Discovering Julien Duvivier
Julien Duvivier was a celebrated auteur in his day, but the Frenchman's work and reputation has slipped from our view. Glasgow Film Festival's mini-retrospective hopes to give a boost to this filmmaker ripe for rediscovery
How do giants of cinema fall through the cracks of critical opinion? It’s a question you’ll be asking yourself if you make it along to Glasgow Film Festival’s trio of screenings showcasing the work of forgotten French filmmaker Julien Duvivier. Glasgow Film Festival co-director Allan Hunter, who programmed the Discovering Duvivier strand, points to, in this case, the rise of the nouvelle vague in the late 1950s, and with it, a sweeping aside of Duvivier’s generation.
“In the fizz and energy of the first films from Godard and Truffaut, Duvivier was very much considered part of the plodding old-guard of French cinema whose films were staid and unadventurous,” explains Hunter. “By then, his best work was largely behind him and he was closely associated with the crowd-pleasing Don Camillo comedies, and so his reputation suffered.”
“We are only just getting the chance to see how good he was”
At least one of the Cahiers du Cinéma crew – Claude Chabrol – later recanted on that dismissal, calling Duvivier “an auteur who didn’t declare himself.” And in general there are signs that his reputation is on the rise, with recent restorations of his best films from the 30s and 40s, and the release of a Criterion boxset in the US last year. “Critic Ginette Vincendeau recently called Duvivier ‘one of the missing pieces in the great mosaic of French 1930s cinema,’” notes Hunter. “I think we are really only just getting the chance to see how good he was.”
Duvivier did have one bona fide hit: the energetic crime caper Pépé le Moko, which starred Jean Gabin as a gangster hiding out in the colourful casbahs of Algiers; it’s one of the films that helped cement the French icon's earthy persona across the world. What else can we expect to find while unearthing his work? “One of the things about Duvivier is just how versatile he was,” says Hunter. "As well as being a key pillar of the poetic realist movement, along with the likes of Marcel Carne and Jacques Feyder, he could also turn his hand to noir-style thrillers, social dramas, horror, ensemble pieces. His best films are lyrical and bittersweet, with a rueful understanding of human foibles. There is a sparkle in the dialogue, a graceful fluidity in the camera movement but frequently an underlying sense of melancholy. He also worked with some of the finest French actors of his era.” As well as Gabin, Michel Simon was another regular collaborator.
La fin du jour
The three films showing in the Discovering Duvivier strand ooze these qualities. “All are classics and all restored, so the aim was to allow audiences to judge Duvivier at his best,” says Hunter of the lineup. La belle équipe (1936) follows five factory workers who win the lottery and decide to invest in an open air cafe. Hunter says the "sense of optimism in their endeavour and the fragility of the camaraderie is very much seen as a reflection of the 'Front Populaire' era.” La fin du jour (1939), meanwhile, is set in a retirement home for actors. Hunter suggests that "it might even have been an influence on Dustin Hoffman's Quartet,” but don't hold that against Duvivier. Finally there’s Panique, a tense adaptation of a George Simenon novel. “Its pessimistic view of human nature and the dangers of mob rule make it seem very contemporary,” notes Hunter.
Duvivier's clout with future filmmakers wasn't too shaby either. “Ingmar Bergman cited Duvivier as one of the reasons he became a filmmaker,” Hunter tells us. “So, in that respect he was an influential figure on subsequent generations.” Hunter also sees the DNA of Duvivier in Billy Wilder's films. “Wilder once said that a cynic was just a romantic with 20/20 vision and there is some of that world-weary, disappointed romantic of Duvivier in his work.”
(Continues below)
More from Glasgow Film Festival 2016:
Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson on Anomalisa
Laura Dern: David Lynch's favourite collaborator
When we ask Hunter if the Frenchman's influence can be seen in any more contemporary artists, he kindly sticks his neck out: "I’m not sure if anyone else would agree, but I can see echoes of Duvivier in, say, the films of Sofia Coppola or even Charlie Kaufman, which suggests some kind of link to our closing gala of [forthcoming Kaufman joint] Anomalisa.”
We’ll leave the last word to Duvivier’s most celebrated peer, Jean Renoir, who said: “If I were an architect and I had to build a monument to cinema, I would place a statue of Duvivier above the entrance.” Entering the GFT, the only effigy you'll find is to Mr Cosmo, but on its screens you've three rare chances to sample some of Duvivier's sparkling and poetic cinema. Don't miss them.
La belle équipe: 18 Feb, GFT, 6.30pm
La fin du jour: 21 Feb, GFT, 6pm
Panique: 23 Feb, GFT, 6.30pm
Read more about Glasgow Film Festival in The CineSkinny – in print at Glasgow Film Festival venues and online at theskinny.co.uk/film/cineskinny
The CineSkinny is brought to you by MUBI, the online cinema bringing you hand-picked film gems every day.