When you describe it as "supposedly scathing," you presumably refer to the original hostile reaction of those who considered themselves scathed. The French sometimes have rather odd reactions to their own movies: wanting to imprison Clouzot for making "Le Corbeau," nearly starting a riot when "Lola Montes" didn't show enough of Martine Carol's cleavage.
I don't think Renoir ever set out to be scathing, even at his most didactic. Even "The Crime of Monsieur Lange" made its point while maintaining that gentle and humanistic tone that was one of the director's hallmarks, and I don't believe this movie had any similar political purpose.
I would describe the satire as more mordant than scathing, and all the comedy as rueful. The movie isn't trying to be a laugh riot, and I don't think it's trying to be the last word on social relations during the Third Republic either. I think Renoir simply set out to create a comedy of manners and ended up doing something much more morally complex because he was a genius and couldn't help it.
If the movie is so strangely prescient and quietly heartbreaking, I believe it's because the filmmaker's consciousness always had its shutter open. The movie caught everything that was in the air.
Here's what I infer is meant by "entertainment value": creating a want and satisfying it. Telling the audience what you're going to do, doing it, and telling them you've done it.
In a different movie, I might have been thinking Robert and Genevieve were really meant for each other, and I'd be congratulating myself on being ahead of the movie. And they'd end up together. But I'm not and they don't. In a different movie, I might be rooting for Christine to wind up with either Octave or Andre, but I never do. In a different movie, Andre might have been set up in such a way that my tears would flow when he gets shot. In a different movie, Robert might have realized how much he really loves his wife and she'd have ended up in his arms.
This is a movie where I don't feel invested in any outcome for anybody other than the outcome that is not a logical possibility within the story. And yet I feel such tremendous compassion for everybody.
You could simply die of frustration watching Christine encounter one closed door after another, at figuring out that Octave will never be useful to anybody (he even fails as a facilitator), of knowing that Marcel will never imagine his way out of his dithering. It's stupid that any sophisticated person's life requires him to entertain people like the Bruyeres for the weekend. It's stupid that Christine and Robert ever married, or that Shumacher and Lisette ever did. It's stupid that Octave's diddling of a maid gets a friend killed. It's stupid that Andre, who is technically a hero, dies such a ridiculous and useless death.
But the characters aren't stupid and their eyes (unlike the case in many comedies) are not closed. And the movie is not stupid. It's fate that is stupid.
That's why I suspect the very things that drive you crazy in the movie are exactly the things the rest of us love about it. Nobody has a conventional movie arc or gets a conventional movie ending. This is a really great movie. I mean a really great movie.
Health reform passed. Is your grandmother dead yet?
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franzkabuki
14 years ago
"I don´t think Renoir set out to do be scathing".
This is where semantics may have interfered again, but... what use is satire if it doesn´t cut like a knife? Yes, it ain´t nor is it supposed to be ´bitter´ (which, according to the dictionary, appears to be the defining undertone of "scathing"). But, just like quite many other classic era films, I find it way too chatty for its own good, too full of that so-called ´sophisticated banter´ - and the dialogue, as translated into English at least, ain´t that impressive imo. The film may be ´heartbreaking´ as you say - but hardly ´quietly´ so.
"The movie wasn´t trying to be a laugh riot".
Yeah, but the big slapstick sequence, for instance, to me at least fell completely flat - I didn´t even find it amusing let alone laugh-out-loud funny. I agree it isn´t preachy nor stupid and furthermore, who ends up with whom and whether or not it´s predictable, doesn´t really concern me at all (one thing though - the film woulda had much more bite had it been Christine not Andre that was killed). I see what the movie is doing. I just don´t think it´s doing it too well.
"I mean a REALLY great movie".
Yeah it´s kinda frustrating to see it among the top 10 favourite lists of so many great directors whose work I love yet come up empty with this one. Gotta accept the mystery I guess.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
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