L’Atatlante

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: C     Film: B+

 

 

Director Jean Vigo died as the final of the four films he managed to get made; L’Atalante (1934) was finished.  It was also the only feature film he ever made, and is considered a forerunner of both the Italian Neo-Realist movement & French New Wave movement.  Perhaps the best to way to explain is that he was asked by his producer to do something less critical and subversive than his controversial Zero For Conduct from the previous year.  The result is that Vigo had much more to offer than politics.  He had an imagination and vitality that made for a more influential film than most from the early sound era.

 

The idea of the film was to make the images and narrative into poetry, often thought of as being from “the French school of poetic realism” seen in some of works of the time by Jean Renoir, Marcel Carne and like directors.  Martin Scorsese’s Kundun (1997) operates this way to some extent.

 

In the case of L’Atalante, the results are decent, but do not necessarily endure, as its reputation would allow you to believe.  The film’s influence could be questioned because a definitive cut did not arrive for a very long time, but even lesser versions of early films (Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed, Orson Welles’ Magnificent Ambersons, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis) are still highly influential.  The story is of a couple that leave a wedding precession, theirs as a matter of fact, as quickly as possible to leave family, friends, and even civilization as far away as possible.  However, the wife (Dita Parlo) still has a need for stimulus that other people or civilization might still offer, though the film has many asides that do not necessarily pertain to this.

 

Though Vigo is clever with the screenplay he co-wrote with Albert Riera, derived from Jean Guinee’s story, this is a man who was expert with short films.  This feature feels like a masterful blending of short story ideas that happen to add up very well.  Michel Simon, who played the title character from Renoir’s Boudo Saved From Drowning (1932) plays a variation of that role that nearly steals the film, taking us away from the couple.  To the film’s credit, it could be sad to be one of the early films that challenges the Hollywood boy/girl story (or is that formula) in a way that would have been too much for the Studio System of that time.

 

Despite her childlike fascination with new possibilities, the fact that she explores any alternatives with her life outside of her husband is one of the biggest reasons this film endures beyond its unique form.  To really understand the importance of this film, one needs much more cinematic scholarship than usual to appreciate its importance to world cinema.  It should be noted, however, that the film has recently inspired a new school of filmmakers to make films in the last decade or so that are nowhere near as good.

 

The sound is not horrible, but has a very slight shrillness and smallness that is not the fault of the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.  Unlike Kino’s reissue of Metropolis, which can get away with a brand new soundtrack since it was a silent music-only film to begin with, New Yorker has the original, nearly 70-year-old audio to contend with.  More work will be needed down the line, but this is still more ideal than the 1.0 Dolby Mono Criterion used on their special edition of Lang’s M (1931) on DVD.  Maurice Jaubert’s score is much loved, but repetitious, yet distinct enough.  This is not the greatest music score ever made, but fans seem to think so.  This is from a new print Gaumont made in 2001, but further digital clean up would be ideal in the near future.  Otherwise, this is average at best.

 

The transfer also makes for an interesting comparison to Kino’s recently released, fully restored Metropolis (1926) having an even more elaborate reconstruction and restoration.  As was the case with the print on the Criterion version of Lang’s M or Image Entertainment DVD print of the silent Cat & The Canary (1926), there are too many instances of jittery footage, scratches, and other damage to the frame on L’Atalante that has to go.  Metropolis was fixed frame-by-frame with wetgate work to get rid of scratches, then with digital work to eliminate the other flaws.  More films need this kind of attention, especially when they still have it, yet are marketed as restored.  Preserved would be more like it.  Boris Kaufman’s cinematography is amazing, but further work could help improve detail and eliminate washed-out shots in addition to the aforementioned complaints.

 

The extras are fairly good, but a recent documentary about the film was not included, though there is a 20-minute featurette about the film.  A one-frame filmography of Vigo’s four films, poster gallery, and stills gallery that includes very old lobby cards are also included, but a film this old and key deserves even more extras.  If this does well, that is something Gaumont & New Yorker ought to consider down the line.  The film alone must be seen once by all movie fans though, so get that required viewing in ASAP.

 

 

- Nicholas Sheffo