Film Review
After WWII, Jean Epstein made only two films,
Le Tempestaire and
Les
Feux de la mer, both filmed on location under arduous conditions in his
beloved Brittany and both running to about twenty minutes in length.
The two films are thematically linked, both paying tribute to the resilience
of the redoubtable Breton in the most inhospitable of landscapes, but they
are quite different in form. On
Le Tempestaire, Epstein had
a completely free hand and made it the crowning glory of his Breton poems,
a powerful evocation of the spirit of Brittany that combines sound and image
to dazzling effect.
Les Feux de la mer, by contrast, was a commissioned
information film on which Epstein imposes his unique artistry only sporadically
- and it is no wonder that it is overlooked in all but the most comprehensive
studies of the director's work.
In common with
Le Tempestaire - the companion-piece alongside which
its merits are more readily apparent -
Les Feux de la mer originated
from a script for an unmade film entitled
Au péril de la mer
that Epstein had written in 1937. The film came about when Jean Benoît-Lévy,
recently appointed to a department within the United Nations that made information
films, instigated a project to make fourteen short films in fourteen different
countries to help foster international solidarity in the aftermath of the
Second World War. It is worth remembering that it was through Jean
Benoît-Lévy that Epstein was able to direct his first film,
Pasteur (1922), and he also supported the director through his lean
years of the mid-1930s via a number of commissioned documentaries.
For the French entry in the series of UN-sponsored films, a documentary about
lighthouses, Benoît-Lévy engaged the services of producer Étienne
Lallier, who had already worked with Epstein on two documentary shorts -
La Bretagne (1936) and
La Bourgogne (1936). Jean Epstein
was the obvious choice to direct the film owing to his previous experience
of filming in Brittany.
Epstein was delighted with the commission, as he had long wished for an excuse
to return to Ushant, the location of his first Breton film
Finis terrae (1929).
When filming began in March 1948 Epstein was still only 50 but already he
was an ill man (with only five years left to live). He could not have
known at the time that this would be the last film he would make.
Les
Feux de la mer contains elements of the director's previous Breton films
and approximates to a résumé of Epstein's later work.
There is a memorable montage sequence near the start of the film with Breton
women lamenting the victims of a ship lost at sea - a touching echo of
Mor vran (1931) - and the soundtrack
evokes that of
Le Tempestaire, with composer Yves Baudrier and sound engineer
Léon Vareille again providing a haunting soundscape that brilliantly
conveys the awesome power and mystique of the sea.
Much of the film consists of archive footage to help ensure it meets its
educational brief. There's an off-putting introduction that has that
horribly dated patrician tone associated with public information films from
this era, and much of the film's first half is taken up with a concise but
nonetheless informative account of the history of lighthouses and their functioning.
For those who know nothing about lighthouses, it is interesting to hear that
they had their origins in antiquity and how countries at war with one another
cooperated in the building and running of lighthouses. Equally instructive
is how the lamps have evolved over the centuries. Today, skilfully
designed lens are used to magnify the power of the lamp, which is housed
on a rotating platform so that its beam is not mistaken for a light on the
mainland. New technological developments - radio transmissions and
radar - are touched on, but essentially the principle of the lighthouse
has remained unchanged for thousands of years - a proud phallus-like structure of
stone sticking out of the sea with a light on top, with some poor soul of
superhuman resilience marooned inside to ensure the light stays on.
Educational though
Les Feux de la mer is, it hardly grabs your attention
- until the fourteenth minute of its 22 minute runtime. This is the
point at which, having met his restrictive brief from the UN, Epstein allows
himself a little creative leeway as he delves into the psychological ordeal
of being a lighthouse keeper. With a storm raging outside, a young
keeper (surely his name
Victor is no accident) becomes increasingly
fearful as his eyes dance over the pages of the lighthouse log. His
inner voice stirs his fears with vivid accounts of lighthouses that have
been destroyed by previous storms. Using, for the last time, the techniques
that he had so masterfully employed on earlier films to expose his protagonists'
conflicted souls, Epstein brings us into contact with a wretch who is visibly
torn between his rational fear of the tempest and his irrational fear of
being humiliated in front of his father if he loses his job. This is
the last great passage in Epstein's oeuvre - a three minute sequence in which
a solitary individual fights a determined inner battle to overcome not just
his terror of the natural world, but also the greater terror of personal
failure. Given that Epstein was an artist who, throughout his career,
had to cope with numerous painful setbacks as he ploughed his solitary furrow,
it is easy to discern something of a self-portrait in young Victor's struggle
and ultimate triumph over his neuroses.
© James Travers 2016
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Next Jean Epstein film:
L'Auberge rouge (1923)