Film Review
On its first release in 1934,
Le
Grand jeu was both critically acclaimed and a box office
hit.
Its success was partly down to a craze at the time for
romantic melodramas set in exotic locations, usually North Africa, and
featuring the Foreign Legion. Julien Duvivier's
La
Bandera (1935) and Jean Grémillon's
Gueule
d'amour (1937) are two other notable examples of this
ilk. The immense popularity of
Le
Grand jeu cemented Jacques Feyder's reputation as one of
France's leading filmmakers and helped to establish Pierre
Richard-Willm and Marie Bell as two of the most sought-after stars in
French cinema. Cast in the supporting role of Blanche is Feyder's
wife Françoise Rosay, playing opposite Charles Vanel, a highly regarded
character actor with a film career that stretched back as
far as 1910.
One of the most notable things about this film is that the lead actress
Marie Bell plays two characters, one of whom
was dubbed by another actress. Whilst the dual-role
can be considered a valid narrative device
(Pierre sees Irma not as she really is
but how he
wants her to be, a copy of Florence),
the dubbing is probably a mistake, although at the time it was widely praised as
an ingenious use of the new sound technology. Feyder had
originally intended to use this same ploy in one of the films he was
to have made in Hollywood with Greta Garbo, before he terminated his
contract with MGM. Hitchcock would employ it to better effect
(without the dubbing) in his thriller
Vertigo (1958).
Le Grand jeu demonstrates
Feyder's ability to convey layers of meaning and
psychological depth through the image alone, a skill that he acquired
as a filmmaker in the silent era.
(Feyder had loathed the
use of inter-titles and used them as sparingly as possible in his
silent films, believing that the image should tell the entire story.)
Today, the camerawork and editing that we see in this film
still possess a striking modernity. Feyder's use of long tracking shots,
natural locations and overlapping dissolves bring a quasi-documentary
realism to the film, making it quite different to the conventional
studio-bound melodrama of the time. This arose partly by chance,
from the Foreign Legion's refusal to allow Feyder to include serving
legionnaires in the story. He was however permitted to photograph
legionnaires on location in Morocco, as though he were making a
documentary, hence the newsreel-feel to certain parts of the film.
Le Grand jeu is an early
example of what later came to be termed
poetic realism, a kind of melodrama
in which the fortunes of the protagonists are guided by Fate, almost
inevitably to an unavoidable tragic outcome. Marcel Carné,
one of Feyder's assistant directors on this film, would make several
films in the poetic realist mould, including
Le
Quai des brumes (1938),
Hôtel du Nord (1938) and
Le
Jour se lève (1939). With their fatally flawed characters and aura of
ineluctable doom, these poetic realist films would be a precursor for
classic
film noir.
Although overshadowed by Feyder's greater achievements - notably his
earlier silent masterpieces and the historical allegory
La Kermesse héroïque
(1935) -
Le Grand jeu is a
masterfully crafted piece of cinema which stands up far better today
than many French melodramas of its era. The authenticity of
the performances (particularly Rosay's), the fluidity of the camerawork
and the dashes of overt eroticism that Feyder sneaks into the film all work to
give it an immediacy and realism that you would not expect to find in a
mid-1930s melodrama. The final sequence, in which Pierre's
tragic fate is alluded to (but not shown), has a brutal pessimism and
poignancy that is almost unique in Feyder's oeuvre, closing the film
with a darkly ironic admission that man is not, and can never be, the
master of his own destiny.
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Jacques Feyder film:
La Kermesse héroïque (1935)
Film Synopsis
Pierre Martel is a young Parisian financier whose taste for the high
life leads him to embezzle his clients' money. When his fraud is
exposed, his wealthy uncle steps in to bail him out, on condition that
he leaves France immediately. Pierre hopes to start a new life
abroad with his girlfriend Florence, with whom he is madly in love, but
she callously rejects him. Indifferent to what his future now
holds for him, Pierre joins the Foreign Legion and finds a posting in
North Africa. Whilst on leave in Morocco, he stays at a shabby
hotel run by the disreputable Clément and his world-weary wife
Blanche. One evening, Pierre allows Blanche to tell his fortune
with her playing cards. She foresees that the legionnaire will
fall in love, but he will also kill a man. Entering a bar a short while
later, Pierre notices a cabaret performer, Irma, and is stunned
by how much she resembles Florence.
The hair and voice are different, but Irma's face is so like Florence's
that Pierre cannot resist taking her as his lover. With Blanche's
help, Irma finds work at the hotel where Pierre is staying, but soon
attracts the unwelcome attentions of her employer. When Pierre
realises that Clément has been forcing himself on Irma, he is
furious and accidentally kills him in a brawl. Not long
after this, Pierre learns that his uncle has died, leaving him a
fortune in his will. The news could not come at a better
time. In just over a month, he will have completed his five years
in the Legion and will be able to resume his civilian life. But
when he goes to book the tickets for his return to France, Pierre runs
into someone he thought he would never see again: Florence...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.