French filmmaker Julien Duvivier is undoubtedly best known for the 1937 classic Pépé le Moko, starring Jean Gabin. But many film lovers today have seen little else by this poetic realist pioneer, a victim, Michael Atkinson writes in an insightful new essay for Moving Image Source, of auteurism. Ignored for generations by critics who saw his thematically varied output as the work of “an able journeyman without signature or invention,” Duvivier, Atkinson argues compellingly, in fact “rarely let a dull or unevocative shot pass through his camera,” and his films “fairly leap and swoon with visual cogency, surprising compositional drama, and an epitomically French embrace of narrative life, equal parts funeral and fete.” Atkinson wrote his article on the occasion of the Museum of Modern Art’s twenty-two-film retrospective of Duvivier’s work—which includes many of the films Atkinson focuses on, such as Poil de carrote (1925), David Golder (1930), and La belle équipe (1936)—playing now through May 25.
1937
94 min
Black and White
1.33:1
Categories: Clippings
1 Comments
Wed 06 May at 07:57 PM
futurestar
More The Myth of Sisyphus than Narcissus it seems since Jean Gabin turned down the role of Jo, the ex-gangster, bootlegger in Henri – Georges Clouzot – Wages of Fear because the character died in the end. Although older then the scripted character, the role defaulted to the always reliable Charles Vanel. Considering the mass of disparaging events, he was glad to die a desperate death, perhaps sensing something grand was in the making. Score a big one for Monsieur Vanel.
I guess its all in the method. If you goes by one’s own hand due to failed romantic rendezvous then we must be left to imagine someone of Gabin’s stature can call whatever shots he wants whenever. Memory, nuance, and fact never figure into the precedent of the moment. Pepe Le Moko still stands the test of time having gone on to inspire romantic, suave, and debonair crooks
in every medium of the message. Score a big one for Monsieur Gabin and several for the rest of us.
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