Tavernier and Co.

VOYAGES.

Caught the Bertrand Tavernier Voyage á travers le Cinéma Française again, at Palace’s Norton Street show place multiplex, a disturbing experience.

The film appeared to have been modified slightly since I saw it opening week in Paris. I don’t remember that montage of posters for feeble pre-Eddie Constantine French thrillers  - but I could be wrong.

Sub-titles helped me pick up on details like the Louis Aragon story. When young, gung ho P.R. guy  Tavernier wanted the Great Man of Letters to turn up for a press show, he reminded him that Tavernier's parents had sheltered Aragon during the WW2 occupation.

I won't say I agree with all the observations - Claude Sautet's Max et les ferailleurs as a Fritz Lang style thriller? That hymn to group loyalty is about as far away from asserting authority through terror as you can get. However one story there is great. Sautet used to give Tavernier cutting notes on his films as they were being finalised,  until they got to Capitaine Conan where Sautet said he would never speak to him again if he changed a single frame.

Tavernier singles out the movie enthusiasts of the generation in front of his, Edmund Greville prominent. There's a lot I would have given to spend five hours of one afternoon talking to Jean Gabin the way Tavernier did - Gabin describing learning acting from Jean Renoir and camera from Julien Duvivier. My next generation friends there wanted to know who the Spencer Tracy lookalike was. I’d never thought of Jean Gabin in those terms.

Late Jean Gabin

The wealth of detail that entranced the French audience (spontaneous applause at my session at Les Halles) clearly bored the Norton Street viewers. It was obvious that they had never seen or heard of  most of the material. Quite a bit was new to me, which is one of the things I like about the film.  

The Leichhardt audience were restless. After a while, there were continuous walk-outs, probably about twenty percent. These are  people who had forked out twenty dollars a head to watch a three hour account of old French movies, the public that is supporting a documentary about David Stratton right now - quite likely some of the same individuals.

Well what do you expect if you suppress movie activity for the forty years since the Australian National Film Theater was asset stripped? ... and they wonder why nobody wants to watch the films that this parochial environment produces? Actually, Cinémathèques have a better record than Film Schools in producing notable film makers. Look at this film and think France in the sixties.

That makes sense. Spending the money on bringing up to speed a few thousand enthusiasts is more likely to deliver than making the path smooth for a dozen or so contenders -  not that serious screenings need that justification.

On the way in I'd flourished my old folks’ membership card and asked the Palace staff  lady
if she could identify the people on it. That was mean. Of course John Garfield and Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice didn’t mean a thing to her.

Ladies an gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.

Barrie Pattison 2017