Jean Vigo

Continuing on the ol' French movie watching trail....Criterion put out "The Complete Jean Vigo" about four years ago, and I've recently viewed it all. "Viewed it all" sounds like a monumental achievenment, but the "all" is one 90-minute feature, one 45-minute sorta-feature and two shorts of 23 and 10 minutes. All of it is worthwhile, particularly the main feature "L'Atalante." That film shows up on best-of lists all the time, so it was good to finally see it. The films were made from 1930-4, so you could best describe the work here as highly influential, which it was while "L'Atalante" is just flat out a good movie. Vigo died of tuberculosis shortly after shooting "L'Atalante," and it's pretty apparent that he would have become known as one of the masters had he lived longer.

The first short is "À Propos de Nice," and that's credited as a co-direction between Vigo and his only cinematographer Boris Kaufman. It's silent and consists of what seem to be random shots of people in Nice, doing whatever it is they're doing. The editing is what makes this one more than even the sum of its parts....the order everything's assembled, as you see everything from the well-to-do out on the Riviera to poor folks scratching it out.

The second short is "Taris"....although on the actual title screen is more verbiage; I forget what it is. This one's only ten minutes and features a champion French swimmer. What makes this one interesting is the experimentation with photographic technique. Fun stuff.

The third film is the almost-feature "Zéro de Conduite." It's said that François Truffaut was really inspired by this one, and well, if you've seen "The 400 Blows," you'll get that immediately. It's basically a bunch of students acting up in different, often funny, ways. There are also fantasy elements to the film, including an obviously impossible handstand by a teacher (monitor here) and a brief animation of a pencil drawing coming to life. Again, fun stuff.

And then "L'Atalante." I won't go on much about this one, as there's plenty on the web about it already, but suffice it to say that it's a clear winner. I watched it a second time to hear the commentary track and enjoyed it even more. There's not a whole lot to the story; this one's in the telling. And the performance by Michel Simon as Père Jules is pretty unforgettable. Plus there are cats. And they multiply during the course of the runtime. Also....the female lead is played by Dita Parlo, also of "La Grande Illusion." My curiosity made me look up her name, and yes, Madonna used the name "Dita" in her "Sex" book as an homage. Also, noted burlesque artist Dita von Teese named herself after Ms. Parlo. That's your trivia for today.

A clear win for this box set. Ahh.....