Office - From below the radar David Young suggests a look at Johnnie To's new film

Johnnie To

The latest film by Johnnie To, Hong Kong film-making legend, is being treated with much deference. It's rare for his movies to get reviewed in the mainstream press or media but this time, after the film had its premiere at Toronto, the critical mavens have been onto it from the start. So we've had The Hollywood Reporter and Litle White Lies and Shelly Kraicer, the last being far more of an enthusiast in cinema scope

There is a supportive review by Philippa Hawker in the SMH online SMH online . I'm told that Jason Di Rosso has said kind words about it on Radio National but if you go looking for it and hit the button on the RN page marked "Subjects" nothing comes up under Film or Movies and at that point I gave up.

One matter that is worth noting is that the film was originally presented in 3D. The sets in particular would have been quite striking in this format. The copies here are 2D.

In the meantime cinephile David Young has tracked it down and sent in this note:

For a director who has made more than fifty films since 1980, Hong Kong's Johnnie To is surprisingly unknown (like many Asian directors) to the average filmgoer in Australia. Only the likes of Reading Cinema (when they were in the Haymarket), Hoyts and, lately, Event Cinemas have screened his films over the last decade or so. Highlights of his output as director include Election (2005), Mad Detective (2007), Sparrow (2008), and Life Without Principle (2011), while the interesting Eye in the Sky (2007),  Accident (2009) and Motorway (2012) were produced by him. His latest, Office (2015), is a highly stylised, slick and entertaining look at big business. It's a paean to consumerism in some segments, a primer on capitalism - the do's and the don't's - in other segments, a couple of love stories - good and bad - intertwined through the narrative, and an amazing set that reminds one of John Farrow's The Big Clock (1948) and Joel Coen's The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), in a shinier 21st Century setting, complete with a huge revolving clock that's used as a backdrop in many scenes. It's also a musical, and just like the song and dance numbers in the Chinese fantasy Monster Hunt (also 2015), they shouldn't work but they mostly do. The film can also be seen as a counterpoint to To's earlier more serious look at big business, Life Without Principle. Office has been running for a week but probably won't last too much longer; there were seven in the 10.15am session on Monday. 

The Duvivier Dossier (21) - Neil McGlone writes about Poil de Carotte

Poil de Carotte, Dir: Julien Duvivier, Script: Julien Duvivier based on a novel by Jules Renard, Cast: Robert Lynen/Francois Lepic known as Poil de Carotte (Carrott Head), Harry Baur/M.Lepic, Catherine Fonteney/Mme Lepic,Christine Dor/Annette, France, 1932, 91 minutes.

I first saw this film in 2005 at the National Film Theatre in London as a blind-watch, knowing nothing of it, or it's director. That soon changed after seeing the film and began a love affair with the work of Julien Duvivier that continues to this day. (I warn the reader now I am going to analyse it in detail and thus give away some "spoilers".)

Jules Renard first published his autobiographical novel, "Poil de Carotte (Carrot Head)", in 1894. Renard endured a sad and unhappy childhood, as did the lead character in the story, whilst growing up in the Nièvre region of France where the film is also set. Renard was elected mayor of Chitry in 1904 as the socialist candidate, not unlike Harry Baur's character, M. Lepic, in the film.

Duvivier first filmed the story as a silent in 1925 with Henry Krauss in the role of M. Lepic, but he wasn't happy with the end result and returned to the source material in 1932, with the film being released the following year. It was this later version that would go on to become Duvivier's favourite of his own work.

M. and Madame Lepic have been married for 20 years and yet, barely a word is exchanged between them. Harry Baur plays the character of M. Lepic perfectly as a laid back, quiet and retiring father, who takes no interest in his own three children whilst Catherine Fonteney is the boisterous, controlling, dominant, cruel Madame Lepic. Her favourite of her three children is the eldest, Felix, whom she dotes on and who basically can do no wrong in her eyes. She makes Poil de Carotte carry out all the chores in the house including some quite unpleasant tasks whilst constantly playing him off against his father in some cruel sadistic game to please her. When asked at school by his teacher, what a family means to him, Poil de Carotte answers, "a group of people forced to live together under one roof, and who can't stand each other." Whilst initially this comment may seem amusing to the viewer, we later come to realise just how accurate and succinct this description is for poor Poil de Carotte.

An early scene in the film at a family dinner, Madame Lepic denies Poil de Carotte anything to eat and has him take out the leftover food in the dark to their chickens, a task he does not relish and is clearly terrified of doing. He is scared of the dark and she knows this, but she still forces him to do it. We see the boy tread carefully out into the darkness and across the yard towards the chicken coop. Duvivier plays on this scene of fear by superimposing the images of dancing white-cloaked figures hovering above Poil de Carotte in an eerie yet beautifully evocative sequence. It is not the only time in the film he uses this technique to great effect.

The scene at the river where we see a naked Poil de Carotte playing in the water (this scene was cut from some later versions of the film because of child nudity) is one of the tenderest moments that we witness with the boy. We get to see him having fun and being free, something he rarely gets to experience but clearly where he is happiest. A character he refers to as "Godfather" is fishing nearby and he strikes up a conversation with Poil de Carotte, showing us the audience that they know each other well. Then along comes a sweet little girl in a white dress called Mathilde and she asks Poil de Carotte if it is today that they are getting married. 

The scene that follows of a faux wedding between Poil de Carotte and Mathilde is one of the most beautiful sequences committed to celluloid. It is fairytale like in it's depiction with both bride and groom wearing little crowns made of flowers, Godfather playing the hurdy-gurdy and the wedding congregation; a number of farmyard animals nurturing their young. The metaphor of the farmyard animals with their young is not lost on the audience. Sadly in some versions of the film, the wedding sequence is also cut. 

The family maid who has come looking for him to take him back home drags Poil de Carotte away from his own “wedding”. He is not happy and takes his anger out on the horse that takes him and the maid home in the attached cart. Along the winding narrow country roads he whips the horse harder and harder as Duvivier ranks up the tension. The scene is fast cut with interspersed images of families playing with their children in the countryside as the horse gains pace. We fear there will be an accident as the cart almost seems to get out of control and then Poil de Carotte points to a family playing with their child and says to the maid sitting next to him with tears in his eyes, "Nobody will ever love me like that."

Once they are home, still angry, Poil de Carotte throws a stone at some neighbourhood children playing together. The children's mother calls him "a dirty lout" in front of an out-of-sight listening Madame Lepic. In a rare example of her sticking up for Poil de Carotte she lays into the other child's mother, but once out of sight of them she throttles and beats poor Poil de Carotte before once again playing him off against his father asking who he loves more, knowing full well that M. Lepic is listening nearby. Through fear of receiving another beating, the poor boy gives in and says it is she. He is a virtual slave to her calling and treated as such, in some cases worse than an animal. As an audience we are aware early on in the film during an exchange between the two maids that Poil de Carotte was an unexpected and unwanted child, when the maid later tries to console him he says "Not everyone is lucky enough to be an orphan." The maid tries to speak to M. Lepic to make him aware of how unhappy the boy is and how badly Madame Lepic beats the boy, but he passes it off merely as "childhood woes". Duvivier builds these scenes to a heartbreaking level of pathos, we feel for the boy, we want to pick him up and hug him, tell him it will be alright, that he is loved after all - but we are helpless to his needs. We have to continue to watch him suffer the severe beatings, the psychological mind games, and the lack of affection, the ignorance and coldness of his father. It is almost like we are party to what is happening.

That night whilst in bed, we witness another fantasy sequence where we see an image of two Poil de Carottes; arguing with each other over what must be done. One says that this can't go on any longer and that the only way out is to run away, but then he argues himself out of it. Then comes the bolt out of the blue, he talks about going on strike or taking his own life. Now, this is a film made in 1932, a children's story with some adult themes but it hits you hard, you can't believe what you have just heard. Did he really just say he wanted to kill himself? A ten-year-old boy? I can't think of any other film from that period or even a while after it, where the subject of child suicide has been broached. It hits you like a bullet.

In a rare scene M. Lepic over-rules his wife by making Felix do an errand in town that she had asked Poil de Carotte to do. She is flabbergasted and shouts and screams at what she see's as an outrage. Poil de Carotte goes to console her but she looks at him scornfully and shouts at him. In a first scene of attempted suicide Poil de Carotte sticks his head in a bucket of water but is spotted and beaten by Madame Lepic who thinks he is just messing around and making the yard dirty. She chastises him again when her daughter, Ernestine, blames Poil de Carotte for a missing 50 Franc note that her and her brother, Felix, have stolen. M Lepic intervenes and its the first time we see him standing up to his wife, and pushes her out of the way telling her she is forbidden from speaking to him ever again. It's almost a cheering moment, as we finally believe that somebody has the boy's interests at heart, that maybe now things will turn around for him. The chemistry between the father/son actors Harry Baur and Robert Lynen is immense, they work so well together. They would act together one more time in 1938 in Robert Siodmak's MOLLENARD, coincidentally again as father and son.

Finally Poil de Carotte is shown some love and affection from one of his parents as M. Lepic lifts him up, hugs him and plants a kiss on his forehead. He tells him to go and get dressed in his "Sunday best" and to join him in town where it is expected that he will be elected mayor. They can then have a party together. Poil de carotte excitedly disappears to go and get dressed, but alas he finds that he can then not leave his room as he has been locked in. We are shown in the shadows, Madame Lepic, having just locked his door. The shot shows her caught in the shadows like a spider catching its prey in its web.

Poil de Carotte manages to escape through his bedroom window and out via the hay barn where he accidentally gets his neck caught in a hanging rope. The same rope that would prove significant only moments later. He runs into town just as M. Lepic is elected mayor. What follows are yet more sad scenes for Poil de Carotte as his father is caught up in the celebrations and therefore pays no attention to his son. He has had enough; he leaves and runs home, all the time hearing voices in his head telling him to kill himself. He comes to the lake and kneels beside it as if praying. Young Mathilde spots him and walks over to him. He apologies to her and tells her they can no longer be married, as he has to kill himself. It's yet another touching and tender scene between the two very young actors, with Mathilde not reacting in any adverse way and passing it off as if he has just told her he is going on holiday. As a child, death is not really known or understood - how do you explain it to someone so young? Whilst praying he remembers the rope in the barn, but first takes Mathilde into town. On returning to his house he spots the maid, his only true friend at the house, he blows her a kiss when she is not looking as almost a parting gesture, knowing that he will not see her again.

Then we are in the barn, the rope is around his neck, his eyes wet with tears (mine too each time I watch this film!). By now Mathilde has already told people at the party of Poil de Carotte's plans and M. Lepic is rushing back to the house. The music rises to a crescendo; church bells ring then silence as M. Lepic arrives just in time to save Poil de Carotte. The boy is kicking and crying, as he doesn't want to be saved, he tells him he wants to die. When M. Lepic asks why, he responds, "Because I don't love my mother". M Lepic agrees, he doesn't love her either!  We cut to a shot of them walking together and he tells him that he was an "accident" and born at a time when he and Madame Lepic had long since fell out of love. Poil de Carotte says, "A family should consist of those whom we love, and those who love us." A stark contrast to his statement at the beginning of the film when he described what he thought a family was.

In the film's final scenes we see them together having a meal at an inn in the country. M. Lepic raises a glass to "Francoise". The boy's eyes light up, "No more Poil de Carotte?" - "No, he hanged himself in the barn". He goes on to tell him that he will be known to everyone from now on as Francoise and that he no longer needs to worry or be afraid of anything at home anymore as they are now "two".

My closing thoughts on the film - I still find it remarkable that this film is not more widely known or seen. Fortunately it will form part of a box set of four other Duvivier titles when The Criterion Collection release it as part of their Eclipse series in November. The film works so well because of both the quality of the source material and that of it's three lead actors; Harry Baur, Catherine Fonteney and the irrepressible, Robert Lynen. Tragedy would befall both Lynen and Baur a little over a decade later, after this film was made. Robert Lynen joined the French Resistance during World War 2 but was caught and executed by firing squad in 1944, Harry Baur was arrested by the Nazis for concealing his Jewish wife and died in mysterious circumstances in 1943.

The Duvivier Dossier (20) - Max Berghouse reviews The Phantom Carriage

La Charrette Fantome/Phantom Carriage ), Dir: Julien Duvivier , Script & Adaptation:Julien Duvivier, Dialogue: Alexandre Arnoux, From the novel by Selma Lagerlof, Cast: Pierre Fresnay/David, Louis Jouvet/Georges,  Micheline Francey/Sister Edith, Marie Bell/Sister Maria, Ariane Borg/Suzanne,  France, 1939, 93 minutes.

My original studies in literature at University, all those years ago, were focused on the then enormously influential F R Leavis. Years after his death he remains a very divisive figure but one thing which he opined on with intense regularity was the need only to read, the very best. This seems to me just as important in watching films and on that basis The Phantom Carriage is a film which can justifiably be ignored. On that basis, the potential viewer has been making a consistently similar judgement to the critics since the film's original release.

That is not to say that the film lacks any merit. There are a number of things which make it quite compelling viewing, but it could not be thought to be a consistent success. I should mention that the musical score by Jacques Ibert, while not probably completely consistent with the seriousness of the film, is completely characteristic of that composer's effervescent high spirits and this is something I have not seen referred to in any other review.

Secondly whatever the merits of this film are, they have generally been found wanting in comparison with the original Swedish 1921 film, a film so important to Ingmar Bergman, that he said subsequently that it caused him to wish to become a film director. Both films are the visual productions of an early 20th-century Swedish novel by Selma Lagerlof (herself a Nobel prizewinner). I know nothing of either the first film nor the novel which concerns the dire effects of tuberculosis but I expect it is one of those relentlessly severe realist novels, ultimately owing a considerable debt to Emile Zola. Many examples of this sort of writing have ultimately produced febrile and intense films.

Duvivier's production is set, as it introduces itself, in an anywhere/any time place which for a significant part of the proceedings is that well-known country Backlotistan. Swedish names are changed to Anglo-Saxon: for example "Holm" becoming "Holmes" but he effectively tops and tails the production with the appearance of the phantom carriage which is driven for a year by the last person to die on New Year's Eve. Apparently this is a Nordic fable. While not without its attractions,  Duvivier, exceptionally proficiently, uses a range of filmic devices (essentially transparency shots) to create a picture of something otherworldly. However it does not seem to really hold his interest, only being relevant at the beginning and very end of the film.

The balance and substance of the film is a relentless downer concerning David, a drunk wife-beater, and serial abuser and the attempts by Sister Edith of the Salvation Army to save him while she herself is dying from tuberculosis. So shades of "Major Barbara" and "Camille" and others. Pierre Fresnay is not convincing, especially in comparison with Louis Jouvet and Micheline Francey and his lack of physical stature may have something to do with this. Nor is he likeable in the sense that he is not emotionally engaging to the viewer. I make the same comment about Sister Edith but I should also indicate that modern day viewers are no doubt much more negative about self-sacrificing and self abnegating women. This would seem to be one of those cases where the director' s relatively objective view of his cast, does him no favours.

The film commences at Christmas time – somewhere, at least the northern hemisphere, because it is snowing in what appears to be a totally indoor set but may be a mix of both real and staged sets. It is very good. On the one hand the Salvationists are selflessly operating a soup kitchen while, in contrast, the debased vagabonds, including David, are conspiring to get Food & Drink without the necessity of the dreaded intermediary, work. All of them have been broken by some degree of substantial adversity but this is neither explained nor shown. In contrast to the self-sacrifice and other directedness of the Salvation Army group, are the revelries at a local inn. It's hedonism is presumably to be viewed negatively, but, by contrast, especially as it involves the music of Ibert, previously mentioned, it seems positively joyous. And alluring.

And that's how the film continues with the alternation of goodness, contrasted with the self-indulgence of the "lost souls". It takes place over the course of the year with Sister Edith thinking that if she can see David on the following New Year's Eve, alive, she will have saved him from the fate of being the driver of the phantom carriage for the following year. David really isn't worth the effort and he only comes to some sort of awareness when dead. Of course by that time, it's too late.

As I write, I become more aware that it is a film out of its time. It made more sense in 1920, but its capacity to make a dent in the more sophisticated period, immediately prior to World War II, seems very limited.

The Duvivier Dossier (19) - Max Berghouse reviews Un Carnet de Bal

Un Carnet de Bal, Dir: Julien Duvivier,  Script by Julien Duvivier, Henri Jeanson, Yves Mirande, Jean Sarment, Pierre Wolff & Bernard Zimmer. Cast: Harry Baur/Alain & Father Dominique, Marie Bell/Christine, Fernandel/Fabian, Raimu/Francois, Louis Jouvet/Pierre Verdier & Jo, France, 1937, 144 minutes.

This absolutely superb film is one of the absolute crown jewels of pre-World War II cinema and one of Julien Duvivier's great triumphs. It has been written about many times, always favourably, and perhaps there is little that I can add which is new, although the sheer pleasure the film has given me, impels me to write. About 30 minutes before commencing writing I received news that one of my best friends had just died and this seems symbolic of the nature of the film – at least to me.

The film opens in an Italian speaking mountain side area of Europe: possibly Savoy, possibly the Italian Tyrol or maybe Italian Riviera in a perfectly composed vista of spectacular beauty and wealth. I was very struck in compositional comparison, probably because of the Cyprus pines with the work of the Swiss painter Arnold Bocklin whose work is generally recognised as being related to and symbolic of death. (See for example the several versions of his painting "Isle of the Dead"). 

Inside a mansion to which a man and a woman are heading, possibly Christine and a male friend, Christine is making arrangements for the disposal of her late husband's personal effects. His shotgun to his gamekeeper, his suits, through his valet, to people who can use them, as long as they are taken off the property. Even his pipes sitting on his desk, are removed for disposal. Christine who is apparently very much younger than her late husband, appears to be totally in charge of her situation.

By chance within the late husband's study, two things fall to the ground. One is an unfinished letter and the other is Christine's dance card from her first ball, aged 16, in 1919. Both are apparently mundane as are the "hooks" on which the film rests. They are hooks that relate to a deep and profound meditation on life itself and as life is distorted by memory. Voltaire said that, until a man be 25, he never thinks of death. Thereafter, he thinks of little else. So Christine is intrigued, to some extent perturbed, that whatever her late husband's letter was about, as it was rudimentary in form, she will never find out. Secondly she takes her dance card, trying to remember the young men with whom she danced.

Many reviewers have commented that Christine is of a prosperous family. That seems an understatement. She and/or her late husband are clearly loaded and throughout the film she is dressed absolutely stunningly. So travel and spending time at ease is clearly no problem. She recounts to her friend what it was like at that first ball and the scenery changes to a very stylised ballroom: men in white tie and tails and women in ball gowns, obviously more of the late 1930s than immediately post-World War I. I feel sure that I noticed that the men were wearing frilled shirts which would have been clearly inappropriate for the supposed period and I think this is connected to Christine's verbalisation of her memory in which the women were wearing crinolines. As her friend says, that can't be possible, because these were items of several generations prior – but it is Christine's memory. So we are given information that memory is frail and likely to change and distort under the exigencies of everyday life.

Some critics allege that on a whim Christine decides to seek out her old dance partners to see what they have made it their lives with the implication that she herself was not happy. Comfortable and content perhaps, but not happy. I don't think with the subtlety that the director customarily has that this implication is fair. Unrestricted as she now is by custom and restraint, she seems to have a genuine desire to see and explore "the road not taken".

This journey takes her through a number of vignettes with the men from the dance card. Some of these are extremely sombre. The first in which Christine has to deal with is the widowed mother of the young man who suicided as a consequence of his failure to win Christine. Some are sharp with an inevitable sense of existential despair and gloom: Louis Jouvet as a disbarred lawyer, now nightclub owner. One with Harry Baur as a renowned musician, turned contemplative priest is fundamentally melancholic, perfectly expressing the priest's decision to in some ways remove himself from the world.

All performances are excellent with particular emphasis to be given to Jouvet, Baur and the extraordinarily expressive Raimu. All these men have been "affected" by Christine. They all carry some sort of burden but some have done better than others in living life for the present. Finally Christine returns home to find that her greatest love from that evening lives across the lake. She journeys to the far side of the lake and confuses her young man with a similarly looking young man who turns out to be the son of the man she is looking for and he, the father is just dead. Christine realises unflinchingly the finality of death and the inability to make sense of it. In the very last scene she and the young man are attending a fancy dress ball with the implication that meaning, if it exists at all, comes from family, particularly children.

For the director who is known to have come from a Catholic background, this film is an emblem of his estrangement from faith and probably hope and seems like a totem for his continuing forays into pessimism and misanthropy. It is extraordinarily powerful, sophisticated and, because of the changing tones of the numerous vignettes, is both subtle and continuously compelling. Everyone says this is a very fine film but it is more than that, it is an absolute triumph. It is a work of philosophy, both absolutely honest and at the same time entertaining. So entertaining in fact that I think many critics have glossed over the very serious implications of the subject matter. This is one film by Duvivier I had not previously seen and I must say that I'm now glad that I have reached middle age so that I can appreciate it I hope fully.

The Duvivier Dossier (18) - Black Jack, (France/Spain/UK, 1950) - Some further thoughts

Duvivier returned from Hollywood after WW2. His first film was the Simenon adaptation Panique (1946). It is one of his very best, in the top handful, and it was a box-office failure. He went to England to make Anna Karenina (1948) for Alexander Korda, returned to France to make Au Royaume des Cieux/The Sinners  (1949) and then made Black Jack in 1950. Absent any biographical information we dont know what the conditions of this production were nor even why Duvivier should embark upon it, beyond perhaps any need to pay the rent. (For the last couple of years, every time I see a movie like this I am irresistibly reminded of Bruce Beresford's memoir/diary from 2007 "Josh Hartnett definitely wants to do this..." with its rich vein of stories about film industry stupidity, greed and avarice. The producer of international co-productions is a particularly malevolent creature.) (Max Berghouse's earlier review of this film is at http://filmalert101.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/the-duvivier-dossier-14-black-jack-1950.html).

Picking at the entrails, you would like to know where this enterprise started. According to the credits, Duvivier produced the film. It seems more likely that the money for the production was cobbled together by Alexander Salkind. (His Alsa Productions gets the opening credit.) Salkind spent a lifetime putting together international co-productions both large and small. Some, like Orson Welles The Trial (1962) have an enduring reputation and some, most especially his Superman (1978) and the two for the price of one  Three & Four Musketeers (1973 & 1974) movies were extremely successful with the crowd.

The main writing credit goes to Charles Spaak, a collaborator with Duvivier from his golden streak in the mid-thirties that started with La Bandera (1935). In the thirties Spaak worked as well with Feyder, Renoir, Gremillon, Allegret and L'Herbier among others. He was a major figure in the French cinema and eventually contributed to over one hundred screenplays.

Anyway, here's the screen with the writing credits:

Screenplay by

Charles Spaak

&

Julien Duvivier

Based on an idea by

Robert Gaillard

Dialogue by

Michael Perthwee (sic)

Spanish Adviser

Jose A Nieves Conde

Which of course tells us nothing as to how somebody managed to assemble some major Hollywood names (George Sanders, Herbert Marshall and Agnes Moorhead), the British beauty Patricia Roc and others including Marcel Dalio as well as a first rate technical crew. The story would have helped for it was/is right off the front pages. Strangely on the day I watched it,  Hungarian troopers were fire-hosing down refugees trying to cross from the Serbian border. It remains up to the minute.

Ask what Duvivier did to stitch up the 97 minutes of running time is and we're back to square one. It's open to much surmise. Most obviously he added in some musical diversions - flamenco singing and dancing in a night club, some auditions by would be performers taking place while Mike Alexander (George Sanders) is trying to organise something shady, a group folk dance down by the port in celebration of what we know not. There is a credit for some performing group whom I assume supply the personnel for all these incidentals.

The film was made in English and the stars dubbed their own voices. Sanders plays some sort of a variation on Harry Lime, an amoral but charming rogue with a chip on his shoulder about what the war cost him. He is a dabbler in shady matters but his big hope lies in a shipment of drugs he is due to collect. Before that happens he is approached by floundering sea captain Nikarescu (Marcel Dalio) seeking assistance with the offloading of a boat load of refugees he is almost aimlessly piloting round the Mediterranean. Mike agrees to help sort of. He will offload a half dozen or so who can pay a fee. The rest he suggests be dumped on an uninhabited island and the ship sunk. Mike's attention is taken, when he goes aboard to negotiate the handover by the enigmatic Ingrid Dekker (Patricia Roc).

Back on land Mike runs into his old mate Dr James Curtis, a US drug agency chief playing with his usual upper-class accent by the wooden legged Herbert Marshall. (We are a long way from Trouble in Paradise at this point.). He's on the trail of a major drug bust but cant believe his mate Mike is involved. Not so Emily Birk (Agnes Moorehead) a socialite who flies into town in her own plane but who is really an undercover cop trying to get the participants in this major drug deal that clearly everyone know about. She's immediately romanced by some smooth gigolo who turns out to be Inspector Carnero of the Spanish police who has gone undercover because he's trying to foil a major drug bust.

Mike almost gets away with it all not before redeeming himself by tipping out the drugs and falling in love with Ingrid. The drugs, it turns out, have been carried on board the same ship as all those refugees. Nikarescu, it also turns out, locked the refugees in the hold and sank the ship but only part of it went underwater, unfortunately the part containing the refugees.

As you can appreciate whatever Spaak and Duvivier thought they might be doing, a post The Third Man story about a pressing problem, spun out with local colour, doesn't come off. Not really Duvivier's bag this sort of intrigue. He's best at subtle personal relations, tension between friends, irony, pessimism. International intrigue is way out of his comfort zone. Which brings us back to the lack of biographical info and the basic knowledge of how such films get made and why. The mysteries of Duvivier's roller coaster ride and his peripatetic activity remain.

Scheff - Life with a Purpose

Hello Folks

More on this matter later but I am posting this straight away to let you know of a marvellous little Gedenkschrift (memorial publication)  about the late Edwin Schefferle.

The publisher Bill Kerr has produced a limited number of copies and is happy to provide them to friends and admirers. You need to contact Bill at wkerr@access.net.au.

Bruce Hodsdon's list of the Great European Directors

                                                    European Directors : a select checklist

In proposing something of an extended canon of 256 European directors I am attempting to bring together the criteria of art (critical weighting) and information (including a history of the form), as it coalesces in fictional narrative films. It is in the form of a basic non-alphabetical index to national (industry and cultural) connections while also forming the beginnings of a continental (cross cultural) complexion.

In the simplest terms, I have chosen directors for inclusion whom, from available information, I perceive to be working or have worked at the cutting edge, or are otherwise exploring or have explored the potential of fictional film narrative to convey meaning from somewhere across the spectrum of human experience. The lists are in approximate chronological order from silent cinema to the present. Women directors are in italics. In a few cases I have identified by hyphenation and bolding creative director-(non) director collaborations which have been, in an on-going sense, known to have been especially significant. This is in addition to the well known collaborations of the Taviani and the Dardenne brothers.

                                                                                                                                                               B.H.  15/9/15

Louis Feuillade

 France       A. Guy Blache, L.Feuillade, M.Linder, A.Gance, J.Epstein, M.L'Herbier,

    (60)        R.Clair, J.Feyder, J.Duvivier, J.Renoir, J.Vigo, J.Gremillon, M.Carne´-J.Prevert, C.Autant-Lara,

                   J.Cocteau, J.Tati, Y. Allegret, S.Guitry, H-G.Clouzot, M.Ophuls, R.Bresson, J.Becker, R.Clement

                   R.Leenhardt, J-P.Melville, G.Franju, L.Malle, J-LGodard, C.Chabrol, F.Truffaut, J.Rivette,

                   E.Rohmer, J.Rozier, A.Resnais, A.Varda, C.Marker, J.Rouch, J.Demy, M.Duras,

                   A.Robbe-Grillet, R.Allio, N.Kaplan, C.Sautet, B.Tavernier, R.Ruiz, P.Garrel, J.Eustache, M.Pialat,

                   B.Blier, C.Denis, T.Gatlif, J-P.Jeunet, L.Besson, A.Techine´, O.Assayas, L.Carax, A.Desplechin,

                   J-J.Beineix, C.Breillat, L.Cantet

Alberto Cavalcanti

Britain        A.Asquith, A.Hitchcock     

    (39)         A.Korda, M.Powell-E.Pressburger, A.Cavalcanti, H.Jennings,T.Dickinson, R.Hamer,

                   A.Mackendrick, C.Reed, D.Lean, J.Losey, T.Fisher, T.Richardson, K.Reisz, L.Anderson, J.Clayton,

                    J.Schlesinger, K.Russell, P.Watkins, K.Loach, J.Boorman, M.Reeves, B.Forsyth, M.Leigh, D.Jarman,

                   T.Davies, P.Greenaway, R.Lester, A.Clarke, N.Roeg, T.Gilliam, S.Frears, A.Cox, S.Potter, L.Ramsay,

                   A.Arnold, M.Winterbottom, J.Glazer

               

Michelangelo Antonioni

Italy          E.Guazzoni, G.Pastrone, N.Martoglio, E.Notari   

   (31)        A.Blasetti, M.Soldati, R.Rossellini,V.De Sica-C.Zavattini, G.De Santis, A.Lattuada, F.Fellini,

                  M.Antonioni, L.Visconti,V.Zurlini, E.Petri, V.De Seta, F.Rosi, E.Olmi, G.Pontecorvo, M.Ferreri,

                  P.P.Pasolini, P.&V.Taviani, B.Bertolucci, M.Bellocchio, S.Leone, D.Argento, L.Cavani,              

                  G.Tornatore, G.Amelio, N.Moretti, L.Wertmuller,

 

Sergei Eisenstein

Russia/     Y.Bauer, S.Eisenstein, V.I.Pudovkin, Z.Vertov, A.Dovzhenko-J.Sointsev, B.Barnet,

 USSR       G.Kosintsev-L.Trauberg

  (20)         M.Donskoi, K.Muratova, A.Konchalovsky, M.Kalatozov, A.Tarkovsky, E.Klimov,

                  N.Mikhalkov, A.German, L.Sheptiko, A.Sokurov, A.Zvyagintsev

                  Georgia: S.Paradjanov, O.Iosseliani

Margarethe von Trotta

Germany   F.Lang, E.Lubitsch, J.May, F.W.Murnau, E.A.Dupont, G.Pabst, P. Leni

   (25)         J.von Sternberg, D.Sierck, H.Kautner, B.Wicki

                   A.Kluge, R.Hauff, R.W.Fassbinder, J-M Straub-D.Huillet, H. Sanders-Brahms,

                   J.Bruckner, H-J Syberberg,V.Schlondorff, M.von Trotta, W.Herzog, W.Wenders

                  GDR: W,Straude, K.Wolf, F.Beyer

Poland      A.Wajda, W.Has, J.Kawalerowicz, A.Munk, R.Polanski, J.Skolimowski, K.Zanussi, K.Kieslowski,

     (9)        A.Holland

  

Vera Chytilova

        

Czech.      G.Machaty,   

    (9)        M.Forman, I.Passer, E.Schorm, J.Menzel, J.Jires, J.Nemec, V.Chytilova, J.Svankmajer

Spain       J.A. Bardem, L.G.Berlanga, L.Bunuel, V.Erice, P.Almodovar, C.Saura, A.Amenabar, J.Medem

    (8)

Sweden      M.Stiller, V.Sjostrom

    (8)          I.Bergman, V.Sjoman, J.Troell, L.Ullman, L.Moodysson, R. Andersson

Denmark   B.Christensen, C.Dreyer

    (7)          Gabriel Axel, L.von Trier, T.Vinterberg, Bille August, Susanne Bier

Hungary   M.Jancso, I.Szabo, K.Makk, M.Meszaros, B.Tarr

    (5)

Portugal    M.de Oliveira, J.Monteiro, P.Costa, M.Gomes

    (4)

Belgium     H.Kumel, A.Delvaux, J-P.& L. Dardenne, C.Akerman, J.Van Dormael, L. Belvaux

    (6)

Former       A.Petrovic, Z.Pavlovic, D.Makavejev, M.Klopcic, E.Kusterica, D.Tanovic

Yugoslavia

    (6)

Netherlands  F.Rademakers, P.Verhoeven

     (2)

Ireland          N.Jordan, J.Sheridan

     (2)

 

Romania       C.Puiu, C.Mungui, C.P.Netzer

     (3)

Greece          M.Cacoyannis, T.Angelopoulos, N.Panayotopoulos

     (3)

Turkey          Y.Guney, N.B.Ceylan, F. Akin   

     (3)

Other            M.Haneke, A.Kaurismaki, A.Tanner, C.Goretta, W.Borowczyk, C.Costa-Gavras

    (6)