Mon
19/07
Piazza Maggiore > 21:45
LES BAS-FONDS
Nicolas Seydoux (Gaumont)
In case of rain, the screening will take place in the other cinema theatres
ProjectionInfo
Subtitle
Original version with subtitles
Admittance
Free entry upon reservation
LES BAS-FONDS
Film Notes
After the collaborative La Vie est à nous and the then unfinished Partie de campagne, this adaptation of Gorky’s 1902 play The Lower Depths (Na dne) was the third film Renoir directed during the annus mirabilis 1936, an assignment from the Russian émigré producer Kamenka. He did not use the script (which appears to be lost) written by the recently emigrated novelist Yevgeny Zamiatin, and chose not to be specific about the Russian setting. “How can we accept Jouvet as a high tsarist official,” André Bazin later wrote, “or believe that Gabin’s Parisian banter displays the ‘restlessness of the Russian soul’? Or take the banks of the Marne for those of the Volga? But it is just that which Renoir has the impudence to ask.”
As an ensemble play, Renoir’s Les Bas-fonds turned out to be an early instance of his Petit Théâtre, in which players are pushed to the limit of their talent, acting as if the instruments of their orchestra had not been tuned: the great Le Vigan, genius and madman, playing an alcoholic and suicidal “actor” who revels in the
sound of words like “organisme” or “sicambre”; the cosmopolitan, Stanislavsky-trained Vladimir Sokoloff; the typically French comedian Gabriello; some members of the leftwing Groupe Octobre and of Renoir’s own stock company, like the acrobatic Maurice Baquet… Undeterred by a falling-out with Sylvia Bataille on Partie de campagne, Renoir even enjoys the mediocrity of her replacement Junie Astor, to say nothing of Suzy Prim. But of course, the miracle of Les Bas-fonds arises from the first of his four meetings with Jean Gabin and two with Louis Jouvet, whom he enfolds in a choreography of camera movements, and the friendly clash of these two characters dearest to his heart: the outlaw and the aristocrat.
In spite of its contemporary success (it was awarded the first Prix Louis-Delluc), Les Bas-fonds is anything but a ‘classical’ masterpiece and has persistently been undervalued. Perhaps Renoir’s nonchalant contempt for all dramatic rules and conventions was – for once – not in advance of, but in tune with its time: year one (and only – or almost) of the Front populaire.
Bernard Eisenschitz
Cast and Credits
T. it.: Verso la vita. Sog.: dalla piéce omonima (1902) di Maksim Gor’kij. Scen.: Jacques Companeez, Evgenij Zamjatin, Charles Spaak, Jean Renoir. F.: Fédote Bourgasoff, Jean Bachelet. M.: Marguerite Renoir. Scgf.: Hugues Laurent, Eugène Lourié. Mus.: Jean Wiener. Int.: Jean Gabin (Vas’ka Pepel), Junie Astor (Natasha), Suzy Prim (Vassilissa Kostyleva), Louis Jouvet (il barone), Vladimir Sokoloff (Kostylëv), Jany Holt (Nastia), André Gabriello (amministratore), Robert Le Vigan (l’attore alcolizzato), Henri Saint-Isle (Klestch). Prod.: Alexandre Kamenka per Films Albatros. DCP. Bn
If you like this, we suggest:
21:45
LunettArena
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
Pauline Saint-Hilaire (StudioCanal) and Roy Menarini (Università di Bologna)
21:45
Piazza Maggiore
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
Pauline Saint-Hilaire (StudioCanal), Roy Menarini (Università di Bologna) and Anna Masecchia (Università di Napoli)
21:45
Piazza Maggiore
IT
IT
Music composed and directed by Maud Nelissen, performed by The Sprockets:
Daphne Balvers (soprano saxophone), Frido ter Beek (alto saxophone), Peter Keijsers (trombone), Marco Ludemann (banjo, jazz guitar, mandolin), Alexander Vocking (contrabass), Rombout Stoffers (drums, effects, accordion) and Maud Nelissen (piano)