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Inspired by knives’ writeup, I watched two films by Jean-Pierre Mocky. I was going to watch a third, but Snobs! provided me with more than enough supplemental Mocky for one lifetime

Les dragueurs (1959)
Jacques Charrier’s ladies man takes novice Charles Aznavour under his wing and teaches a lot of lessons, few of them commendable, in picking up women over the course of one long evening. This movie is unlikely to dissuade skeptics of the New Wave who (falsely) label the movement misogynistic, but the film goes so head-first into its wanton sexual objectification that it would be ludicrous to get upset at it without looking deeper at what it depicts. Is there more there than just the New Wave’s version of Spring Break-style bro humor? Maybe. The film, while not offering pat criticisms or affirmations, exhibits curiosity in capturing a catalog of mating rituals in which horndog men accost (and in some cases literally molest) young women. By the time the film ends up in the midst of an orgy at what could pass for an afterparty from Eyes Wide Shut, we’ve seen more than enough to conclude that men are pretty awful and the film isn’t necessarily endorsing their behavior— after all, in the end, virtue is rewarded and vice is, if not punished, at least left deprived. But this feels like a facile resolution, and the film is unconvincing in its sudden morality. And of course the moral lesson that a Nice Guy deserves a cute girl just because he doesn’t molest her like every other dude she meets is setting the bar so low it’s buried beneath ten feet of concrete.

Michel Deville would later tweak Charrier’s persona here for his terrific À cause, à cause d'une femme (1963), a clever combination of two wildly different genres, the Hitchcockian wrong man thriller and a sex farce. The film could almost be a sequel to Les dragueurs, as in it a Casanova finds himself framed for a murder by one of his many paramours and is forced to solve the mystery with the help of a few of his conquests. Deville strikes an uneasy but often engaging tone between comedy and tragedy, and for all his outward charms the protagonist is shown to be quite piteous in the end. I think Deville’s handling of not dissimilar material is superior to Mocky’s for its vacillating tone and ambition, but I appreciate Mocky’s film more from an anthropological aspect. Modern society may still be sexist, but certainly we’ve come a long way from many of the behaviors we see in Les dragueurs! (No commercial English-subbed commercial release, available with English subs via back channels)

Snobs! (1962)
In a mix of Woman’s World and One Two Three, a group of milk company execs vie for the presidency in the wake of their leader diving head-first into a milk vat in the film’s opening scene— this leaves everyone on screen laughing uproariously, including the man’s widow. This audience member was left out, though. Oh brother, this movie, this movie, THIS MOVIE. I initially gave Les dragueurs enough rope to assume the filmmakers didn’t side with the prurient protagonist. After this I’m certain I was mistaken. Snobs! is so tasteless that it defies even that cheap and easily-ascribed label. I could go on for some time just cataloging this movie’s worst offenses, so in the interest of saving time, allow me to provide a top five of the film’s most audacious yet unfunny moments. Spoilers present, obviously, but I can’t imagine anyone watching this so whatever, you’ve been warned:

05 During a newspaper montage, the only footage overlayed on the printing press is that of a toddler taking a shit in a chamberpot and then using the paper to wipe its ass

04 A split screen phone call between a religious executive (top) and the local bishop (bottom) is presented like this



with a shadow moving behind the obscured portion to show the presence of another party in the bishop’s genital area. At the end of the scene we hear a cat meow and think, “Oh how innocent.” Then the cat emerges from beneath the bed sheets at top of frame, not below

03 Another religious exec is shown throughout the film repeatedly praying in church and blessing the lord for his good tidings. On the day of the big announcement, he verbalizes how he’s ready for Jesus to lead him to greatness. Cut to him getting hit by a milk truck, instantly dying. He is then later shown intercut with a church service playing the organ shirtless in Hell while demons poke him with pitchforks

02 The religious exec from Number Four is suspected of nefarious acts due to him disappearing every night with a big leather bag. Rivals for his contract call and report him to the cops, who discover him in a lighthouse. The camera frames the inside of the lighthouse to reveal what appears to be the exec violently sodomizing a naked man. After being arrested, it is revealed the exec has healing powers and was giving the man a massage. A police officer is so pleased that we see him unbuckle his pants and make hand motions indicating the unleashing of his genitals. The exec looks on longingly at the unseen sight of the policeman's reveal

01 A scout leader is discovered by our protagonist with what appears to be a thirteen year old girl beneath the sheets in the back of a milk truck. She is a member of a teenage dance troupe supported by the local mechanic bigwig, a grotesque bald man with a high-pitched voice who pays the girls to dance lithely in his shop while he looks on from the passenger seat of his cab. The protagonist forces the lovers to marry and the girl is dismissed from the troupe. The protagonist hires the scout leader to drive trucks for the company and the pair are later seen driving the milk truck that kills the man from Number Three. In order to assure the bald man’s compliance with his plans, our protagonist provides his own girlfriend, who is also underage, to replace the dismissed dancer. We see the bald man greedily lead her away for no doubt pure activities

So… this movie is remarkably vulgar. But it’s not funny, like, at all, and while I will confess to being impressed at how the film managed to find new depths of depravity to sink into, this is just a bad Billy Wilder movie with small dick jokes. Oh, I didn’t mention the small dick jokes. There are many, many small dick jokes. (No commercial English subbed release, available with English subs via back channels)


+++++

zedz, Marguerite Duras came way too late as a director to be considered part of the movement for the works she directed. Certainly there is no shortage of discussion of her importance for both source texts and screenplays for films which are considered part of the movement, but I recall no such discussion for her as a director. However, I will keep an eye out the next time I have my materials in front of me to see if I have forgotten, overlooked, or not yet gotten to something that says otherwise. It’s important to remember that figures who seem like they come really late into the movement like Moullet, Eustache, and Pialat, in fact had shorts produced several years before their more well-known features, and these shorts allowed them to be folded in and considered for later works by those who compiled existing lit on the movement, not the later works themselves. It's an issue that has to be addressed when increasing the time span one thinks of for this movement, and one of the challenges I face moving past the accepted norm in my own work

Probably worth clarifying that L'enfance nue is eligible. (IMDb has it as 1968 but various other sources as 1969.)

At least you had some fun with the first Mocky, though I suspect I wouldn't have liked it so much without Anouk Aimee's scene to complicate matters.

Is there a funnier New Wave-related film than Lautner's Gangster Uncle?

Bosley Crowther's original 1961 review of A bout de souffle -- fascinating look at how the film was received on this side of the ocean, and Crowther could give Cahiers a run for their money with some of his lines! Is Belmondo really "hypnotically ugly"?

What's he even saying in that third paragraph. Sometimes makes you wonder if everyone was incoherent back then. Anyway here's three Malle films I'm not voting for.

The Fire Within
In general I like Malle a lot and his chameleon ability to sift through expressive modes especially in his short lived New Wave period is one of his best attributes to me, but nothing about this particularly works at least for me. While certainly Malle made worse movies, hello Crackers, the lurching and silent observance he approaches the material with here is as deadly dull as possible. I appreciate the idea of uncritically looking at a depressive personality, but I think this approach is all wrong. In general I think experiencing life as is a more effective tool than mere observance, leaving me contrasting this with von Trier's Melancholia the whole time, as it offers engagement with sympathy without lame symbolism like the gun stuff. It's not a real enough presentation to earn the direct cinema aspects, it doesn't enter into Alain enough to make figure of why he's anything other than Malle's enigma, and it doesn't offer anything but cheap romantics so as to come to an Umberto D like idea of everyone even the most obnoxious are worthy of sympathy just because. This just seems like one of those films which merely exist.

The Lovers
This film certainly gives a lot for an academic to talk about with its fusing of pre-Ophuls melodrama with certain very modern techniques. The use of scope alone has a John Carpenter type impishness since it is being used for some fairly classical framing (e.g. Moreau by the road). It's not a radical use of technique ala Godard or what the Japanese were doing with the same things at the same time, but (especially off of The Fire Within) it provides something worth talking about. Unfortunately the plot is a bit of a limp fish. There's some nice things to talk around it like Malle's retention of a lot of older story elements while framing the film distinctly in '58 giving it an intense sense of time while an off putting feeling of the anachronistic. Even though that has since become a pretty popular technique I have to admit to not being able to recall any earlier examples of this idea in film (so Orson Welles' Julius Caesar doesn't count). The film is also short with a surprisingly quick pace given how lax the plot is. This helps a lot with making the film be tolerable as there's a definite since that cut any other way would make it obnoxious and boring. The editing may secretly be the film's best attribute. Which, as I said up front, makes this a good academic exercise but not terribly good a film.

Viva Maria!
This is pretty bad and completely unfunny. The politics are explicit and daring enough though to imagine that Positif went wild over the film.

knives wrote: The Lovers
This film certainly gives a lot for an academic to talk about with its fusing of pre-Ophuls melodrama with certain very modern techniques. The use of scope alone has a John Carpenter type impishness since it is being used for some fairly classical framing (e.g. Moreau by the road). It's not a radical use of technique ala Godard or what the Japanese were doing with the same things at the same time, but (especially off of The Fire Within) it provides something worth talking about. Unfortunately the plot is a bit of a limp fish. There's some nice things to talk around it like Malle's retention of a lot of older story elements while framing the film distinctly in '58 giving it an intense sense of time while an off putting feeling of the anachronistic. Even though that has since become a pretty popular technique I have to admit to not being able to recall any earlier examples of this idea in film (so Orson Welles' Julius Caesar doesn't count).

I think of Cocteau's Orphee as a similar use of that sort of anachronism, as Cocteau basically picks up a classical tale and drops it into a modern setting, though the fantastic elements there camouflage it somewhat.

Knives, I agree, those are three films that will never come within fifty yards of my list either. Your (probably unintentional) descending order fits my estimation as well-- Vie privee would come next below, so I wouldn't go out of your way for that one either

Zedz, the Cocteau is pretty good though I think he adapts it more to fit '50s France. It never really feels like it is taking place in a time separate from its setting the way Malle does here.

Dom, I'd probably put Viva Maria! at the top in terms of pure entertainment and it does provide some more interesting things thematically than The Fire Within. Still, they are all sort of meh in a way that divorces me from them. At least I'll have Zazie for this list.

I feel a little dumb for asking, but why are we not considering William Klein, Jean Paul Rappeneau, and Claude Berri New Wave? My impression is that they're genuinely considered in larger surveys (certainly more regularly than some of the people on the master list). Sorry if this is an obvious thing I'm just not getting.

They do not meet the already very broad metric of being considered New Wave by at least one of the reputable sources in the Print Resources list. So, not eligible

So there are reputable sources that call Melville New Wave? Because I'd be curious to hear that argument.

He's included by Durgnat, who specifies he's both a "precursor" to the New Wave for Le silence de la mer, and firmly within the New Wave for Bob la Flambeur ("[H]ere we come unmistakeably to the tone and morality of the New Wave") and Leon Morin, pretre. Durgnat makes no distinction within the structure of the book to separate him from other New Wave directors. He's also listed by Cahiers in their New Wave issue alongside other New Wave directors, and likewise not separated despite, in this case, specifically failing to meet the journal's own stated metric of having made their first feature since January 1959 (there are other directors included who fail to meet their standards as well, but these inclusions are indicators of their importance from within the movement itself and indicative of their belonging). That's the two most important contemporary source texts saying he belongs

Where does Bresson stand in this argument? I always considered Bresson and Melville precursors, close to but separate from the New Wave.

Bresson's Les Dames du bois de Boulogne is the very first film mentioned in Cahiers' timeline of New French Cinema. He's revered and referred to, but not considered part of the movement by early compilers for the same reasons Renoir isn't (though Renoir at least presents a trickier case for me personally due to Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1959), which so fully embodies the spirit and verve of the New Wave, yet unquestionably does not belong to the movement)

Good to know even if I am a little surprised.

Just wanted to add my thanks to Domino for this. Genuinely impressed with the write-ups and, having just read the Deetz Nutz thread I've decided to dive in the deep end and have a go at this. My list will probably be fairly conventional but I guess I have to start somewhere. Time for Film School!

Glad to hear it, I envy you seeing many of these films for the first time! I look forward to hearing your thoughts

Michael Kerpan wrote:Is there a funnier New Wave-related film than Lautner's Gangster Uncle?

Les tontons flingueurs (Georges Lautner 1963)
I watched this on your recommendation and sad to say I didn't think it was funny at all. There's a lot of potential for comedy in this tale of Lino Ventura's tractor bigwig who finds himself leading a skeptical underground organization and facing off against undermining factions, but it never materializes. It doesn't help that Olive's subs are awful to the point of distraction-- comedy's a gentle thing, and whoever subbed these dumbed everything that is said down and forgot to account for the weight of the words. Now, granted, I don't think it's all that much funnier knowing precisely how bad lines are said, but a film this poor needs everything it can get working in its favor! I have not seen Lautner's other films, but based on what's offered here, I'm going to go ahead and assume this is a case of a director getting swept up in the movement due to a conflation of factors (age, release date, nationality) that have no bearing on the content of the movement itself. Nothing here is "New Wave" and indeed seems like exactly the kind of movie your father or grandfather would get more out of in its middle aged concerns and "Those darn kids" touches. Perhaps once I get to his earlier films (which have been moved even further down the queue after this) I'll revisit my suspicions for proof one way or the other, but for now, yeesh. Sorry Michael! (R1/A Olive Films [as "Monsieur Gangster"-- lousy translation for the title too!])

domino harvey wrote:I have not seen Ventura's other films

Not even the Criterions?

Whoops, I meant Lautner. I've seen all of those and then some!

Michael Kerpan wrote:Is there a funnier New Wave-related film than Lautner's Gangster Uncle?

I'm usually torn on which one is funnier : Les tontons flingueurs or Les barbouzes.

Intrigued by Domino's raves for Deville I've just noticed this on Amazon France- "Peril"
https://www.amazon.fr/P%C3%A9ril-demeur ... el+Deville" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Is this a mistake and, if not, is it worth a punt?
Sorry, should have said it has English sub-titles!

I'm watching Deville in chronological order, so I cannot vouch for his 80s titles yet since I have not seen them. My understanding from other posters here who have seen his later works is they are surprised to hear my effusive take on his earlier films based on their lackluster experiences with his 80s films, so it may not be a good starting point

As a devout Huppertini I watched 'Eaux profondes' and couldn't wait to finish it to relist it for sale on Amazon. Apparently 'Péril' is in the same mould of nymphomaniac hysterics taking on their moribund vengeful hubbies. Bon courage.
Granted i haven't seen earlier Deville . Gaumont have put out 4 expensive volumes of collections so it could be that they may get cheaper individual blu re-releases in which case I might try the 60's stuff.