The 179th Best Director of All-Time: Jean Vigo

Vigo. Jean Vigo’s influence and impact on generations of cinema lovers and future auteurs is greater than his tragically truncated filmography. Sadly, he died at the young age of 29 (Murnau died young as well just a few years later and in 1933 and 1934 I think you could make the case they’re the best two directors working at that time) with only Zero for Conduct and L’Atalante in the archives. Vigo’s impact on Truffaut, The 400 Blows specifically (one of cinema’s great debuts) is important when telling the story of 20^th century cinema. What Vigo lacks in depth in the body of work is made up for in innovation and the greatness of these two works below—even if they total to up to a little more than 130 minutes of total run time.

Best film: L’Atalante

• L’Atalante never hits the high-water mark of Vigo’s Zero For Conduct pillow fight slow-motion sequence but the young auteur’s first and only feature (tragically died before completion of the film at age 29) is the more consistent and mature work with ambitious visual flourishes throughout
• It is a folk story, a fable, a love story- “she’s never left the village” – the breaking the mirror is bad luck and the seeing your true love when you dunk yourself in the water
• It is a masterful achievement in mise-en-scene. Like von Sternberg’s Blue Angel or Ozu’s work. Vigo layers the frame with obstructions and objects. Close quarters in the barge especially where every inch of the frame is designed with lamps, the phonograph, etc. The 25 minute is a show-off wow frame—32 minute mark with Simon’s Jules and his cluttered cabin
• At the 9-minute mark there is a great tracking shot as Dita Parlo’s Juliette walks across the barge from left to right as the camera moves left to right with her and the boat is moving the other way
• Vigo’s trademark (even with an incredibly brief filmography) three/fourths overhead shots – self-taught and predates Welles’ playfulness with angles in the 1940’s

• Vigo’s visuals and the romance fable that is stylistically rendered is the main reason to praise the film—but from a performance standpoint Michel Simon’s Jules is one of the most indelible characters of 1930’s cinema. Simon was a shapeshifter, and this is his best work. He doesn’t seem like an actor at all but someone so authentic they pulled onto the set off of a real ship. He has his swarm of cats, tattoos, he’s hilarious, jealous (he takes over when she’s sewing)- a true character and important to the narrative- it doesn’t work without him and his performance
• At 18 minutes Jean Dasté’s Jean is playfully mauling his new wife and Vigo uses her backing into the camera as a creative transition
• The lure of the big city narrative as used in Murnau’s Sunrise
• One of the best screen romances- “all day long either smooching or squabbling” echoes the Simon character
• 55 minutes a gorgeous low-angle shot as they exit the bar
• The film’s greatness is back-loaded. At 71 minutes we get the surrealism scene of Jean diving underwater and seeing her images. One of the great stylistic sequences of the 1930’s- superimposing her image, dissolve edits–

• using film style (through editing here) to communicate their connection- a love story rendered cinematically
• At 74 minutes the brilliant parallel editing/dissolves with matches sequence of Jean and Juliette each in their own bed missing each other
• DP Boris Kaufman would work in Hollywood later—On the Waterfront is one of the accomplishments

total archiveable films: 2

top 100 films:  0

top 500 films:   1

top 100 films of the decade:   2 (Zero for Conduct, L’Atalante)

most overrated: I hate calling a film that’s probably a masterpiece overrated- but the TSPDT consensus has L’Atalante as the #18 film of all-time and I just think that’s a couple hundred spots too high.

most underrated :  I don’t have one for Vigo. There’s just Zero for Conduct and L’Atalante and despite repeated viewings and study I’m lower than the consensus on both. I think the consensus puts more emphasis on his talent and influence than his resume than I do.

gem I want to spotlight : Zero For Conduct

• Zero for Conduct has an interesting use of Eisenstein’s character collective and one of the most important uses of early film style with the slow-motion photography pillow fight scene
• A short film- 44 minutes- my archives includes a few short films- this, one from Renoir, Bunuel—directors that have fiction features and are worthy of study. This one is especially significant because of Vigo’s lack of depth  (it is really this and L’Atalante the following year) and the landmark use of film style
• Certainly influential to a generation of filmmakers – both inside and outside of France. Truffaut is very open about the influence of Vigo and this film specifically on The 400 Blows, themes of anarchy (Lindsay Anderson’s If…. does not happen without this films) and in general the themes of rebellion and challenging the status quo (both artistically and politically) in Godard and others in the 1960’s
• The three/fourths overhead angle used again and by Vigo is important—most films (then and now) used the box as their frame, the close-up, or overhead but this almost makes Vigo seem self-taught—not quite on the level of what Welles would do with angles in the 1940’s but still. One thing it leads to is it makes our protagonist here the collective- just like Eisenstein’s montage did in the 1920’s. We’re 10 minutes into a 44 minute film and the viewer isn’t made aware of what the boys really look like that are driving this style. The frame set-ups, the row of beds at night, the row of tables at lunch, the row of desks at school (and Vigo’s camera subtly tracking them)—rhythmical, repetition, formally sound
• Again, anarchy (Marx Brothers, the finale in MASH)- this interests me less– the politics of the pranks and rebellion vs. what’s more important artistically which is how Vigo does that through visual style –
• Titles used throughout about their plot, Charlie Chaplin impression
• Eisenstein would slow the camera speed down for like the Odessa Steps sequence and that predates this, but not to this level of slow-motion (and his was about prolonging a scene through repetition and editing, not slowing one shot down to slow motion), Cocteau uses it in the 1940’s, and of course, probably most famously, Kurosawa in Seven Samurai- then the lineage picks up with the conclusion of Bonnie and Clyde and Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. This film and Vigo,  doesn’t take away from those films or filmmakers, they’re all essential

stylistic innovations/traits:

• Anti-authoritarian, a romantic, a rebel, ingenuity in visual style
• The three/fourths overhead angle used again and by Vigo is important—most films (then and now) used the box as their frame, the close-up, or overhead but this almost makes Vigo seem self-taught—not quite on the level of what Welles would do with angles in the 1940’s but still
• Zero for Conduct has an interesting use of Eisenstein’s character collective and one of the most important uses of early film style with the slow-motion photography pillow fight scene
•  The poetry in motion pillow fight slowing down of the photography moment at 38 minutes in Zero for Conduct is a landmark in film style—less than 1 minute long and it is gob-smacking visual cinema. Breathtaking. One of those seminal cinematic moments
• The fantasy sequences and montage/parallel editing/dissolves in L’Atalante

• L’Atalante It is a masterful achievement in mise-en-scene. Like von Sternberg’s Blue Angel or Ozu’s work. Vigo layers the frame with obstructions and objects. Close quarters in the barge especially where every inch of the frame is designed with lamps, the phonograph, etc. The 25 minute is a show-off wow frame—32 minute mark with Simon’s Jules and his cluttered cabin. Unlike von Sternberg and Ozu though he never really had a chance to show this again or make it part of his style in more than one film (it isn’t a part of Zero For Conduct)

top 10

1. L’Atalante
2. Zero For Conduct

By year and grades

1933- Zero for Conduct	MS
1934- L’Atalante	MP

*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film

MS is Must-see- top 5-6 quality of the year film

HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film

R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives