Marcel Carne
Marcel Carne
RANKED:
6. Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942)
Marcel Carne's 1942 film "Les Visiteurs du Soir" centers on two of the devil's envoys who shows up to Baron Hugues castle in 1485 to ruin the marriage of his daughter. However, one of them falls in love and the story takes a turn towards an allegorical tale of love rebelling against hatred and oppression. At the time of the film's release, France was still under occupation by the Nazi government. There were murmurs that the film was subtly about not giving up hope amidst the ongoing oppression and that the Devil himself represented Adolf Hitler. Although Marcel Carne vehemently denied the film being about this at all, the film can still be viewed through this prism, making it that much more effective.
5. The Gates of the Night (1946)
Director Marcel Carne and scriptwriter Jacques Prevert had teamed up many times before for some incredible films, like 1938's "Port of Shadows" and 1945's "Children of Paradise." Their first after the second World War, 1946's "The Gates of the Night" centers on a contemporary France in the foggy post-war landscape of a newly liberated country. However, rather than venturing into the realms of optimism about a new start and a new future for France, they instead opt for a bleak and fatalistic outlook of a people scorned by hatred and resentment. This hatred and resentment in the story leads to tragedy and downfall for the entire ensemble. "The Gates of the Night" offers little hope for our protagonists, as the post-war temperament of a country drags down the soul of all its characters, leading to nothing but ruin.
4. Hotel du Nord (1938)
In keeping with tones of dread and melancholy from his previous effort, "Port of Shadows," Marcel Carne's "Hotel du Nord" focuses on a young couple who check in to the titular hotel to perform a joint suicide pact. The plan goes awry however, and they must deal with the fallout of their actions. Carne's film encapsulates the continued unease the French community felt at the time, knowing full well that a potential invasion was imminent. The destitute and lower class characters of the film battle between hope and despair throughout the film. Some emerge from this emotional battle in the realms of hope, while some don't emerge at all. Either way, the atmosphere present in the film continues in Carne's ability to develop proto-noir visual themes and an air of dread through his filmography.
3. Le Jour Se Leve (1939)
In perhaps one of the last great examples of the French poetic realist movement of the 1930s, Marcel Carne's 1939 film "Le Jour Se Leve" exemplifies the utter despair and hopelessness of the French community during the impending Nazi invasion just around the corner. Centering on a man who begins the film killing another man and locking himself in his apartment out of reach of police, he recounts the tragic events that led to this moment. Through the twists and turns of the story, we find characters, all economically and socially desolate, and they attempt to attain some level of connection and respite from their miserable isolation, only to enact the very conditions that create this. It is a story of utter tragedy, filled with despair, and teeming with a visual darkness and bleakness that only Carne could paint. "Le Jour Se Leve" is one of the films that brought the 1930s to a close and tapped into the utter hopelessness of an entire French community.
2. Port of Shadows (1938)
In perhaps one of the best example of France's 'poetic realism' movements of the 1930s, Marcel Carne's 1938 masterwork "Port of Shadows" is a film that won't soon leave you. Carne's visual rendering of the foggy, shadowy port city of La Havre realizes the despair and fatalistic tragedy of its characters trying to escape it. Each character in this darkened tale can't seem to get away from their nature and circumstance. It captured the sentiment of France in 1938 at the onset of the inevitable chaos that would ensue in the war. It's a world of dreary suffocation that no one can escape from. The blackened corners of every frame and location will stain the mind of the viewer. The philosophical gravity and the desperation for passion and emotion to escape their desolation will leave you reflective. But overall, the tragedy of the tale and the inescapable fatalism to this tragedy will leave you cold and empty.
1. Children of Paradise (1945)
At a time when realism was laying the foundation for the film medium coming into a post-war landscape, Marcel Carne's "Children of Paradise" made one last masterful statement on the nature of poetry in art. With the end of the war came the end of poetic realism, as neo-realism was becoming more necessary to demonstrate a tangible, open reality that was unburdened by interpretation of its subjects. "Children of Paradise" not only details the lives of artists living in 1830s Paris, but also demonstrates the importance of art as it pertains to the communication of life. As Carne opens and closes the film with a set of curtains, he also visually reminds us throughout the film about the structure of art and how it is viewed by us, the viewer. Our connection to the characters, thereby, become so much more astonishing when we become emotionally connected to them and their passions. The veil is both lifted and affirmed. We are watching the subjects of a piece, yet being reminded of our own humanity beyond the fabricated image and presentation of a work. Through this poetic expression, it is passed along by the film that poetry in art itself reveals far more than realism ever could. The curtains open, we live, we love, we hope, we suffer, the curtains close. Life and its many emotional complexities of the human experience and the human soul are captured in the poetic realism of art itself. The ongoing war may have brought an end to it all, but the statement made by "Children of Paradise" is that art will continue, expression will continue, love will continue, suffering will continue, and all will continue through the stories told by these carnivalesque methods of iterating our human experience.
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