In February 1934, a sick Jean Vigo had finished editing L’Atalante during a constant exchange with his ‘band’, a group of close friends, who, together with the editor Chavance, kept the director informed when he could not be present in person. Vigo then left Paris to recover, while his friend Maurice Jaubert was completing the music. Vigo would never again find the strength to continue working on the editing as he desired. His collaborator, Albert Riéra, proposed to tighten the cutting, but producer J.L. Nounez refused that anyone should substitute the director. Only following the disastrous reception at a trade screening did he accept the proposal of co-producer and distributor GFFA to substitute Jaubert’s music with a ‘realistic song’ adapted from the Italian, Le Chaland qui passe; the title with which the film would be released that September, shortly before Vigo’s death. In the meantime, a print of the original L’Atalante has been sent to London, entrusted as it seems by Maurice Jaubert to Alberto Cavalcanti.
This is the print that has been used by the present restoration as a reference, for both picture and sound. We reintroduced the final aerial shot, taken by Kaufman instructed by Vigo, whose length was foreseen in the recorded score. A number of cuts (caused by film wear, censorship, voyeur projectionists?) have been restored with the help of some prints of Le Chaland qui passe, mutilated only after its the release at the Colisée Theatre, when GFFA heeded – or took advantage of – the protests of some spectators. The approach taken was to return to the original 1933-1934 film, without trying to adapt it to the viewing habits of 21st century spectators.
Bernard Eisenschitz