2 early shorts by Jean Vigo
Plot Summary for
À propos de Nice (1930)
What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Cote d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.
Summary written by Michael Brooke {michael@everyman.demon.co.uk}
viewer's comments:
- Jean Vigo makes a travelogue!
Jean Vigo was surely one of the most surrealist directors who ever lived (briefly, as it turns out). I had the privilege to view his film essay on Nice, Italy, and while I understood very little of it, I'll give it points for originality and style.
Vigo chooses not to point the camera at Nice's attractions or sights, but instead focuses on the people, from the rich aristocrats on the beach, to the low-life sweepers. The whole point of this effort is to say that all sorts of people exist in Nice, but the people who come here are the rich Tourist scum, and besides, I just want to look at scantily clad babes.
At least, I THINK was the moral.
- Images are magic.
Disguised as a travelogue of Nice (in only images, without a single narration or title card), Vigo presents us with some of the most extraordinairy images you'll ever see.
On top of what was inspired observation (just pointing his camera at everyday things and making them look new, as if we've never seen them fore, Vigo was boundlessly inventive. Through simple slow motion, or fast motion, certain sequences are made magical (a procession, a bunch of girls dancing), through editing Vigo makes things disappear and appear, and change shape and appearance. His real magic, though, was in camera angles.
Apropos de Nice is one of the most exciting things i've ever seen. If you've seen Zero de Conduite and L'Atalante, the only two features Vigo completed before his premature death at 29, like me, you won't be able to help yourself from seeking out this little treasure, sadly only 25 mins long.
What was such a joy about Vigo was his wide-eyed wonder at the medium. Like Truffaut, Vigo had a boundless passion for movies as a boy, and at one point he saved up enough money to buy a camera, and he went out on the town in Nice and what we see in this movie is the result. Just Vigo standing there with a camera filming things, and the results are breathtaking. Just the look of things... the shapes of things, becomes illuminated by Vigo's curious camera. Vigo goes dancing on a crowded ballroom with his camera, watches sunbathers with it, watches passersby on the beachside, and watches a man reading a private letter over his shoulder, watches trees blowing in the wind, different men laughing, and much more i'll leave for you to discover. But its not the things themselves, its the way they are looked at - the camera angles, the way the camera moves around them. Vigo's lesson is that words are impotent, but images are magic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- How the experienced eye captures that which the youthful eye cannot interpret.
I first saw this as part of a school film study in 1960. THEN as I recall, I merely saw a creaky old French travelogue highlighting more or less a day in the life of a town on the French Cote D'Azur that bore less relevance, to ME at least, than the rather staid and somewhat uninspiring biscuits named after it!
I saw A PROPOS DE NICE again some forty years later at a lowly patronised French Film Festival which had been hurridly organised apparently by Sydney University. What I saw THAT night, with the advantage of four decades of life's experiences, was a superbly constructed attack on, or should I say "de-construction" OF - the Bourgois. Vigo, himself an anarchist to his left femur, relentlessly piles on the satire with images of the "respected" upper-class acting anything but respectfully.
Innovative indeed was the cinematography from Boris Kaufman with intentionally tilted aspects of buildings to lessen their grandeur, use of shadow and striking images of the people (love the Brit tourists nursing their fish and chips) as they go about their daily business.
Essential viewing for students of early French cinema.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also Known As:
Nizza (1930)
Runtime: France:25 min / Canada:45 min
Country: France
Language: French with English subtitles
Color: Black and White
Taris, roi de l'eau (1931)
viewer's comments:
- Vigo's second film, a short, is a dated but fun technique work-out
The second of Vigo's four films is about 10 minutes long. The subject, allegedly, is a French national swimming champion, Jean Taris. First we see him swimming normally. Then we see a hint that this isn't a documentary short: Taris dives into the water, Vigo runs the film backwards, and Taris is spit back out. This happens 3 times. Thus the crux of the film: inventive (for the time) technique, while overuse of it occurs. Fun stuff, though: interesting shots of Taris doing the backstroke. Finally, we see him goofing around underwater; by this point, the movie achieves a genuine state of grace. Can be found on No. 10 of the New York Film Annex's video series of experimental and abstract films.
- Experimental screen poetry at its best!
Vigo's short Taris is a work of breathtaking beauty. He uses the swimmer's body and movements to portray grace and passion, transcending the pretense that this short is a documentary on a famous swimmer of the 20s/30s. His use of close ups and freeze frames along with underwater beautifully lit scene add to its richness. The Film ends with a deep perhaps ironic twist which is priceless.If you have enjoyed Vigo's features do try and see this mini masterpiece
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Credited cast:
Jean Taris .... Himself
Also Known As:
Jean Taris, Swimming Champion (1931) (USA)
Natation par Jean Taris, champion de France, La (1931)
Taris, champion de natation (1931)
Runtime: 10 min
Country: France
Language: French
Color: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
|
