Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 08/13/18

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Monday, August 13, 2018

Remorques (Jean Grémillon, 1941)

Michèle Morgan and Jean Gabin in Remorques

André Laurent: Jean Gabin
Yvonne Laurent: Madeleine Renaud
Catherine: Michèle Morgan
Gabriel Tanguy: Charles Blavette
Marc: Jean Marchat
Renée Tanguy: Nane Germon
Radioman: Jean Dasté
Georges: René Bergeron
Dr. Maulette: Henri Poupon
Marie Poubennec: Anne Laurens
Le Meur: Marcel Pérès
Pierre Poubennec: Marcel Duhamel

Director: Jean Grémillon
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert, André Cayatte
Based on a novel by Roger Vercel
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Production design: Alexandre Trauner
Film editing: Yvonne Martin
Music: Roland Manuel

Remorques features Jean Gabin at his most effortlessly rugged and romantic, playing André Laurent, the captain of a tugboat that rescues distressed ships and is paid a percentage of the assessed value of their salvaged cargo. He's happily married to the delicate Yvonne, who longs for him to give up the hazardous work and retire to a less stormy port. Still, André is also devoted to his longtime crew and is reluctant to leave them to the mercies of the company's management. One stormy night they go out to rescue a ship whose captain, Marc, is a nasty piece of work. Among other things, he has a very unhappy wife, Catherine, who manages to escape from the ship in a lifeboat that is picked up by André and his crew. When the storm begins to subside, Marc manages to break the towline that is pulling his ship to shore and head to the port of destination under his own steam, thereby depriving André's tug of its share of the rescue money. But André has salvaged something else from the rescue: Catherine, to whom he is attracted at the peril of his marriage. As their relationship heats up, however, Yvonne becomes seriously ill. Director Jean Grémillon makes the most of this blend of action and romance, keeping it from sinking into mush by leavening things with solid supporting performances and providing a piquant, bittersweet outcome. Remorques was made under difficult circumstances as France fell to the Germans, and was not released until after its stars, Gabin and Michèle Morgan, had left the country for Hollywood.

Repast (Mikio Naruse, 1951)

Setsuko Hara and Ken Uehara in Repast

Michiyo Okamoto: Setsuko Hara
Hatsunosuke Okamoto: Ken Uehara
Satoko Okamoto: Yukiko Shimazaki
Mitsuko Murata: Yoko Sugi
Seiko Tomiyasu: Akiko Kazami
Matsu Murata: Haruko Sugimura
Koyoshi Dohya: Ranko Hanai
Kazuo Takenaka: Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi
Shinzo Murata: Keiju Kobayashi

Director: Mikio Naruse
Screenplay: Toshiro Ide, Sumie Tanaka, Yasunari Kawabata
Based on a novel by Fumiko Hayashi
Cinematography: Masao Tamai
Art direction: Satoru Chuko
Music: Fumio Hayasaka

Repast is one of those beautifully layered films by Mikio Naruse that defy simplistic judgments about the characters. Superficially, it's a story about a failing marriage that tempts you to take sides: Michiyo and Hatsunosuke have been married long enough that the tenderness has rubbed off of the relationship, and they have no children to provide a distraction from the routine of living together. She suffers the tedium and toil of keeping house, and he comes home from his salaryman's job in an office tired and frustrated. They are scraping by financially, and live in a less than desirable neighborhood. Initially the focus seems to be on the woman's lot -- she's the one we see doing all the lonely work of managing the house, whereas he at least has the opportunity to get out and fraternize with his fellow office workers. And when his lively young niece, Satoko, comes to visit -- actually to escape from family pressure to settle down and get married -- Michiyo finds herself slaving for both her husband and his niece. Eventually, things come to a head and Michiyo goes to Tokyo, taking Satoko back to her parents and leaving Hatsunosuke to fend for himself, which he doesn't do a particularly good job of. But Naruse is careful to let us see his side of things as well, and when Michiyo returns to him -- after making a few steps toward finding a job and leaving him permanently -- it's possible to see this as not a defeat for her so much as an acknowledgement that some remnants of their original affection remain and that she has decided to try to build a more equitable relationship on them. The performances of Setsuko Hara and Ken Uehara, who starred in several other films for Naruse, have that lived-in quality necessary for such a muted and ambivalent conclusion.