Gates of the night

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Movie
German title Gates of the night
Original title The portes de la nuit
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1946
length 120 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Marcel Carné
script Jacques Prévert
production Pierre Laurent
music Joseph Kosma
camera Philippe Agostini
André Bac
cut Jean Feyte
Marthe Gottie
occupation

and Colette Mareuil , Brigitte Auber , Émile Genevois

Pforten der Nacht is a French film drama from 1946 by Marcel Carné with Yves Montand , Nathalie Nattier and Serge Reggiani in the lead roles, which tried to reflect the circumstances of the time in early post-war France in its own visual language. The story is based on the ballet Le Rendez-vous by Jacques Prévert , who also wrote the screenplay.

action

Final phase of World War II . Paris has already been liberated, while further east the war is approaching its climax. In February 1945 the French capital is not only overcrowded with Allied soldiers and those of the “Free French”, but also with war profiteers and speculators, former Resistance fighters and heroes, but also with collaborators and traitors who now have to go underground and get their flocks dry try bring. The young and yet well-traveled Jean Diego is also among this colorful crowd with the dazzling past. He is on his way to Barbès-Rochechouart, a poor and rather dark district. On the way there, he meets a tramp who symbolizes fate, and Diego says that he will soon meet the woman of his life. When he arrives at his destination, Jean wants to bring the terrible news of his death to the wife of his friend Raymond Lécuyer. Diego is all the more surprised when suddenly Raymond stands in front of him, very much alive: he has survived the torture of the Gestapo! This fact has to be celebrated spontaneously, and so Diego misses the last metro homewards. It is decided to let Diego spend the night in the Lécuyers' house.

In the back yard of the property, Diego meets the pretty, young Malou. She is (unhappily) married to the eccentric Georges, who could be described as a beneficiary of the past war. Malou, who wants to divorce Georges, has just returned from her father, whom she paid a visit that ultimately turned out to be disappointing. Malou and Diego soon begin to flirt violently with each other when Diego suddenly hears a laughing voice that seems familiar to him: It is that of the Gestapo Confederate Guy, who once betrayed Raymond to the Germans. And this guy of all people is also Malou's brother! Diego and Raymond decide to make Guy pay bloody for his malicious denunciation and expose the German spy coram publico. Guy runs off like a kicked dog and inwardly vows revenge. He meets Georges, who is looking for his abandoned wife. Guy makes it clear to him that Malou is cheating on him, Georges, with Jean Diego, hands him his revolver and tells him where to find Diego. A dramatic encounter ensues in which, however, it is not Diego who falls victim to the jealousy, but rather Malou. She is shot by Georges with her own brother Guy's revolver.

Production notes

Gates of the Night , in its dark fatalism not entirely dissimilar to Carné's earlier work, Hafen im Nebel , was premiered on December 3, 1946 in Paris. The film only opened in Germany in early 1949.

Raymond Borderie took over the production management. The film structures are by Alexandre Trauner , the costumes by Mayo .

For the two main roles, the lovers at the time Jean Gabin (for the part of Diego) and Marlene Dietrich (for the role of Malou) were originally intended, who had appeared in Martin Roumagnac that same year .

Reviews

At that time it was said: “Today's French feature film has long since passed the stage of experimental surrealism. The aftereffects of his influences are still noticeable in individual works, for example in Marcel Carné's "Pforten der Nacht" (1946), which composes lyrically soft pictures between a realism of life and a realism of the dream about the Paris of the post-war period. "

Georges Sadoul first praised Carné's attempt to “capture the inimitable atmosphere of a Paris elevated train station”, but also claimed that Porten der Nacht was “the most controversial film by Marcel Carné” and at the same time one of “the most characteristic works of the year when French film came between had to decide different ways. In this film, collaborators and businessmen who have returned from England embody evil with a clarity that is too thick for the taste of an exclusive audience. "

The film service ruled: "A gloomy fateful drama, carefully, but very sentimental and almost manneristly staged."

Individual evidence

  1. The poet and the film. On the situation in French filmmaking, in: The time of March 10, 1949
  2. ^ Georges Sadoul: History of Film Art, Vienna 1957, p. 87
  3. ibid., P. 352
  4. ibid., P. 353
  5. Gates of the Night. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 31, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 

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