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Vigo: a passion for life |
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A Film about the works of Jean
Vigo - Review
Dir. Julien Temple Channel Four Films, 1998.
This film suggests a welcome renewal of interest in the world of Jean Vigo, a French anarchist film-maker who died at the age of 29 in 1934. Vigo already has his following in the film making world, with directors Sally Potter and Francois Truffaut citing him as a major influence, while Lindsay Anderson based his anti-school feature If on Vigo’s Zero de Conduit.
Jean Vigo was the son of Almeredya, an active publisher and campaigner against the First World War. After his father’s arrest and assassination, Vigo was sent away to boarding school by his mother, who also changed his name to avoid victimisation. It was only much later that Vigo discovered his father’s death in prison was not suicide, as he had been informed, but the result of an attack by French government agents. His father’s shadows were to haunt him all his young life.
Although afflicted by TB for most of his fife, Vigo was determined to make films, he married Lydou Lozinska whom he met at a sanatorium, and together with the cinematographer Boris Kaufman, formed a group of friends who produced some of the most memorable films this century - A Propos de Nice, Zero de Conduit, and L’Atalante.
A Propos de Nice was a documentary, inspired by Russian montage which playfully exposed the contradictions of' this most bourgeois of resorts, where gambling and wealth contrasted with cultural sterility and exploitation.
Zero de Conduit/Nought for Conduct was clearly autobiographical in its challenge to the absurdities of schooling, and many of the incidents and characters evolved out of his own early experiences. He toured the streets of Paris picking out truants to play the parts of schoolboys who revolt against the hierarchical order. The film's attack on discipline, authority and ageism led to the government censor banning it outright.
L’Atalante was Vigo’s last film and he died before it achieved international acclaim. Vigo felt obliged to accept the script because of the political and financial difficulties he faced both as the son of the ‘notorious anarchist’ Almeredya, and the banning of Zero. A young married couple shares a working barge with an older sailor and a young apprentice. Vigo rewrote the script so that this incongruous and contradictory community provide the characters for a portrayal of anarchists, jealousy, individuality and loyalty, in a style which was influenced by surrealism.
Julien Temple's Vigo: A Passion for Life does capture the energy and resourcefulness of Jean Vigo while truthfully recounting the significant chapters of his life and works. Temple avoids significant use of the films' footage, but playfully re-enacts some scenes as if they were Vigo’s life - Vigo diving into the canal after his camera mirrors the underwater scene in L’Atalante; a family friend and anarchist strips off his top to reveal full body tattoos identical to those of the barge’s Le pere Jules. Temple relies frequently on the practical jokes which Salles Gomes recounts in his excellent biography to illustrate Vigo’s work. In comparison to Vigo’s lyrical realism, we have Temple's mainstream narrative, we have Vigo’s humanitarianism and Temple predictability.
On several occasions, the director has a character declare ‘What we see’, e.g. as the characters are thrown out of a casino, Vigo calls out ‘Let's get out of here’, yet we can see they are already getting out of there. The anarchist family friend is stereotypically raucous and bullish. There is an unnecessary heavy-handedness about a misunderstanding during a telephone conversation, when Lydou returns to the phone to find Jean has hung up.
It would be unfair to expect Temple to achieve the lyricism of Jean Vigo, but Temple's predictability cannot but be contrasted unfavourably with his subject’s lightness and sureness of touch. This film, then may disappoint those who are acquainted with Vigo’s work, but until you get access to his films, it at least acts as a useful introduction. Also recommended are Salles Gomes’ biography Jean Vigo and Marina Warner's L’Atalante.
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