Barges
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Barges |
| Original title | Remorques |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1941 |
| length | 81 (French original) 91 (German version) minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jean Grémillon |
| script |
Roger Vercel Charles Spaak André Cayatte Jacques Prévert (also dialogues) based on the novel Remorques by Roger Vercel |
| production |
Roland Tual Louis Wipf |
| music | Alexis Roland-Manuel |
| camera | Armand Thirard |
| cut | Louisette Hautecoeur |
| occupation | |
| |
Barges is a French film drama from the shipping environment, shot from 1939 to 1941. Directed by Jean Grémillon play Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan , the leading roles that are already in the previous year with great success in the drama Port of Shadows had played together.
action
The Breton captain André Laurent of the tug Cyclone is at the wedding party of a crew member when he receives an SOS call. One ship, the Mirva , is in distress and urgently needs help. Laurent runs out immediately, but the recovery of the wrecked ship proves to be very difficult this time. Because on the one hand his own team proves to be unreliable this time, and on the other hand the captain of the Mirva to be towed shows himself to be a real disgust and not up to his tasks. The tow rope breaks twice.
To make matters worse, Catherine, the wife of the despotic Mirva captain, is a real eye-catcher, and the tug captain, who is married to the older, heart-sick Yvonne, is more than good for his job, distracted by the young lady. It sparks quickly between her and André, and both want to escape from their unloved marriages. An emergency call came to him from home, Yvonne was dying. André rushes to her immediately. Catherine realizes that the bond between the couple is too strong and decides to leave town and start again elsewhere. André Laurent, now a widower, is left alone.
Production notes
Barges , begun before the outbreak of World War II, is considered the last film of poetic realism , “it is something like the last testimony of the old school”, as Georges Sadoul wrote. The shooting in the westernmost tip of France, the Finistère department , was characterized by countless obstacles and interruptions. Shooting started in July 1939 in Brittany . The film was continued on August 11, 1939 with the studio shooting in the studios of Billancourt . When France declared war on Germany, filming had to be abruptly interrupted on September 3, 1939, as leading actor Gabin and director Grémillon were drafted. Since the war did not initially spread to France, filming could be continued in April 1940, just before the Wehrmacht invaded France. With the occupation of France, the shooting schedule was again thrown overboard and the film stopped again, this time for over a year. Filming continued in the spring and summer of 1941 and the film was completed with the last flap on September 2, 1941.
The film was finally released in cinemas on November 27, 1941. The German premiere only took place after the war, in 1946. On November 13, 1981, the German television first broadcast took place in the third program of the Bavarian radio. Occasionally the film is also conducted under the German title Der Orkan .
The buildings were designed by Alexandre Trauner , who had to go underground as a Jew during the German occupation. Louis Daquin was Grémillon's assistant director. Alain Cuny made his film debut here in a tiny role.
Even before the filming was finished, the main actors Morgan and Gabin left occupied France, embarked for the USA and continued their film careers in Hollywood until the end of the war in 1945, without appearing in front of the camera together. On the day of the premiere of Barges , Gabin began filming his first US production Night in the Harbor . At this point, Michèle Morgan had already shot her Hollywood debut, Joan of Paris .
Reviews
“Nature plays a big role in this film. Without obtrusive symbolism, the sea becomes, as it were, the acting person, Laurent's partner. The best scenes in the film are also linked to nature: the portrayal of a hurricane, a walk for lovers on a lonely beach. "
In the Lexicon of International Film it says: "Careful study of the milieu and the attempt to define the characters through their relationships to nature and the world of work make Jean Grémillon's film an exemplary work of French pre-war realism."
“Grémillon's last work before the outbreak of war,“ Barges ”, was also unusually mature and poetic. As never before, this time the director included nature - the harbor landscape, the sea, a beach and, as a highlight, a hurricane - as an element of the plot. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Georges Sadoul: History of Film Art, p. 203. Vienna 1957.
- ↑ barges. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 12, 2015 .
Web links
- Remorques on cinestke.blogspot
- Barges in the Internet Movie Database (English)