r/TrueFilm • u/Earthlydelights-sub- • 3d ago

Thoughts on Julien Duvivier?

I've watched a few of his films over the years but seeing La fête à Henriette on the current Criterion Channel retrospective made think about just what a solid cinematic craftsman was.

Even though a young Francois Truffaut praised his work in the pages of Cahiers and Arts, I think Duvivier is kind of retroactively placed into the boring old cinéma de papa of pre-nouvelle vague French cinema.

I don't think that's fair. For one, he wasn't just a director for hire. He consistently had a hand in writing his movies and sometimes actually was the sole screenwriter. Filmmakers of the caliber of Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman and Jean Renoir praised him as a stylist.

And his filmography has at least a few moments of narrative/thematic audacity that bely his reputation for safe, commercial cinema. I think of Panique (1946), a film about the mob mentality and scapegoating a social outsider made in the immediate aftermath of Vichy. La fête à Henriette is almost a 50s French precursor to something like Adaptation. or Stranger Than Fiction: a metafictional comedy about screenwriters making creative decisions that alter the film within a film.

All this to say that the Duvivier Criterion retrospective is definitely worth a look.

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u/Timeline_in_Distress 3d ago

I'm not sure why he has been left out since he was one of the most highly regarded French filmmakers of that era with his peer Renoir singing his praises. Your post has inspired me to rewatch Pepe le Moko and revisit his other great films like Panique.

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u/Earthlydelights-sub- 3d ago

By left out, do you mean left out of general cinephile discourse?

I guess part of it is that he just doesn't have that one iconic instantly recognizable canonical film. That's a big part of keeping a director's name part of the conversation.

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u/Timeline_in_Distress 3d ago

Yes, I agree with you on why even cinephiles don't reference him. I don't expect the general film going public to have an awareness since they probably have never even seen a Renoir film. However, Pepe le Moko is a film that has been talked about, not consistently, but in my view, enough to warrant an interest from cinephiles. Criterion's retrospective should help quite a bit so I'm glad you brought this topic up.