The Prism of Time
I am frequently surprised that I still have a lot to learn about cinema. I know precious little about the silent era, and can’t imagine immersing myself in a study of it, as I can watch only minutes at a time before I start missing sound. I don’t recall having ever heard of Marcel Carne`, who directed 23 movies and wrote 16 screenplays. Last night I watched his Port of Shadows (1938), courtesy of Netflix. It is one of the earliest to be tagged film noir, and is also described as “poetic realism.” It is the story of a deserter, a combat veteran, who ends up in Le Havre. A bleak depiction of life, it was banned in the autumn of 1939, “denounced for its pessimism, defeatism and immoral nature.” That quote is from an article titled Cinema As a Means of Resistance at cinematheque.fr, edited and spliced together by yours truly. Fortunately, a print was hidden in a warehouse by Henri Langlois, an archivist. It was restored recently, and the DVD is fine and includes a brief history before it begins. I’d never heard of a work being forbidden simply because of its downbeat nature, and I’m surprised this happened in France, where it always seemed anything goes. Anyone viewing it in the decades that followed must have wondered what all the fuss was about. And today even prime time TV goes infinitely farther. Is it great? One list of the best French films of all time ranks it #9. Although I enjoyed it, I wouldn’t dub it a classic. Perhaps my opinion would change on further viewings. It seemed choppy. 7000+ users at IMDb have rated it, forging to a consensus of 7.8 on a scale of ten. I did recognize the leads, Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan, icons in France, but no one else in the cast. Jacques Prévert adapted the screenplay from the novel by Mac Orlan. It runs only 91 minutes. Its appeal may be restricted to aficionados of film noir and cinephiles. Anyone bothered by the depiction of life as hopeless should pass. Here are the lovers in character:
A cool video at youtube, Theories That Make Horror Movies Even More Freaky, proposes that Macauley Culkin’s character in Home Alone (1990) grows up to be the psychopath in the Saw series.
A headline at nypost.com gives hope to the follically challenged: “Cap that zaps your scalp could reverse male balding.”
It was a quiet session of the floating book shop. My thanks to the gentleman who insisted on paying for a thriller in Russian despite donating another; and to Bill Brown, author of Words and Guitar: A History of Lou Reed’s Music and other books, who purchased Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; and to Mr. Conspiracy, aka Steve, who took home a huge pictorial on French cooking.
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