L'atlante

[Des]

Santa bought me a Jean Vigo DVD Collection. What an amazing vision this director had - some of his scenes are unforgettably surreal - but these are the closing scenes of L'atlante. Not a dry eye in the house.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xv8DNfiVk ... re=related

[Neil Foxlee]

Note that the radiant Dita Parlo, the female lead in L'Atalante, also appears in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion. And that Zero de Conduite was a major inspiration for Lindsay Anderson's If. And that the great Michel Simon, one of France's finest character actors, starred in Renoir's Boudu sauve des eaux.

Whatever next? Pagnol's Marseille trilogy?

[NormanD]

This isn't meant to sound snobby, but L'Atalante is even lovelier in the cinema. The BFI put out a restored print a few years back and it periodically turns up in some cinemas, so it's well worth looking out for, and travelling to see it. I love the film, but would be hard pressed to say why. The idea of plunging your head in water to see a loved one is magical.

There's a good biography of Jean Vigo by P. E. Salles Gomes, with none of the usually obscure film language. Try and track it down, I'm sure you'd like it.

An obscure bit of trivia - there is a French film from the 70s that has a shot of a life preserver (those round things you throw in the water when someone's in the drink) with "L'Atalante" on it. What film was it?? (not a quiz!)

[Ted]

This isn't meant to sound snobby, but L'Atalante is even lovelier in the cinema.

It's true. Its one of my favourite films. Vigo's obsession with light and water produces some great images.

It is sometimes on with some documentary shorts Vigo made in the late 20s
ones about a swimming pool and has the same water/light thing going on.

[Neil Foxlee]

Herewith the Wikipedia Jean Vigo article:

Jean Vigo (April 26, 1905 – October 5, 1934) was a French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and went on to be a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

[edit] Biography

Vigo was born to Emily Clero and the prominent Spanish/Catalan militant anarchist Eugeni Bonaventura de Vigo i Sallés (who adopted the name Miguel Almereyda - an anagram of "y'a la merde", which translates as "there is shit"). Much of his early life was spent on the run with his parents. His father was strangled in his cell in Fresnes Prison on the night of 13 August 1917 — allegedly the authorities were responsible. The young Vigo was subsequently sent to boarding school under an assumed name, Jean Sales, to conceal his identity.

Vigo was married and had a daughter in 1931. He died of complications from tuberculosis, which he had contracted eight years earlier.

[edit] Career

Vigo is noted for two films which affected the future development of both French and world cinema: Zéro de conduite (1933) and L'Atalante (1934).

He also made two other films: À propos de Nice (1929), a subversive silent film examining social inequity in 1920s Nice; and Taris, roi de l'eau (1931), a motion study of swimmer Jean Taris.

Zéro de conduite was banned by the French government until after the war and L'Atalante was mutilated by its distributor. They have outlived their detractors though, and L'Atalante was chosen as the 10th-greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound's 1962 poll, and as the 6th-best in its 1992 poll.

The Prix Jean Vigo is an annual award.

[edit] External links

* Jean Vigo at the Internet Movie Database
* Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
* Jean Vigo Page at The Anarchist Encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Vigo

[Neil Foxlee]

PS The Jean Vigo Collection is available at a very reasonable price from HMV online.

[garth cartwright]

DVD boxes are great - I'll get this one as I didn't know it existed but I love the Vigo films I've seen (one a man swimming underwater, Zero and Atlante). We could of dropped him into the "those who passed too soon" slot of a few months ago - imagine if he had lived a long life and made many films!

Norman, I'm guessing the film in yr quiz is Last Tango. right or wrong?

[NormanD]

Wasn't a quiz, I just couldn't remember. I think you are right there, Garth.

[Neil Foxlee]

Another piece of trivia - the setting of L'Atalante is the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris, a favourite location for film-makers.