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latalante As Precursor Of The Nouvelle Vague
French cinema - Nouvelle Vague - Early French cinema
Date : 14/07/2016
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Uploaded by : Emilce
Uploaded on : 14/07/2016
Subject : Humanities
"L'Atalante' (henceforth
LA) is considered a precursor and inspiration of la nouvelle vague of the
1960's. Truffaut, director of "Tirez sur le Pianiste'(henceforth TSLP) himself
fell in love with LA in 1946 when he was 14 and not even knowing who Jean Vigo (the
director) was. LA seems a simple story-the marriage of a young barge captain
named Jean, and a village girl called Juliette "who always wanted to do things
differently' for example there is no wedding feast. The young girl desires to
transcend her precarious existence via fantasy or escapism through marriage.
Her new world is made up from now on of her new husband, his sailor friend
"Jules' who sails between Le Havre and Paris, a cabin boy and six cats. We can
see this menagerie is in itself reminiscent of the circus and there is an
element of the grotesque in pè&re Jules' portrayal. The spectacle of
the fairground is present in the claustrophobic depiction of their life on the
barge. For example the fact that there are cats on the table and in the bedroom
seems seedy and invasive to the viewer. The threatening and eerie aspect of the
circus and the fairground is entertaining yet false, squalid and sleazy with
perhaps an element of danger. In the sequence in which after their first
morning the couple is serenaded by an accordion and a barge man's song,
Juliette and old Jules are left alone because the couple had argued over the
laundry. Jules seems to be about to
assault her but she is making a dress and gets him to model it for her. The
sense of danger is diverted and at this point he shows her the treasures of his
life in a sort of "Wunderkammer' (curiosity cabinet) including a jar with what
he claims are the hands of his best friend which we can see before Dita Parlo's
character does. The paraphernalia owned by Pè&re Jules includes an "automate
chef d`orchestre' which is lasciviously referred to with the following innuendo:
'je vais vous montrer mon petit home' (later on, we shall be confronted with
similar dolls at the magasin de poupé&es in Paris). His body is covered in
tattoos, another staple of the circus, with its erotic charge which is further
reinforced by Jules sticking a cigarette in his navel where a woman's mouth has
been tattooed (Warner, 1993, p.37, informs us that this scene was not present
in 1934 and has until recently only been known from a still). The sequence by a
canal side bistro sees the couple being entertained by a pedlar who the viewer
can see is a fraudster, both his acts and sleight of hand are disingenuous and
tempts Juliette with pretty scarves but crucially acts as a tempting devil by
painting word pictures of Paris that trigger her imagination and draw her away
from Jean. One could say that the Camelot and the fortune teller incarnate the
city "l' é&clat, la profusion et la magie', bringing tales of romance, exotic
places and fantastic happenings. Jean represents the opposite but still the
spectacular elements of the city entice Juliette. The character of Pè&re
Jules could also be seen as a form of spectacle, his appearance, mannerisms and
the way in which he presents himself to Juliette (and the audience) is quite
similar to that of a freak show and his accordion playing, cross-dressing and
dancing demonstrate him as an entertainer.
The elements of the Vaudeville spirit
live on in several representations, for example, Pè&re Jules' curiosity cabinet of
"retrouvailles'. The sequence in which Jean is shot underwater where Juliette's
image appears superimposed can be seen as a wonderful visual spectacle of
illusions, especially since underwater shots would have been quite revolutionary
at the time. This underwater sequence (ghostly and like a circus sé&ance,
dealing with a possible death and the occult) has a lot to do with the 'watery'
unconscious and psychoanalytical "currents' and the conceptualisation of the
'self' we see projected onto the screen. According to Samuels, French
psychoanalysis, particularly the é&cole freudienne under the leadership of
Jacques Lacan, likewise critiqued the role of vision in the formation of
subjectivity. Lacan's notion that the unconscious is structured like a language
emblematized the anti-visual stance of a certain strain of French structuralism
that rejected the phenomenological understanding of the subject constituted
through perception alone. We know that the mirror has great significant for
Lacan's theories (which we shan't go into) and their connection with the
identity of the self, so all the more poignant the moment in which Edouard
looks into the mirror in the bedroom trying to find the 'real pianist'.
According to Beller, (2006) 'a work of art is first and foremost a tractor
ploughing over the audiences psyche in a particular class context'' (after
Eisenstein). "By capturing the visual attention of others, the artist generates
his income'…&"what is required is simply an image rooted to the world by passing
through a human and humanizing mind.' Throughout L'Atalante, scenes of
spectacles have a narrative function, representing urbanism and the city life
that is so novel and intriguing to Juliette. This interest in the city life
emphasizes Jean and Juliette's differences and without it the movie would lose
its originality and it would be far too predictable for Vigo. There are
Brechtian touches in the poverty and the 'Moritat' of the accordion music, as
there is pathos in the 'bal musette' that promises more than it delivers, plenty
of melodrama but also understated realism. The opening
sequence of TSLP takes up from "les Mistons' and shows Truffaut's ambiguous
relationship with American cinema as he uses the technique of the film noire (a
car chase at night with rapid cutting) and one could speak of a spectacle of
lights as the rays of the headlights reflect of the wet glistening streets. The
continuous tracking shot, in which Chico and a stranger discuss love and
marriage, is alien to the genre, similar to the scene in which Edouard notices
a beautiful violinist who is given considerable cinematic attention but never
reappears. The preoccupation with genre becomes more complex as elements of
other genres penetrate the narrative. The iconography of the musical, comedy,
and western each features briefly. This disorientates the spectator because he
is unsure of what he is watching. There are numerous allusions to films, past
and present, such as the triple screen reference to Abel Gance (during the
scene in which Charlie and Lena's Boss is giving away their information to the
gangsters), and at one point of the film Charlie speaks directly to the
audience through the medium of his conscience. Disruption of genre occurs also
on the level of tone as the film is farcical at times, and tragic at other
times, for example when Theresa takes her life and Lena is shot. We soon come
to understand that Truffaut is not making a genre film but subverting it, there
are apparent random heterogeneous components for example the interest in
children and childhood and the emblematic presence of contemporary Paris, such
as the bar, the dancing and the gangsters. Truffaut's aim of subverting the
noire genre is evident in the manner in which he adapted Goodis's novel "Down
There'. The film becomes his and the novel is only an inspiration.In a sequence in
which the pianist, interpreted by Charles Asnavour plays, his stillness is
contrasted with the lively atmosphere around him and Bobby Lapointe style of
singing. Lena says of Charlie, even when he was somebody, he has to walk alone,
and this loneliness is reflected at the end of the film. Truffaut like Vigo
always worked with the same team. Truffaut pays a
self-conscious (comic) hommage to the
pulp fiction-polar genre which he thinks is underrated, the sadness of the
pianist interpreted by Charles Aznavour is well represented by this performer
(who is incidentally well known as a singer-pianist by the audience, the
prototypical entertainer!) who is regarded as morally suspect: "il incarne la
solitude et tire le film vers le mé&lodrame, rejoignant ainsi les pré&occupations
de Goodis' (Gué&rif, 1987, p5). Truffaut stated in Polar number 23 avril 1982 "je n'é&crits pas de roman
policier, mais dans mes thè&mes il y a du mé&lodrame et de l'action'. The genre
noire is more common in American cinema than in French cinema but Truffaut
subverts the genre. The film is
littered with elements of spectacle. The film starts with a "gros plan' showing
the credits superimposed upon the hammers of the inside of a playing piano
while the background Leit Motif (this song is repeated during the film). The
hammers rise and fall to the rhythm of the music like a dance. Bobby Lapointe similarly performs mechanically
in the café& as if he himself was a puppet or an instrument. The scri pt quotes
the notorious song he sings as part of his cabaret act, 'Avanie et framboise'
[sont les mamelles du destin…&] with its gross double-meanings, reminiscent of
sea-side postcards and the burlesque. Another song (allegedly loved by
Truffaut) sung by Felix Leclerc appears on the radio in the overnight car
journey, 'Dialogue des amoureux' –& which creates an impasse at that filmic
juncture. The bar itself (an area that we return to a few times within the
film) is place in which the impassive Charlie and the band's music is played
and there is dancing. Upbeat honky-tonk music and classical pieces play
throughout the film, sometimes by Charlie or just in the background emphasising
the films musical element. Death on the snow brings out the last sentence from
Charlie to Lena: «& Quand je te dé&testerai, je mettrai ma casquette »&. Life goes
on, back to the café&, where a new serveuse replaces Lena and the film ends as
it started, with a gros plan of the piano and his hands, to his serious face
and the closing rising music. Performances are
common, from Charlie playing in the small bar to Edouard playing the grand
piano in a large music hall. Charlie is even treated to the erotic spectacle of
striptease by the ex-performer/prostitute who lives on his floor. Throughout the
film shots encompass mirrors which create an aspect of illusion, similar to a
fairground hall of mirrors. Truffaut is
quoted as stating that his films are like 'circus shows …& no two acts together
…& I think of the circus while I am working' (Crisp, in Brunette, 1993, p. 216).
The sounds of the film are 'natural', and the bar sequences where there is
'live' music are more often than not related to sexual advances. Charlie's
flashbacks to his glorious time as a concert pianist fade into classical music.
This is now a routine he cannot escape from, a persona as a bar-room pianist
that makes up his new identity. Indeed, the title recalls American B-movies
(set in the Far West) where a bar-room
sign pleads 'Don't shoot the pianist' –& we must also recall that 'shooting'
means in filmic parlance, filming. Repetition is
central to TSLP, this is witnessed where the small man is repeatedly enticed by
the dancing partner (the Prostitute), beckoning him and pushing him away, until
it ends in violence on the male's part. The mixture of
'high and low' art and entertainment is clearly defined by Charlie's two roles,
'falling' from his role as celebrated pianist to bar-room pianist. 'Qui est
Charlie Kohler?', we are asked via Lena's voice. 'Little is known. He's a
pianist …&'. The name Charlie is not chosen by chance: it is meant to evoke
Chaplin, (and we also have 'Chico', another vaudeville actor in the audience's
mind). In the audition scene, part of the flashback in Edouard Saroyan's life
(alias Charlie Kohler) we see that before the audition there is a good
relationship between Charlie and Teresa. After the audition a solo recital
given by Charlie on stage the couple are going to head towards the hotel where
they are going to have the first quarrel. Outside Lars Schmeel's office Charlie
and an unknown violin player bump into each other, a beautiful woman, who could
have changed his life and become a significant character within the narrative,
but remains unknown. This is a Hitchcockian "red herring' because we never see
the beautiful violinist again. The musical career of the hero is intimately
intertwined with the women present throughout the film. The colour white has
tragic connotations for Charlie: the silhouette of Theresa against the pavement
and Lena's fall down the hill in the snow (the theme of 'white against black'
is of course a trope in the film, milk on the windscreen as well). Unlike the
films of Godard, where there is a certain freedom to be serious and engage
intellectually, Truffaut engages in a certain 'insouciance' remarked upon by
Brunette (1993, p. 3). All in all,
according Debord (1983, p.3) 'the spectacle is not a collection of images, but
a social relation among people, mediated by images, and the spectacle presents
itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument
of unification'. We are never to forget that when are watching TSLP and LA we
are watching a spectacle and the melodrama of everyday life. BibliographyBeller, Jonathan, The
cinematic mode of production: Attention economy and the
society of the spectacle, University Press of New England, 2006Brunette, Peter (ed) Shoot the Piano Player, Roundhouse Publishing: Oxford, 1993.Conley, Tom, Getting
lost on the waterways of L'AtalanteDebord, Guy,
Society of the Spectacle, Black and Red, Detroit 1983Gué&rif, Franç&ois, Franç&ois Truffaut et
la sé&rie noire : Tirez sur le pianiste Vivement dimanche ! :
L`Avant-Scè&ne Ciné&ma n°& double 362-363 - Juillet-aoû&t 1987. Samuels, Maurice, Practices
and Theories of the Visual [class Moodle upload]Vigo, Jean Oeuvre de Cinema, Pierre L'Herminier, Paris 1985Warner, Marina, L'Atalante, BFI Publishing, London
1993
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