Port of Shadows
Port of Shadows | |
---|---|
Directed by | Marcel Carné |
Written by | Jacques Prévert (scenario and dialogue) Pierre Mac Orlan (novel) |
Produced by | Gregor Rabinovitch |
Starring | Jean Gabin Michel Simon Michèle Morgan Pierre Brasseur |
Cinematography | Eugen Schüfftan |
Edited by | René Le Hénaff |
Music by | Maurice Jaubert |
Production company | Franco London Films[1] |
Distributed by | Osso Films (France) Film Alliance of the United States Inc. (US) |
Release dates | 18 May 1938 (France) October 29, 1939 (USA) |
Running time | 91 min |
Country | France |
Language | French |
Port of Shadows (
According to Charles O'Brien, the film is one of the earliest to be called film noir by critics (1939, France).[3][4]
Plot
On a foggy night, Jean (Jean Gabin), an army deserter, catches a ride to the port city of Le Havre. Hoping to start over, Jean finds himself in a lonely bar at the far edge of town. However, while getting a good meal and civilian clothes, Jean meets Nelly (Michèle Morgan), a 17-year-old who has run away from her godfather, Zabel, with whom she lives. Jean and Nelly spend time together over the following days, but they are often interrupted by Zabel, who is also in love with her, and by Lucien, a gangster who is looking for Nelly's ex-boyfriend, Maurice, who has recently gone missing. Jean resents the intrusions of Lucien and twice humiliates him by slapping him. When Nelly finds out that her godfather killed Maurice out of jealousy, she uses the information to blackmail him and prevent him from telling the police that Jean is a deserter. Although the two are in love, Jean plans to leave on a ship for Venezuela. At the last minute Jean leaves the ship to say goodbye to Nelly; he saves her from the hands of Zabel, whom he kills, but when they go out on to the street he is shot in the back by Lucien and dies in her arms.
Cast
- Jean Gabin as Jean
- Michel Simon as Zabel
- Michèle Morgan as Nelly
- Pierre Brasseur as Lucien
- Édouard Delmont as Panama
- Raymond Aimos as Quart Vittel
- Robert Le Vigan as Le peintre
- René Génin as Le docteur
- Marcel Pérès as Le chauffeur
- Léo Malet as Le soldat
- Jenny Burnay as L'amie de Lucien
- Roger Legris as Le garçon d'hôtel
- Martial Rèbe as Le client
Style
The film is in the style that Carné was most associated with, poetic realism. Lucy Sante writes that "Port of Shadows possesses nearly all the qualities that were once synonymous with the idea of French cinema. Gabin—eating sausage with a knife or talking around a cigarette butt parked in the corner of his mouth or administering a backhanded slap to Brasseur—is the quintessential French tough guy, as iconic a figure as Bogart playing Sam Spade. Michèle Morgan, ethereal and preoccupied, may pale a bit in comparison to some of her sisters in Parisian movies of the time (Arletty, for example), but she comes to life in bed, in a scene you can’t imagine occurring in an American movie before 1963 or so. The hazy lights, the wet cobblestones, the prehensile poplars lining the road out of town, the philosophical gravity of peripheral characters, the idea that nothing in life is more important than passion—such things defined a national cinema that might have been dwarfed by Hollywood in terms of reach and profit but stood every inch as tall as regards grace and beauty and power."[5]
Reception
Over 60 years after its premiere, Lucy Sante, writing about the film for its DVD release by
Danish director Carl Dreyer included Port of Shadows in his top 10 film list.[8]
A scene from the film is seen projected in the 2007 Academy Award-winning dramatization of Ian McEwan's wartime tragic drama Atonement.
Home media
Before July 2004,
References
- ^ Port of Shadows at AllMovie
- ^ "Le Quai des brumes/Port of Shadows". filmsdefrance.com. Retrieved 2008-12-26.
- ^ "The Streets of Paris". www.williamahearn.com.
- ^ "O'Brien, Charles – Film Studies". carleton.ca.
- ^ Sante, Lucy. "Port of Shadows". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
- Frank S. Nugent (October 30, 1939). "Port of Shadows, a Somber French Film, at the New Central". The New York Times. Retrieved November 3, 2011.
- ^ Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
- ^ "Recommendations: Directors' Favorite Films". listology.com[self-published source?]. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
- ^ James Steffen. "Le Quai des Brumes". Home Video Review. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
External links
- Port of Shadows at IMDb
- Port of Shadows at AllMovie
- Port of Shadows at the TCM Movie Database
- Le Quai des brumes/Port of Shadows at filmsdefrance.com
- Port of Shadows an essay by Criterion Collection