Jean Gremillon
Jean Gremillon
RANKED:
5. The Lighthouse Keepers (1929)
Jean Gremillon's 1929 silent film "The Lighthouse Keepers" is an interesting work that separates itself apart from the other films in the last days of silent cinema. Adapted from a stage play by Jacques Feyder, it follows a father and son who spend a month maintaining and tending to a lighthouse. However, after the son gets bit by a rabid dog, things get bad. The claustrophobia of the lighthouse, along with some dizzying editing and surreal sequences makes for an interesting watch of a young man descending into insanity.
4. Le Ciel est a Vous (1944)
Jean Gremillon's 1944 romantic drama "Le Ciel est a Vous" was probably his most straightforward film of his career. Mostly known for making biting and subversive films about psychology or the state of social order, Gremillon instead decided to focus on a husband and wife team as they attempt to break the women's aerial distance record. It's a heartwarming story full of personal sacrifice and dream-chasing that is full of emotion. Made and released during the Nazi occupation, "Le Ciel est a Vous" would become Gremillon's highest grossing film of his career, providing a sense of determination and hope to a people in dire circumstances.
3. Lady Killer (1937)
1937 was certainly a fantastic year for French cinema, for the poetic realist movement, and for actor Jean Gabin. All three categories merge once again for Jean Gremillon's 1937 film "Lady Killer." Like other French poetic realist films at the time, "Lady Killer" borrows a lot from the German expressionist movement from the prior decade. It tells the story of a womanizer who gets completely upended when a woman he desires completely eludes him. Caught in a triage between him, this woman, and his best friend, he continues to fight for his passions, despite receiving nothing in return. Gremillon's direction of this fatalist story renders up all the passions on screen, from the romantic to the sexual, the melancholic, and even comedic. Characters are brought together and torn apart by various factors, including economic division, uncertain desires, and unrequited love. It's a film that deserves to be in the conversation for one of the greatest French poetic realist films of the late 1930s and its a film that is like an open wound that won't even heal.
2. Lumiere d'ete (1943)
During the Nazi occupation in France in the early 1940s, it was very difficult to communicate the current state of affairs to French audiences without the suffocation of the German censorship. This is precisely why French filmmakers had to be as subversive as possible. One filmmaker was perhaps the most subversive of all at the time: Jean Gremillon. His 1943 film, "Lumiere d'ete," orchestrates a tapestry of modern France through its plot and configuration. Centering on a love pentangle, the film takes its characters and uses their personage to allegorize different sections of the French population under Nazi rule. With these sections, we have the bourgeois class, the intellectuals, the Nazi sympathizers, and the working class, as they all vie for our protagonist (who represents the heart and soul of France). The subversive "Lumiere d'ete" is often considered Gremillon's best work and its no surprise given how meticulous and well thought out his direction is, along with Jacques Prevert's expert dictation.
1. Remorques (1941)
With his 1941 effort, "Remorques," Jean Gremillon not only reunited with France's biggest star, Jean Gabin, but he also managed to capture the exact tone of France at the time of the film's release. Gabin stars as a tugboat captain who faces an intense storm of circumstances that throws his life into disarray. Through this instability of his external circumstances, he begins to behave unstable internally and starts a romantic affair despite being a devoted husband to his wife of ten years. Things get even more unstable, as this fatalist film ends in utter tragedy. To capture this intense swirling storm of uncertainty and instability, Gremillon manages to declassify the film by utterly blending genre. It goes through genre like a revolver, switching from drama, melodrama, romance, tragedy, action-adventure, war, or even Gremillon's own personal expertise of poetic realism. The chaos of genre that Gremillon creates allows the viewer to really experience the swirling instability the characters feel. This sentiment also mirrors the real life circumstances of France at the time, which was facing German invasion and occupation. "Remorques" manages to capture France's sense of chaos and the stormy weather it was facing at the time and does so with Gremillon's expert hand.
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