Marcel Carné, 1945
Note: These posts were written at the end of last year. I thought I might muster up the time/energy to finish them, but I just can't right now. I upload them unfinished as relics of an intenser, more desparate time.
OK, let's say this: I first saw this the beginning of my senior year of college. For the first time in my entire life, my love life was going inconceivably well, and I adored it the way only someone in love with a person who likes you back can: the idea of unhappiness in love is totally beyond your grasp and the notion of suffering for love just seems grand and thrilling and not at all like the crushingly awful experience it actually is. When I ended up showing it to my boyfriend in college he, being a more logically suffering-averse person than I but still surprisingly sensitive, responded by saying "I need a hug." Watching it again now, at a very different place in my life... well, the first thing we can say definitively about this movie is if you watch it all by yourself at 11 at night, all the things in your life that you've told yourself you've accepted and are totally fine with will come back to haunt you and lordy, will you cry.
Now having seen this film several times and having cried each time, I should have buffeted myself better, but I came in from a place of challenging my assumptions and trying to see the film with new eyes. If you've read this blog for a while you may recall that I've once or twice threatened to write about this film, mainly because I consider it to be one of my favorites, along with Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise. (God, it feels really weird to commit myself to that by putting it into writing, although I have practiced it by saying it to classmates.) At an orientation event this film came up in conversation (not along the lines of favorite movies) and it was treated very derisively as something only the uneducated (sentimental?) masses like. I said nothing, which I at the time viewed as a kind of Nazi-era keeping silent that oddly echoed the conditions of the film's making (it was shot during the German occupation and many Resistance workers used employment on the film as a cover), but within a more a realistic have come to view is it as a symptom as a tendency to doubt my own talents and opinions, something I am working on.
UPDATE: To be honest with you, I always anticipate that I will cry at the end of this film, and I look forward to it, first of all because I can be a bit maudlin and secondly because I find it cathartic; a kind of palate cleanser to cap off the experience. I have since watch the film again, a few days ago. I have to confess to you that I currently feel that I am at the darkest point in my life, although things are looking up today. But even though I basically felt like absolute shit that day, for the first time I didn't cry at that thrillingly tragic ending. I hope this doesn't mean I've become inured to the film -- I suspect I will go through cycles of crying and not crying as I watch this movie through the stages of my life -- and I think it had more to do with the fact that I was sharing it with a new acquaintance (too soon and the circumstances too weird to call him a friend) and was anxiously gauging his response. He really liked it but that ending did him in; he collapsed in his chair and lowered his hat down over his eyes. I seem destined to break men by showing them this movie. I wanted to ask him whether, after getting over the initial shock, he felt the profound sense of humanity the film always gives me or whether he even ultimately liked it, but I felt awkward doing so. Like I said, the circumstances are weird.
It is certainly true that critical consensus has moved away from an appreciation of Carné; it has ever since the nouvelle vague attributed any magic his film had to his frequent screenwriter Jacques Prévert. Carné died, if not exactly in obscurity, then with some hurt feelings, in 1996. The only reason that comes to mind is that postmodern condition so accutely articulated by David Foster Wallace in Infinite Jest: severe discomfort with genuine emotion. Which is weird, because I always thought we went to the movies to emotionally connect, that the bigness of them makes that easier.
Children certainly operates on that principle, and I love it because for me no film connects with the viewer's emotions so directly and unabashedly, with seriousness of purpose yet no proselytizing. It addresses some of the most vital issues in life: how to and if you should maintain freedom, the different kinds of creativity and the nobility of making art for the common man. The justness of society and the merits of rebellion in its different forms are also discussed.
And, of course, it deals with love. Look, I'll just come out and say this: Children teaches you an important lesson about love that you should take very seriously. If you are lucky enough to love someone who loves you back, never, ever, ask that person: "Do you love me exactly as much as I love you?" Accept that they love you in their own way and be content. Do not ask me how I know this. "C'est tellement simple, l'amour" ("Love is so simple") the alluring, elusive Garance (played by the alluring, elusive Arletty) murmurs in one of the film's most romantic moment. And her tone is so seductive that the simultaneous truth and falseness of the statement reverberate in a mystical way that reveals something new and liberating. Love gets complicated, but we can endeavor to make it simple and in so doing reach for something marvelous.
Despite its tale of doomed romance, every time I watch Children I feel it is suffused with a sense of dazzling, sparkling possibility; the possibility of making a new world. Had I but been in possession of "the noive," as the Cowardly Lion would say, I could have countered with the somewhat intellectually pornographic tidbit that Children was the favorite film of the French philosopher Guy Debord. Debord was a founding member of the Situationist International -- a group closely affiliated with the 1968 student protests of 1968 -- and the author of The Society of the Spectacle. The general gist -- it's been a while since I read it, and I'm not sure I entirely got it -- is that normal life has to devolved into constant representation and has become a manufactured spectacle.) The goal of the enlightened citizen is to break through the continuum of the spectacle and create authentic human experience.
You’re so caught up in the romance and human drama that you don’t realize it at first, but Children could very easily be read as a Situationist film. The action takes place in the world of the spectacle, and little shoots and shards of real humanity break through. (Although of course for characters like Baptiste and Lemaitre (Pierre Brasseur), their art is their life, and while they certainly have [principally romantic] problems outside their jobs, on a purely narrative level the distinction may not be so distinct for them.) The actors at the Funambules, home to the mimes, are fined if they make a noise backstage. The most poignant situationist moment occurs when the actress Nathalie (Maria Casares), pale and sick with grief, as the Bard would say, that her crush and star of the show Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) has just discovered his crush Garance canoodling with aspiring actor Fredereick Lemaitre backstage, and Nathalie impulsively calls out, “Baptiste!” Later on, Frederick breaks through the spectacle of a trite play he’s been forced to jumping into the loges, inventing his own dialogue, and rewriting the script as he goes. (This scene, so seemingly simple, is indescribably pleasurable to watch.) Baptiste, on the other hand, disrupts the spectacle of life by weaving it into his mime show and revising the ending; taking ragman Jericho (Pierre Renoir), who he loathes, and murdering his likeness on the stage.
But there are other, subtler, Situationist moments all over Children, like the beggar who’s blind on the street but sees well enough to appraise stolen goods in the bar. And perhaps the most Situationist of all, the most determined to lance through the fabric of society is Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand) public scribe adding his own flourish to private tendresses by day and thieving and conniving...well, also by day, mostly. (More on him later.) Given these examples, I certainly think there’s a case to be made -- by someone more familiar with the philosophical terrain, naturellement --for Children as Situationist text.
When watching this film I often get so absorbed in the story that I later berate myself for not taking note of the technical side and not finding something -- this Holy Grail that in my egotism I believe some cinematic deity has sent me to find -- that might restore -- or even establish -- if only in some small way Carne’s reputation as an auteur. The first time I watched it, I was too emotionally involved to pick up on anything. But the second time around I had a great appreciation for his handling of crowds in moving shots and big scenes, many backstage at the Boulevard du Crime or along the Boulevard du Crime (nowadays known by its proper name, the Boulevarld du Temple; if I return to Paris I must make a pilgrimage.) There are only a few tracking shots, some that just astonish you with their scope, and some that reveal little surprises. He usually opts for two-shots in conversation scenes. Simon Callow mounted a stage performance of this in the ‘90s. It was a notorious flop (although of course we want to believe that Charles Laughton’s biographer can do no wrong) and this does seem to suggest, a few years too late for poor Marcel to enjoy the admission, that it takes a sure hand to handle Prevert’s poetic text.
But the film, at least for me, really is an awful lot about character; so let’s dive into it, shall we? Let’s start with Baptiste. OK, I will lay all my cards on the table and open my heart to you: I love Baptiste more than any male character in all the movies I’ve seen. Because of this I always imagine him, between viewings, as angelically beautiful. Then I pop in the DVD and discover that he’s not terribly attractive, not in the conventional sense, at least not at first. The face is a little oddly molded, and when we initially see him he’s topped with a stringy wig and silly hat, looking something less than the noble fool who’s the star of the show. But love, inspiration, and to a certain degree that white makeup, prove transformative. When Lacenaire strolls by the show and steals a pocketwatch off a fat man and Garance, standing next to said fat man, gets blame, Baptiste saves the day, and in doing so steps into the spotlight. As much as we are witnessing the discovery of a great talent, we are also witnessing the a seduction, to my mind one of the greatest in film, perhaps second only to one (or is it two?) in Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise (which we will hopefully get to soon.) Because there are three layers of seduction going on here: first the display of talent and secondly the rescue of the damsel in distress. But thirdly, and for me the most knee-knockingly, we have a man, standing in front of a woman, telling her story. (Oh God, did I just unwittingly mimic the ending to Notting Hill when I haven’t even it? The power of the romantic comedy rhetoric; that’s disturbing.) Speaking personally, the most alluring part of being in a really close relationship is the feeling of being truly known; of having someone who knows your story, can recite it, can stand up for you, tease you even. (It’s funny how we find this quality so beguiling in a romantic partner and so irritating in our families.) So here we have the artistic man, promising to protect the woman narratively. Under a guise of openness, Garance really plays her card’s close to her vest (more on this later), so we can’t immediately tell how she takes this unusual pledge of fidelity. Her survival mechanism, honed after all these years of living on her own, means she (I believe truly) loves both everybody and no one, but here her eyes have a special sparkle. She tosses a rose she had been holding to Baptiste, and something blissful and slightly magical and beautifully sad begins.
Baptiste becomes beautiful; transformed not only by love but by the opportunity to create the kind of art he wants to make -- comedy for “the gods,” the poor people who sit up in “paradise” or the very highest seats. (Sorry I know there’s a technical term for that, but it completely escapes me.) Perhaps we should enjoy Baptiste most on the stage, but I always take great pleasure -- it’s almost like a secret personal thrill, though other people must enjoy it as well -- in Baptiste in his narrow three piece suit, beaming waxing about his popular art to Lemaitre over a cup of wine, boldly asking Garance to dance (remember, prospective lovers: no risk, no reward) and lithely picking himself up and returning to the dance after one of Lacenaire’s men kicks him through a window. I believe I have previously spoken to the sexiness of physical comedy; watching a man blithely dusting himself off after such ideal, face still beaming, gives a gal (this one, anyway) extremely intense feelings. Sometimes I feel like watching these scenes, in the right mood, I get the closest I ever will to understanding Teresa of Avila’s ecstasies. And later, when Baptiste turns his suffering into art, he has something saintly about him; he plays the holy fool.
I feel like we’re going chronologically, which I find tedious, but let’s roll with it just for now. Then we have that lovely scene between Garance and Baptiste, outside Le Rouge Gorge, looking out at Menilmontant; a real showpiece for Prevert’s dialogue. When I first saw this film, young and flush with first love, I saw him, and all the characters really, as Gods (not to be confused with the lower-case-g gods, up in the highest balcony, who when you think of it, make the capital-G Gods what they are.) But these past few times I see him more as he really is: a mere man who struggles with timidity, with accepting female sexuality when it hits him square on the nose, and most of all with that “Do you love me as I love you?” question. I’m struggling a lot with this issue with my father right now (you think that it’s only relevant in romantic relations, but it brings up familial issues as well, and I’m sure I don’t need to make the girl--Daddy Issues emphasis for you). Wanting someone to change their way of loving you, while perhaps a very natural impulse, will only bring a lot of heartache. Garance has her own way of loving (more on this later), and because he cannot accept this...well, he suffers a lot of heartache. I think the beginning of the Baptiste-Garance romance can be summed up with a few lines from Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along: “And if I wanted too much/Was that such/A mistake/At the time?/You never wanted enough--/All right, tough,/I don’t make/That a crime.”
So it’s a truism that if you’re suffering you should do something with it; that we suffer for some reason -- be it only to reap our eternal reward in heaven. I feel like I’m bringing up Infinite Jest all the time -- and maybe I really shouldn’t, because I made a lovely girl cry the other day during a conversation about David Foster Wallace -- but there’s this absolutely brilliant part in it where he describes all the types of unipolar depression and I just thought dammit, I’ve felt all these things for literally months on end and I could never write anywhere near as well about it. Now “can’t be the best” does not necessarily equal “sufffered for nothing,” but I brought it up with my therapist the next day and she basically said: “Yeah, it sucks, but sometimes people suffer for no reason.”
But a lot of times people have to or are determined to turn their suffering into something (often art, quite often bad art). But Baptiste gets it right, artistically if not psychotherapeutically, every night returning -- in a very stylized way -- to the primal scene where he asked that fatal question and love slipped. Seeing Baptiste throughout the rest of the film, even though he may be petulant and melodramatic, he has a touch of mysticism about him, mixed with a terrible, thrilling humanity.
Even now as I write, I tell myself I won’t actually post this; that it’s self-indulgent crap. Too many rambling digressions trying to impress you with my intelligence, too many emphatic, ever multiplying adjectives reaching, in an evidently desperate manner, to describe an ecstatic reaction that may be beyond words, and perhaps not even interestingly so. I’m probably just deeply pathetic; all my favorite films are about love and romance. I tell myself and others that this because all of these things -- love, romance, desire -- are intense shared human experiences, and as such offer a gateway into the very nature of existence. But I very much fear that this predilection will give me the dreaded label of “girly,” which I vehemently shy away from and (along with my friends, I might add) disdainfully cast on other women. “She’s girly,” we say, in our secret language honed over 13 years of friendship, “she’s not one of us.” I’ll admit I have my personal reasons for investigating love: for me, it didn’t initially come until quite a bit after adolescence, only a few months after I’d despaired of ever finding it and decided to live my life on a different plane. It was great and I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world, but I feel tremendous guilt because, with my multiple mental disorders, I wreacked a lot of havoc. On Friday a friend told me that it seemed like I wanted everyone to take care of me, and when they don’t I get resentful. It reverberated in that horrible way the truth does, but worse it meant I had not truly learned the lessons I had from all that havoc. Since then I’ve had lots of promising opportunities cut short by my out-of-control issues, and never really that feeling again. Now I’m afraid that I’ve become someone who’s squirmy around people and thus so devoted to work that she’s become hard and flinty. I worry that Peggy Olson’s speech about dropping things along the way to get ahead and dot being able to get them back applies to me.
So it is with that huge caveat that I tell you that Baptiste fascinates me because he is a fellow student of love. People immerse themselves in love for any number of reasons. For many, and we all know these girls (perhaps I am one of them) the immersion brings them close to delirium from a desire to rationalize everything into theory. Others are able to separate the knowable from the ineffable, accept it, and apply it or maybe turn it into something. Baptiste is so remarkable because not only does he manage to make something out of his suffering, he really learns from his mistakes. He’s still a mere mortal, and he errs in marrying someone he doesn’t love (more on her later), but when the primal scene occurs in real life he stops himself from asking the question and is able to embrace the moment (and the girl). And when this embrace occurs, it is so palpably warm and frankly sexual, that it seems surprising for the era. (Perhaps we just sigh and say: “Ooh la la, ze French!” but I think we have to credit Carne’s handling of the material here.)
It was interesting how we cannot speak of Baptiste without mentioning Garance: Baptiste and Garance, Garance and Baptiste. I think it’s worth pointing out that even though Wikipedia says that this film is about a courtesan and the four men who love her, there’s no denying the connection between these two. I’ve only seen the actress Arletty in one other film, another Carne/Prevert collaboration Le jour se leve, but she is definitely one of my favorite actresses. She has this way of holding and cocking her head, of exhibiting very contained, articulated mannerisms. All this conveys a heavy an air of anticipation, hinting at unimaginable delights yet to come. These characteristics I have only seen in French women. You should see them in Venetian restaurants, nimbly and artfully maneuvering their way through plates of pasta with black squid ink sauce. It’s absolutely incredible -- I’ve often thought that I’d write a short story partly about that and perhaps someday I shall. Anyway, I wonder if in some way our Ms. Arletty represents all Frenchwomen, the way Garance is said to represent France, eventually “occupied” (rather a crude metaphor, if you think about it) by the Count (Louis Salou), but essentially remaining forever free. I’m not sure how much of Arletty’s oeuvre is available stateside -- does anybody know where I can get a good copy of Hotel du nord? -- but I’ll certainly try to jump right in. At the film festival in Pordenone a few years back, I paid entirely too much money for a book on Arletty (that’s how deep the obsession runs), which she signed with a smiley face next to her name. When I have time to get really friendly with a French dictionary (which probably means this summer), I’ll be able to give you some more information.
In the meantime I’ll just leave off with my favorite Arletty tidbit. During the war, she committed the ultimate transgression by getting romantically involved with a German officer. When told she had some ‘splainin to do, she replied “My heart is French, but my ass is international.” I mean, what can you even add to that? They just don’t make them like that anymore. What a broad.
I find myself going hit or miss on his movies, but I always have a great fondness for Terry Gilliam, because I find his effusive love of movies contagious. He did the introduction for the Criterion edition of this film, and mostly it was good but there’s one thing he got totally wrong. At one point he made some sideways comment about how Arletty’s pretending to be young, but she’s really not, but that’s OK. That’s totally not the point: for maybe once in the history of cinema, we’re presented with a sexuality that is a) based on experience and b) not demonized. When Garance looks into the camera with those sparkling eyes and wry smile, we are invited to taste something both easy and comfortable and exotic due to years of acquiring experiential knowledge. Few actresses, asked to step up to represent this position, gets it right; Arletty (perhaps we’re back to “Ooh la la, ze French!” territory) nails it. Watching her makes you wonder what the hell the deal is with the attraction to innoncence in the first place.
