L'ATALANTE at Film Forum in New York City

ENDED

"ONE OF THE 10 BEST FILMS OF THE 20th CENTURY!"
- Village Voice Critics' Poll, 1999

"One of the ten greatest films of all time - a masterpiece"
- François Truffaut

"A very great movie"
- Vincent Canby, New York Times

"May be the greatest film ever made"
- Georgia Brown, Village Voice

scene from JEAN VIGO'S L'ATALANTE (1934) The seaside wedding procession, the solemn couple yards ahead of the rest, proceeding at a dreamy pace through a seemingly deserted town; bride Dita Parlo (Jean Gabin's farm frau lover in Grand Illusion, also played with L'Atalante as part of our GREATEST HITS Series) promenading in her wedding dress across her new home, a river barge; Michel Simon's cat-loving crewman Père Jules distracting her with a guided tour of the cornucopia of globe-trotting souvenirs (included a friend's hands preserved in a jar) shoehorned into his tiny cabin, topped by his smoking a cigarette with his navel; the spiel of dance hall cycliste-chanteur-prestidigitateur Gilles Margaritis; the visually expressed longing of Parlo and groom Jean Dasté for each other when first separated.

Vigo's third and final feature is outwardly a simple story: couple weds, couple has problems, couple reunites, but it's transformed by the director's poetic, idiosyncratic touch into a masterpiece. Cinematographer Boris Kaufman recalled, "He used everything around him: the sun, the moon, snow, night. Instead of fighting unfavorable conditions, he made them play a part." Already in delicate health (at times he had to direct from a stretcher), the winter location shooting may have pushed Vigo over the edge - he died of lung disease at age 29, three weeks after the Paris premiere.

Mutilated by its original French distributors (and not fully restored until 1989), then banned by the censors as "anti-French," L'Atalante has always been embraced by cinéphiles and cinéastes alike. The British critic Philip French sums it up: "L'Atalante is one of the most beautiful and haunting movies ever made...sad, funny, humane - it defines what is meant by the poetry of the cinema."

Showtimes: 1:00, 4:50, 8:40

A NEW YORKER FILMS RELEASE.

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SYNOPSIS:

L'ATALANTE is considered one of the all-time great classics of world cinema, alongside The Bicycle Thief, The Rules of the Game, and La Strada. "A one-film archive of cinema riches...a heady mixture of lyricism, comedy, and a kind of realism that is both magical and gritty," wrote Vincent Canby in the New York Times upon the movie's U.S. re-release in 1990. The story is deceptively simple: a young barge captain, Jean (Jean Dasté) marries Juliette (Dita Parlo), a village girl who's seen nothing of the world, and takes her aboard the boat L'Atalante to begin their life together. There Juliette meets Père Jules (the great Michel Simon), a raffish, Falstaffian sailor who entertains her with stories from his travels around the world. Juliette longs to see Paris, and after a lovers' quarrel with the jealous Jean, she slips away into the city to discover it for herself. When Jean discovers she's gone, he orders the barge to leave without her as punishment. In one of the most poignant and imaginatively erotic sequences ever filmed, the unhappy couple spends a sleepless night dreaming of being in each other's arms, and are then reunited thanks to the worldly wisdom of Père Jules, who goes in search of the runaway bride.
Sadly, L'ATALANTE was to be Vigo's only full-length feature. He had long suffered from lung disease, and was ill throughout much of the shoot, reportedly directing some of the scene from a cot. He died at the age of 29, shortly after finishing the film. His astonishing talent and tragic death ensured that Vigo would remain a legendary figure in film history. Each year in France, the Prix Jean Vigo is awarded to a first-time filmmaker in the memory of Vigo's "independence of spirit and quality of directing."
Running time: 99 minutes

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