Gervaise (1956)
Directed by René Clément

Film Review

The twenty volumes of Émile Zola's epic Les Rougons-Macquart series has provided cinema with one of its richest literary sources, offering the most authoritative and detailed account of life across a wide social spectrum at the time of the Second French Empire (1852-1870). Some of the novels have been adapted many times (the earliest adaptation dating back to 1902), and some have become classics of French cinema - consider Marcel Lherbier's L'Argent (1928), Jean Renoir's Nana (1926) and La Bête humaine (1938), André Cayatte's Au bonheur des dames (1943), Julien Duvivier's Pot-Bouille (1957) and Claude Berri's Germinal (1993).  L'Assommoir, the strongest novel in the series (and the one on which Zola's world-renown was founded), has so far enjoyed no fewer than nine adaptations, the best of which is arguably René Clément's Gervaise, the bleakest film from a director who had a particular affinity for the darker side of human nature.

By the time he made this film, René Clément was one of France's most prominent and acclaimed filmmakers.  His first feature, La Bataille du rail (1946), scored a notable hat trick at the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946 (taking the Grand Prize, the Jury Prize and Best Director award).  This was followed by two Oscar wins (in the Best Foreign Language Film category) for Au-delà des grilles (1949) and Jeux interdits (1952).  In his early films, Clément developed a style of naturalistic filmmaking that was close to Italian neo-realism, but with a unique dark poetry of its own.  Gervaise is a good example of this; whilst it is more polished than the director's earlier films, it has an earthiness and brutality about it which are perfectly suited to the film's grim subject.  It is hard to think of a film that offers a more depressing and realistic portrait of Zola's miserable mid-19th century Parisian slums than this one.

To attempt a complete adaptation of Zola's 500-page novel would have been a massive undertaking, and the result would no doubt have been akin to one of those bloated behemoths of which Hollywood was so fond in the 1950s.  Fortunatey, this is not the approach adopted by the screenwriters Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost. Rather than attempt a slavish page-to-screen transposition they extract the essence of the novel, developing a taut, character-rich narrative from its main set-pieces, which include the famous wedding day outing to the Louvre and the horrific sequence in which Coupeau finally goes berserk and wrecks Gervaise's shop in a drunken frenzy.  It is a technique that Aurenche and Bost employed on most of their literary adaptations, often with great success, although one notable critic - François Truffaut - condemned them for it, as he believed it betrayed the spirit of the original novel.  (Gervaise is the film that demonstrates most convincingly the fallacy of Truffaut's absurd thesis.)  What Aurenche and Bost give us here is one of cinema's most harrowing accounts of an individual's tragic inability to rise above adversity.  Who can fail to be moved by the inexorable whittling down of Gervaise's morale as her husband's drink problem slowly worsens, bringing a slew of disasters down upon them both?

The eloquent savagery and poignancy of Zola's novel are powerfully evoked in Clément's film, through a mix of exemplary writing and acting. Maria Schell was awarded the Coupe Volpi at the 1956 Venice Film Festival for her portrayal of Gervaise, a fitting reward for what is most probably her finest screen performance.  In the second half of Zola's novel, Gervaise becomes a pathetic shadow of her former self and it would have been easy to have played her as weak and hysterical. Instead, Schell gives the character far more dignity, playing her as a fighter right up until the end.  As her situation deteriorates, Gervaise appears tougher, more resilient, looking more like the woman personifying Liberty in Delacroix's famous painting (La Liberté guidant le peuple) seen near the start of the film.  The transformation is just as striking as in Zola's novel, from an idealist young woman full of hopes and dreams, to a prematurely aged wretch struggling to hold her world together, but Schell gives her a more fiercely pugilistic resolve, and in doing so she make her final scenes that much more devastating to watch.

François Périer and Suzy Delair bring as much dramatic weight to the film in the far less sympathetic roles of Gervaise's husband Coupeau and bitter rival Virginie.  Périer's portrayal of a decent man being slowly devoured by alcoholism and transformed into a monster is shocking in its realism, and the character's emotional outburst at the film's brutal climax surely represents the highpoint of the actor's outstanding film career.  These remarkable performances, admirably supported by the likes of Armand Mestral, Jacques Harden and Florelle, make the most of Aurenche and Bost's excellent script and give a palpable sense of the misery and hopelessness experienced by most ordinary people in Zola's day.

By the end of the film, the spectator is almost as worn down by the degradations that have befallen the main characters as they themselves appear to be, but it holds back one last shock to plunge us even deeper into the abyss.   The focus suddenly shifts from Gervaise to her sweet little daughter Nana, a picture of innocence and an echo of her mother's former vitality.  The spectre of Nana's future miseries can be glimpsed in those last few haunting scenes in which she breaks with her mother and discovers how she can charm others to give her what she wants.  Gervaise is now reduced to a lifeless shell, her story is told.  Nana's is just beginning, and as the insouciant little girl skips away to meet her own avalanche of woes we call to mind the words of Gervaise's song: "Les jours et les nuits / Déchirent ma vie / À quoi bon dormir / Si la nuit s'efface...

Film Synopsis

In the 1850s, at the start of France's Second Empire, life is a constant struggle for most of the ordinary people of Paris.  Gervaise Macquart does what she can to support her two young children after her untrustworthy lover Lantier walks out on her, working long and wearying hours as a poorly paid washerwoman.  In her co-worker Virginie, she has a crude and spiteful enemy.  One day, the two women get into a violent dispute which ends with Gervaise spanking her tormenter in full view of their colleagues.  It is not long after this incident that Henri Coupeau, an attractive metal worker, enters Gervaise's life and she experiences a brief period of happiness.

For the first time, Gervaise sees a bright future for herself - she will marry Henri and open her own laundry with the money she has put by.  But, not long after the couple's wedding, disaster strikes - Henri falls from a roof he has been repairing and is so badly injured that he is unable to work.  Gouget, a close friend of the couple, come to their rescue, giving Gervaise the money she needs to start her own business.  It looks as if the young woman's luck is in, but once again it isn't long before she is hit by a sudden reversal of fortune.  Calamities now rain down upon her in heavy profusion.

Depressed by his inability to find work, Coupeau starts drinking heavily and soon becomes a chronic alcoholic.  Virginie then shows up to repay Gervaise's earlier ill-treatment of her by flaunting her new lover in front of her - Lantier.  Unaware that the latter still has amorous designs on his wife, Coupeau befriends him and offers him and his vile mistress a place in his home.  Gervaise's miseries are crowned by the absence of the one man she can count on to help her - Goujet is now locked up in prison.  As her world falls apart around her, robbing her of both dignity and hope, Gervaise turns to drink.  Finally, her resilience gives way completely and she surrenders to a life of abject misery from which there is no possibility of escape...