angeles in 1974, a great Hollywood actress told me that she would give anything to have the music of “Carnet de Bal” on a cassette. I wish I could have told Duvivier this, while he was still alive.” (page13)

Julien Duvivier, the "young turcs" against the Parisian press: the Bonnefille connection

Ferdinand: This looks like a setting from "Pepe le Moko"
Marianne: Who?
Ferdinand: Pepe le Moko.
Marianne: Who's that?
Ferdinand: You clearly don't know anything.

from Jean-Luc Godard's "Pierrot le Fou"

In an effort to expand on my report on the reactions to the various films from the director Julien Duvivier by the so-called "young turks" and their mentors at Cahiers du Cinema which I posted on Sept 10 2006, I have consulted Eric Bonnefille's biography of Duvivier "Julien Duvivier Le mal aimant du cinema francais" which gives detailed reports on the critical reactions for all of Duvivier's films across the span of all Parisian critics. This post is culled from his reports on the films Duvivier made in the heyday of those "young turks". All translations are mine.

Marianne de ma jeunesse (1955)
(from pages 129-130)
"Nevertheless, Duvivier had rarely gotten such disastrous reviews, even if the better part of the critics respected his try at leaving the beaten path."

Bonnefille writes, "Duvivier found support only in a few papers." and lists 11 critics who turned thumbs down on the film and only 3 who gave it a thumbs up.

He also writes, "Six months later, François Truffaut, in an article on the 'Aging of Films', ranked Marianne among those [films] which are 'born out-of-date' and 'arrived in French cinema 15 years too late' reeking of a 'pre-war esthetic'. "

Voici le temps des assassins...(1956)
(pages 137-140)
Bonnefille writes, "Once again, hostility dominates the press, except that the rejection is not as sweeping as that of Marianne, and, contrary to what we have a tendency to believe in retrospect, it was the critics of a "new generation" who came to Duviver's defense: François Truffaut, André S Labarthe, Jacques Donoil-Valcroze and Alexander Astruc."

" 'Here comes the time of surprises' " Truffaut exclaimed in Arts sure that this was Duvivier's best film, 'The one in which you feel of all the elements: screenplay, direction, acting, photography, music, etc. a control which is that of a filmmaker succeeding in a total sureness of himself and his craft' ".
Bonnefille quotes Astruc as saying, "The photography is admirable, all the compositions are exceptional. You taste a true joy to see this, because it is evident that French cinema errs a lot...by a contempt for mise-en-scene while one senses that Duvivier glories in it....He loves the people he works with."
Bonnefille quotes from Jacques Donoil-Valcroze writing in France-Observateur. "The mise-en-scene is of a great class...The direction is powerful, sober, dense with a kind of depth, profundity and intelligence which in literature is made by the art of a Balzac or Tolstoy."
Writing of André Labarthe's review in Cahiers, Bonnefille says, "He judges Duvivier's work 'of a faultless appearance. He bares witness to a straightforwardness rather rare among our directors.' "
Beyond these four Bonnefille lists only two other critics as being positive on this film, Jacques Nels and Georges Charensol. (Charensol would become one of the most vociferous of the anti-New Wave critics.)
Against these 6 whom Bonnefille finds positive on the film he matches 11 whose reviews he concludes were negative.

L'Homme à l'imperméable (1957)
(pages 145-147)
Bonnefille rates 5 of the reviews for this film as being positive while he considers 7 to be negative.
Bonnefille quotes André Bazin in Le Parisien, "I am astonished that a director so sure of his metier offers us this superficial sketch."
Bonnefille quotes François Truffaut in Arts, "I can no longer bear Fernandel." But also, Truffaut wrote, "Duvivier's work, laborious but impeccable, cared for with a love which surpasses simple conscienciousness ... justifies going out of your way to see."
He considers Jacques Donoil-Valcroze's review in France-Observateur as being negative.

Pot-Bouille(1957)
(pages 153-159)
Bonnefille counts 11 reviews as being positive and 6 as being negative.
He writes this, "As for François Truffaut, he informed the readers of Cahiers du Cinema that Pot-Bouille was 'the opposite of an academic film, a work of irony, baroque, unbridled and mostly unexpected, a ferocious and almost involuntary parody of Gervaise a caricature of Zola, but one faithful and life-like, very clear, in brief, and as my dear friend Jean Domarchi says, Pot-Bouille is the butt-end in its pure state.' Once his lyricism was quenched Truffaut specifies all the same that this "is not a film d'auteur, it is quite the contrary!...But that does not prevent that the ferocity of Jeanson, his verve multiplied by the relentless gentleness of Duvivier, there results something unusual and pleasant.' " Further on in discussing the direction of actors in this film, Bonnefille quotes Truffaut, 'The direction of actors is here almost straight-up.' "
Discussing Michel Delahaye's (who has racked up around 300 contributions to Cahiers since 1953) review of this film in Cinema '57, Bonnefille writes, "For Michel Delahaye in Cinema '57 Zola is present 'but simplified...in the measure that they retain nothing of the ferment of events which can give place to an agreeable parade of typical images.' "

La Femme et le pantin(1959)
(pages 161-163)
This film is almost the reverse of Pot-Bouille as there were by Bonnefille 11 critics whose reviews rate as negative with but 3 on the positive side.
The film was made at the zenith of Brigitte Bardot's and not surprisingly was purely a vehicle for her. In a review published in the April 1959 edition of Cahiers du Cinema Luc Moullet described the film as such, "not a film of Duvivier's but Bardot's film by Duvivier."
Bonnefille quotes Michel Mardore (who has almost 200 contributions to Cahiers beginning in the mid-50s) but who was writing here in Positif, calling the film "a vulgar-touristic pie in the face' where 'Duvivier amuses himself by making a Vadim pastiche."

Marie-Octobre(1959)
(pages171-173)
Luc Moullet writing this time in Arts wrote of this film, "The camera roams a single room, but it's movement never succeeds in rendering, as happens in Rope, an isolated space. The actors are never directed when they are not talking, they appear to be sleeping on their feet....French "quality" cinema...starts with smart words and tragic lines invented by an established scenarist, -Henri Jeanson in this case - which always sound falser than false.
discusses new wave
In discussing the critical reception of this film by the Parisian critics, Bonnefille says, "one finds little real enthusiasm in the reviews." And he finds 2 of the reviews to be positive and 6 to be negative.

Boulevard(1960)
(pages 182-183)
Bonnefille writes, "With 'Boulevard' Duvivier finds among the critics his share of defenders (often moderate) and detractors (sometimes relentless).
I thought that here it might be instructive to reprint the Bonnefille's quote from Georges Charensol's review. Charensol is remembered as one of the most vociferously anti-"New Wave" critics of that era.
"The defects of Boulevard are so obvious that they shield us a little from one of its qualities, its sense of popular life of which Duvivier has given so much testimony...But, all things considered, between the pretentious youngsters who believe that they have discovered cinema while parodying their elders and excellent artisans like Duvivier, my choice is quickly made." Charensol goes on to say, "[Leaud] loses his spontaneity which gave character to The 400 Blows. Stripped of this asset, his inexperience bursts out and, in spite of the energetic direction of Julien Duvivier, he plays and speaks falsely."

POSITIF AND DUVIVIER

The quote above from Michel Mardore concerning the film Le Femme and le pantin, which appeared in an article about Brigitte Bardot, is one of the few mentions of Duvivier's name in Positif in that period. Between the issue no. 4 in 1952 when it published a review of The Little World of Don Camillo and 1968 when it published a posthumous review of Diaboliquement, votre, Positif never reviewed a Duvivier film. Not only that, but searching through Bonnefille's exhaustive study of the reviews of Duvivier's films, I could find only 2 examples of Positif regulars reviewing Duvivier in other venues. Robert Benayoun reviewed La Chambre ardente for France-Observateur and Paul-Louis Thirard reviewed La Femme et le pantin for Les Lettres Francaises.

DUVIVIER AND JEAN-PIERRE LEAUD (page 180)

Jean-Pierre Leaud followed The 400 Blows up with Duvivier's film Boulevard. Bonnefille writes this about that encounter.
"During the shoot which lasted from 8 August to 30 September, the filmmaker had all he could do to deal with the rebellious Leaud. In Le Canard enchainé, Michel Duran let understand that conflicts were not rare. 'The technicians awaited with curiosity the first contact between the director and the young actor. It was conclusive, it appears. The young wiseguy soon revealed himself a lot more insolent than the other.' Duvivier hurried to write the newspaper that Leaud 'was never lacking in respect'. In fact, an altercation had effectively pitted him against the young boy who, having suggested to him that he take lessons from Truffaut, received a slap and deserted the set for a few days. [Bonnefille's source here is Robert Sabatier who wrote the novel the film is based on and who spent a great deal of time hanging around the set] No doubt this was not the only run-in. Jacques Duby [a co-star], however, remembers that Duviver gave proff of a patience towards the caprices of this 'unbearable but talented scamp', in the end obtaining from him 'all that he wanted.' "
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Julien Duvivier and Cahiers du Cinema

We have all read many times of how the young critics at Cahiers du Cinema have savaged Julien Duvivier. Rarely, though, is an attempt made to specify what was said and done during these "attacks'. This is an attempt to begin to draw up a ledger of the reaction of these young critics to Duvivier.
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Some Notes.
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The conseil des dix was a tableau where the reactions of ten critics to recently released films were recorded. Usually it would break down to about 5 Cahiers regulars and five critics from other newspapers or magazines. Some critics from other venues who would regularly weigh in would be Claude Mauriac, Jean de Baroncelli, Henri Agel, Georges Sadoul and Positif's Robert Benayoun.
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The system could be described as:
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4 stars -- See it even if you have to go out of town to.
3 stars -- Go across town if need be to see it.
2 stars -- See it but wait till it is playing in your neighborhood.
1 star -- If you are going to the theater and it is playing, go -- it won't hurt you.
bullet -- No reason to go see it.
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4 stars was used only from mid-1957 onward.
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Voici le Temps des Assassins...
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This film was reviewed in the May 1956 issue of Cahiers by André Labarthe. He spoke Duvivier’s techinique being "as fluid as that of Dassin" and "of a faultless appearance. He bares witness to a straightforwardness rather rare among our directors"
Nine critics gave the film eleven stars, including two from François Truffaut and two from Jacques Donoil-Valcroze. No one bulleted the film, André Bazin abstained.
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In his recapitulation of French film for the year 1956 published in the final issue of ARTS-LETTRES-SPECTACLES of that year, Francois Truffaut would write this about this film:

"Even though Julien Duvivier isn’t a young filmmaker, "Le Temps des Assassins", made with an exemplary probity and a touching love for welldone work, is attractive, naive, falsely gloomy, and, all in all, an enterprise generous in spirit."

NOTE: The reference to "young filmmmaker" was occasioned by Truffaut's having just praised films by the younger directors Henri Verneuil and Claude Boissol.
From "The Early Film Criticism of François Truffaut" edited by Wheeler Winston Dixon and translated by Sonja Kropp.
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L’Homme à l'Imperméable
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This film was not reviewed by Cahiers. The March 1957 issue noted its release in Paris and commented, “Fernandel soaked in a dark story, but Duvivier does not wish to get himself wet.”
Five panelists gave the film one star, including François Truffaut. André Bazin was the lone bullet. Among the abstainers were Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer.
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Pot-Bouille
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François Truffaut reviewed this film in the December 1957 issue of Cahiers. My translation of that review is available:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0245213/board/flat/43330214?d=44136515#44136515
Six critics gave the film nine stars in total, including two each from Pierre Braunbarger and Jean de Baroncelli. Jacques Rivette and Charles Bitsch abstained.
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La Femme et le Pantin
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Luc Moullet reviewed this film for the April 1959 issue. He said that it was more a film starring Brigitte Bardot than a film directed by Julien Duvivier.
Two critics (Moullet and Braunbarger) gave the film one star each. Seven bulleted it (Godard, Rivette and Louis Marcorelles plus Henri Agel, Georges Sadoul, Claude Mauriac and Jean de Baroncelli). Eric Rohmer abstained.
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Marie-Octobre
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This film’s release was noted in the June 1959 issue. It was called a sort of reverse “Twelve Angry Men” whose “authors hold the 90 minutes only by a series of techniques and plot twists completely artificial. The direction goes accordingly.”
Two critics gave it a total of two stars. It was bulleted by five critics, including Rivette, Godard and Moullet. While Jacques Demy, Charles Bitsch and Eric Rohmer all abstained.
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Das Kunstseidene Mädchen
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This film’s release was noted in the September 1960 issue with a two sentence plot summary and it was not considered by the conseil.
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Boulevard
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This film’s release was noted in the January 1961 issue without any allusion being made to Duvivier.
Two critics (Michel Aubriant and Jean de Baroncelli) gave it one star each.
Two from among the younger Cahiers staff (Jacques Rivette and André Labarthe) bulleted the film. Claude Mauriac and Jacques Donoil-Valcroze also bulleted the film.
Eric Rohmer abstained.
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La Chambre Ardente
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Release noted in the July 1962 issue with the comment, “…It is no longer necessary to speak of an unawareness or an incapacity, but of a pure and simple shoddiness.”
The film received one lone star from Paris-Presse critic Michel Aubriant. Six panelists bulleted the film, including, Jacques Rivette, André Labarthe and Jean Douchet. Michel Delahaye and Louis Marcorelles abstained.
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Le Diable et les Dix Commandements
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Not reviewed, its release was noted in the November 1962 issue with the comment, “The devil has dropped two or three commandments, but this monotonous Heptalogue or Hexalogue is ample enough to prove to us that, in the comic or the sentimental as well as in the saucy, Beelzebub is stripped of humor and talent.”
The film received its only star from Georges Sadoul. It was bulleted by five panelists including two from the younger staff at Cahiers, Jacques Rivette and Jean Douchet. Others bulleting the film were Henri Agel and Michel Aubriant. Eric Rohmer and André Labarthe abstained.
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Chair de Poule
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Not reviewed, its release was noted in the Dec63-Jan64 issue with the comment, “…flat, skimpy, without any attempt at intellectual justification.”
This film received not one star. Six panelists bulleted the film including Jacques Rivette and Jean-Luc Godard. Also bulleting the film were Godard-nemesis and Positif critic Robert Benayoun, Georges Sadoul, Jean de Baroncelli and Jean-Louis Bory.
Jean Douchet was among the abstainers.
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Diaboliquement Vôtre
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The February 1968 issue noted its release and Jean Narboni wrote, “…constantly flat or rehashed.”
Two critics gave it one star, including Michel Aubriant. Seven bulleted the film, including, Positif’s Robert Benayoun, Narboni, Jean-André Fieschi and Michel Delahaye .

Cahiers "young turks" and French Quality directors -- May '57

In the May 1957 "Situation of French Cinema" special issue of Cahiers du Cinema, an article featured sixty French directors with a capsule chronology, a filmography and a thumbnail critique for each one. What follows is my translation of the critiques of twelve directors who are the “usual suspects” of “French Quality” cinema. These thumbnails were written by Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Donoil-Valcroze, Claude de Givray, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Lachenay, Louis Marcorelles and Luc Moullet. They were not, however, individually credited. The presence of “Robert Lachenay” in this group, probably signals the participation of François Truffaut.


Once again, these thumbnail critiques were originally published in the May 1957 special "Situation of French Cinema" issue of "Cahiers du Cinema" and translated by me.

Yves Allegret

“Dédée d'Anvers“, “Une si jolie petite plage“, “Manèges” and “Les Orgueilleux” form a coherent whole with a progression towards a mastery of a style and a world-vision, questionable though it be. This “noir” suite lays bear injustice and social hypocrisy, greed, the corruptive power of money, the loneliness of those who do not play the game and the impossibility of love. Praiseworthy concerns, but mingled in with an indulgence for the villainy shown. No matter, the undertaking was viable, strewn with robust scenes, taken from uncompromising ethnological documents on man who is referred to as civilized but who is in the twentieth century savage. Then came three failures. Even should this remain the state of things, Yves Allégret deserves a paragraph in the history of cinema, but no more than that.

Claude Autant-Lara

For many producers, he is the surest of the prominent directors. This blessing constrains him to subjects less demanding and less personal than he might want (but he pressed “Marguerite de la nuit”, one of his poorer films), Censorship has also played him some dirty tricks. For these two reasons, the ensemble of his work, careful, intelligent, and skilful does not avoid a certain classicism which poorly fits this auteur - passionate, mettlesome, explosive, quarrelsome and “committed”, but also esthetic and sentimental. For this reason, one must wonder if, with the march of time, “Diable au corps” and “Le Blé en herbe” will still scandalize the right-thinking. Our wager: these films will pass for romantic - which perhaps they are - and which certainly “Le Rouge et le Noir” is, despite that the accent is placed there on social rather than psychological drama. By contrast, “La Traversée de Paris“, represents in his body of work, the ideal convergence of the ambitions of the auteur and public success. If the fashion of judging the world that is encountered there is more out of the 1930s - an epoque in which the judgment of an Autant-Lara or an Aurenche is fixed - than of 1957, if thus this fashion of judgment was then more revealing than today, it is less that Autant-Lara has preserved the spirit of his youth for which he should be reproached than to the time-lags and contradictions of production. He is attracted to stories of adolescent love but his “children who love” remain, in general, rather theoretic. And that is why the bitter and always revolting style of Lara is better accommodated by a pitiless analysis of disagreeable characters such as those of “La Traversée de Paris”.

Carlo-Rim

As “Carlo” does rhyme with “bravo”, let us regret not being able to applaud his work. “L’ Armoire volante”, in taking us to cloud nine, was not a “signed Levitan”. The sketch film “La Gourmandise” left us dreaming of enchanting tomorrows: one must feel disenchanted. If René Clair’s fault is not allowing himself to be guided by his instinct, Carlo Rim, by contrast, would gain by more self-analysis and better self-control: the crudities would be prevented from becoming vulgarities, the bawdiness from becoming obscenity, and the jokes from becoming oafish. His comic style makes him a cabaret artist-filmmaker who came too late to mise-en-scene. As with Franju and Roquier, the pre-war climate would have been more propitious to the fostering of his talent. The young cinephiles prefer “Admiral” Carbonnaux to this Montmartrois, Carlo Rim.

Marcel Carné

Gamboling not without some awkwardness in a private world of the most formal poetry (“Les Visiteurs du soir“, ”Juliette ou La clef des
songes“) but asserting a consistent taste for recreating the atmosphere of an epoque ( “Drôle de drame“, and “Les Enfants du paradis” which so enchanted the anglo-saxon spectators). Carné is quite himself only as a populist. He has frequented all the little bistros of the Republic, of the Faubourg Saint-Martin or of Boulogne-Billancourt, the dance halls and the furnished townhouses. His Parisien films have the “back-to-work” sourness of the day after a holiday when it is necessary to return to one’s labors. He remains quite strictly tied to a social period -- the Popular Front. Carné lived his golden age as the nucleus of one of the most perfect teams of French cinema -- Prevert, Trauner, Jaubert and Gabin. Friends quarrel intensely and do good work together. Today Carné must defend by himself a prestigious reputation, but he is still the capable artisan whom we knew before 1939. Mad lover of impeccable work, tending towards a formalism a little too dried out that he perhaps inherited from his master, Jacques Feyder.

André Cayatte

After nine average films where only the skillfulness of “Le Chanteur inconnu” stands the test of time, he made the last of the great Jacques Prevert films “Les Amants de Vérone”, a work confused and often irritating but more often moving in its tragic and poetic expression of Fate. Would he be the new Carné? No, his reputation and celebrity since, and (including “Justice est faite”) rests on four “thesis” (whatever that means) films: distinguished, demanding, skillful and often courageous but which, legal pleas rather than works of art, defy esthetic judgment and the “crtitique of beautés”. He defends his ideas as one defends one’s clients, speaking to the gallery. Here, a series of techniques and gestures which might have a polemic value but which are not relevant to the art of film. “Oeil pour Oeil”, shot entirely on location and without any thesis will be awfully revealing. Will we finally know who Cayatte is when, as all authentic creators, he speaks, first off, for himself.

René Clair

A complete film auteur who, from the silent era has brought to French cinema intelligence, finesse, humor, and an intellectualism a bit dry but smiling and in good taste. He was very nearly hobbled by the “talkie” but he quickly understood that his style, inherited from the French “primitives” could easily adapt to this additional frill. “Quatorze Juillet” marks a high point. What follows appears more labored, but “quality” remains. His four post-war films demonstrate an evolution but betray a certain difficulty in finding subjects and end with “Les Grandes manoeuvres“, a finely chiseled and melancholy work. “Porte des Lilas” is announced as a more unusual film with finer turns. In whatever manner that his career continues, he has created a cinematographic universe which is his own, a universe rigorous and not shorn of fantasy, thanks to which he remains one of the greatest film-makers.

René Clément

To call him the greatest French director would be a gratuitous compliment, if one did not imply that Renoir or Bresson are greater because they are more “film auteurs”. In as much as he as proven in “Monsieur Ripois” that his talent could flourish without the help of Aurenche and Bost and as he is now, with Irvin Shaw, the author of the adaptation of “Un barrage Contre la Pacifique” whose mastery and quality we can reasonably presume. More than everything else and beyond their scenarists, all Clément’s films - including his only failure “Le Château de Verre” - manifest a continuous philosophy which is well the doing of their realisateur. His characters are all prisoners of historical or geographical conditions or, more simply, of themselves and it is their desperate battle to break through the bars and vanquish their solitude, battles, doomed to failure or derision, which he paints for us with a meticulous and lucid realism which broaches at once both cruelty and lyricism. He is more than the obstinate architect of proud buildings constructed in tailored stone, more than a majestic director of actors, more than the master of a rigorous style, he is also -- in the proportion that one can measure living artists -- the “film genius”.

Henri-Georges Clouzot

At the age of seven, he wrote a play whose protagonist rid himself of his wife by putting nails in her soup. The story of his life reveals him to be stubborn, clear-sighted, concerned to express the “hard face” of existence. This is a “film auteur”. “I do not believe,” he says, “in a director who is not his own writer.“ He loves his metier. “I am most of all physical, but my greatest pleasure in directing a film, is the shooting, the editing.” He depicts situations with no concern for the judgments of society, but he puts himself in danger of taking the bite from his films by targeting too great a number of spectators. “I work for the Gaumont-Palace,” he proclaims. But we know so well that his concerns, his obsessions -- perversion, true cruelty -- are not compatible with the wants of the great public. Thus, how Clouzot is careful of self-censorship. Furthermore, he knows where he is going and why, in his gallery of monsters, he puts great emphasis on the revolting, the sadistic, the subversive, the executioner. By subtraction, he, little-by-little, reveals, with the sharpness of a photgraphic negative, the dazzling image of pure innocence and of selfless friendship.

Henri Decoin

A little out-of-fashion with his silk scarf in his open-collar shirt. But what of it! Directors who are indulged by history shoot what they want, when they want, where they want. And since long ago, Henri Decoin is one among them. He shoots anything, anywhere, with anyone, but not anyway, however. Decoin spurs integrity all way to reflection on the subjects offered to him. He never hesitates to take risks and goes back to square one, even, after a successful film. Light-hearted, some twenty years ago, when his heart beat for Danielle Darrieux, his name now weighs heavily in the arguments of producers. For Henri knows how, without panache, to adapt himself to all genres, all styles. Why reproach him for this facility? It permits him to be the darling child of the distributors. What says it better?

Jean Delannoy

More than festival awards, his films have most often known success with the public, and, as much evidence confirms it, have “touched” the spectators. A paradoxical situation, since, what critics in general have mostly reproached him -- who has given us this definition “cinema is a movement of the heart” -- for the coldness of his narration and the dryness of his direction, despite a sureness of technique and a copious sense of craft. Academicism, a superficial exploitation of great literary works or social problems, say the most severe. Is this only bias? Well, a critic as perceptive and little inclined to vehemence as Pierre Lephoron came to this conclusion which we will make our own: “One would have to believe that the director of 'Marie-Antoinette Reine de France' tends toward an art that he is incapable of attaining, that his ambitions, as noble as they are, lead him and his finished work astray.”

Julien Duvivier

Some will tell you that today’s Duvivier is not worthy of yesterday’s Duvivier and judge “L’ Affaire Maurizius“ by wailing for “Pépé le Moko”. One might respond by burning “Un Carnet de Bal” in the name of “Sous le Ciel de Paris”. In fact, Duvivier’s career is like a temperature chart with spiked highs and vertiginous slumps that, when led back to a happy medium witnesses an enviable warmth. If it it is rare that his films make rapt, it is rarer that his films make bored. His taste for a certain style of the baroque, culminating with “La Fête à Henriette” make him the often guileful, sometimes aggravating champion of the unexpected. Constructed in stucco rather than cut in marble, his structures are not those that last, but perishables are not the least of foodstuffs.

Jean Grémillon

Since 1953, Jean Grémillon has not directed a feature film. However, “Remorques”, “Lumière d'été” and “Le 6 juin à l'aube” suffice to assure him renown. But, from one who, after the Liberation was considered the most complete French director we had hoped for better and, above all that he would give to our screen the kind of social conscience that it has always lacked. His culture and his moderation would undoubtedly permit him to fill this delicate role. But the imperatives of production decided otherwise and Grémillon’s character did the rest. These half-solutions didn’t suit him which his last three films illustrate, although “L’ Amour d'une Femme” deserved a better reception.


Once again, these thumbnail critiques were originally published in the May 1957 special "Situation of French Cinema" issue of "Cahiers du Cinema" and translated by me.