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| Jacques Tourneur |
Jacques Tourneur was an enigmatic and elusive
figure in the Hollywood of the 40s and 50s. Although he was best known for his
supernatural thrillers (which were marketed as “Horror” films, a term he
hated), he also worked in a wide range of genres - Westerns, a pirate film, a
medieval adventure, and film noirs.
All of his best films were impeccably made,
always elegant and engaging, but their real quality only starts to emerge when
one sees several of his films, and one starts to understand the consistency of
his style and his content, beyond the conventions of any genre.
Characteristics in Tourneur’s narrative
style are easy enough to identify: he
likes to film at night or in the dark with minimal lighting, and he tends to secure performances from his actors that
are subdued, calm and conversational, rather than demonstrative, melodramatic
or pitched to the back of the gallery.
These stylistic traits transform some of his genre pieces into
extraordinary works. His first Western,
for example, CANYON PASSAGE (1946), feels more “adult” than any other Western I
can think of, long before “adult Westerns” became a sub-genre of their
own: in this film, his characters speak
to each other quietly, unstressed, as fellow human beings with shared
experiences. And of course, a lot of CANYON
PASSAGE takes place at night.
Tellingly, Tourneur once said: “When I rehearse a scene, … to put the
actors and the technicians in the mood, I tell everybody to sit down. We turn out the lights and turn on just a gas
lamp. … The actors perform better when they are lit by a real gas lamp, in the
dark. When it’s all done, I say to the
cameraman, “That’s what I want for lighting, figure out how to get it.’” (from Chris Fujiwara’s book, Jacques Tourneur: the Cinema of Nightfall).
But there is much more involved than low
light and subdued performances, remarkable enough as these elements are in the
Hollywood studio system. Progressively,
as one watches Tourneur’s films, themes and preoccupations gradually emerge.
The first of these is internal: time and time again, Tourneur brings his
attention to bear on the psychological state of the characters, their
unexpressed existential anguish, their dreams and nightmares, and their
fears. The role of the subconscious and
the unexpressed can be integral to the plot, as in CAT PEOPLE (1942), or they
can become apparent when Tourneur pauses in the narrative to draw these
elements out from his characters, as he does remarkably in the final third of
ANNE OF THE INDIES (1951). These
elements seem all the more intense when played in the dark or semi-dark;
daylight seems to dissipate them.
It’s consistent with this interest in the
subconscious and in existential crises that Tourneur is often drawn to projects
involving psychologists and psychiatrists – again CAT PEOPLE and NIGHT OF THE
DEMON (1957) are prime examples – so that questions of the mind can be
addressed openly in the body of the narrative.
But there is another layer that is much
more elusive but intriguingly evident the more one watches his work. This is a sense of “otherworldliness”, of
forces beyond our understanding – forces that may make their presence felt
through nature (dark forests, trees, and especially variations in the wind). Tourneur spoke in interviews about his
“belief” in the “supernatural” without being very specific, but a presence is
not hard to detect. In NIGHT OF THE
DEMON and in STARS IN MY CROWN (1950) the presence of the supernatural forms an
essential part of the narrative: both
films are structured around the opposition of science on one hand and faith on
the other. In NIGHT OF THE DEMON we have
a fierce conflict between a psychologist and a satanist, while in STARS IN MY
CROWN a central concern of the narrative is the friendly rivalry between a small
town’s medical doctor and the community’s “preacher”. But more often, the otherworldliness is not
fore-grounded, but is detectable through nuance: in the expressiveness of the images and in the
deep experiences of the characters. It
is no wonder that Tourneur went on to direct for the TWILIGHT ZONE series on
television.
Chris Fujiwara’s book brings these ideas to
the foreground very skilfully, identifying these recurring elements in many of
Tourneur’s films. The documentary on Tourneur
that we are showing in CIFF also emphasises the metaphysical inclinations of
his work. The famous line by Paul Eluard
– “There is a parallel existence, and
it is in this one” – is quoted in
the documentary, and it seems apt in considering Tourneur. Combined with the humble, low-key, unheroic
performances, and the power of the dark, we have a remarkably consistent body
of work that transcends the expectations of each genre in which he worked. It’s as though the characters in a genre
piece are being observed from outside.
The forces of nature, of the supernatural, are not always malignant (as
they are in NIGHT OF THE DEMON) but can also be benign (as in STARS IN MY
CROWN), but they are there. If you are
in any doubt, watch the extraordinary opening shot in STARS IN MY CROWN and try
to explain it in any other way. It’s as
though that single shot is Tourneur’s declaration of the meta-narrative that
concerns him.
We look forward to talking about
this body of work with you during CIFF and it’ll be great to have Chris
Fujiwara as Festival Guest. I recommend
his book.
(Editor's Note: The above essay is the second by Festival Director Andrew Pike about the CIFF 2017 program. You can find the first if you click here For more on Jacques Tourneur see earlier entries posted on this blog: Noel Bjorndahl's personal history Barrie
Pattison's personal memoir. Click to get the stories.)
I put it to Tourneur that Tom Conway in CAT PEOPLE and Dana Andrews in NIGHT OF THE DEMON were both audience identification figures whose rational dismissal of the supernatural proved wrong. He wouldn't have it.
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