Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 03/09/25

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

Sunday, March 9, 2025

Port of Shadows (Marcel Carné, 1938)

Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan in Port of Shadows

Cast: Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, Pierre Brasseur, Édouard Delmont, Raymond Aimos, Robert Le Vigan, René Génin, Marcel Pérès, Jenny Burnay, Roger Legris, Martial Rèbe. Screenplay: Jacques Prévert, based on a novel by Pierre Mac Orlan. Cinematography: Eugen Schüfftan. Production design: Alexandre Trauner. Film editing: René Le Hénaff. Music: Maurice Jaubert.

Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows is a variation on the old trope of the stranger come to town. In this case, the stranger is an army deserter named Jean (Jean Gabin) and the town is Le Havre, where he hopes to hop a freighter and leave the country. Instead, he gets involved with a beautiful young woman named Nelly (Michèle Morgan) and finds himself depending on the kindness of strangers, one of whom is so kind as to commit suicide and leave him with a suit of clothes, an ID card, and some money. Others, including Nelly's guardian, Zabel (Michel Simon), and his gangster associates, are not so kind. It's a movie that goes a long way on the atmosphere created by Eugen Schüfftan's cinematography, Alexandre Trauner's set designs, and the slangy poetry of Jacques Prévert's dialogue. Oh, and there's a cute little dog who falls in love with Jean, too. Maybe the quintessential French film, the way Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) is the quintessential American movie, Port of Shadows has plenty of admirers, but a good many people also think its Gallic Weltschmerz takes it well past the point of self-parody.