À nous la liberté (1931)

The art of motion pictures is interesting in that it entertain, educate, inspire, and create controversy all at the same time. The highly regarded French comedy À nous la liberté was one that did all these such things. When the film was produced to simply entertain with a lighthearted comedy mistakenly turned into an international film controversy with one of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers it would add to the film's impact on cinema history. In the end the film would still be a bright, enjoyable piece that would entertain audiences.

À nous la liberté ("Freedom for Us") tells the tale of two convicts as they try to make it through the world beyond prison walls, leading to troubles in business, love, and the law in the process leaving that they can count on the care they have for each other. Louis and Emile were roommates in prison when Louis was able to run free from a breakout they have planned together. This leads Louis to starting a new life becoming a big business success running a large assembly line factory producing his products, phonographs. Emile years later would happen to find his way onto Louis' factory as a worker, which is depicted very much like the atmosphere he was once in within the walls of prison. When the two reunite as executive and worker their friendship re-blossoms as Louis helps Emile financially and Emile bringing happiness to Louis false-fronted life. Trouble arises when former convicts try to blackmail Louis with the knowledge of his criminal past. After Louis rewards his factory workers with a new mechanized plant, freeing them of hard labor, Louis and Emile elude the authorities and start anew gleefully as tramps roaming the next path in their lives.

Director René Clair came from producing films before the advent of sound and when he started to be forcefully pushed to make his film sound pictures he decided to use recorded sounds differently. À nous la liberté would be his third feature with sound and he found music to be the best part about the newly integrated medium. He let the music help pull the characters and the the audiences alike as well as found different ways to use musical noises to add to the picture. In one instance where sound is used to drive the characters Emile is looking at some flowers and then begins to hear music, as if the flowers are singing to him. Of course the flowers were not as it is revealed that a phonograph was playing the music, but Clair found that music should draw the characters in as well as those watching. Clair was a fan of the musical aspect of storytelling as much of the film had songs to tell us how Louis and Emile feel in prison, in freedom, in rediscovering each other, and in starting over. Clair also used musical instruments as sound effects, much like cartoons would use them. With live action it would not be necessary recreate sounds, but Clair's creativity gave the story and places a different feeling.

Apart from Clair's creative tale it also made a political statment in how the factory system used its workers. The assembly line, an American invention, made popular by the Ford Motor Company, would drive the world into a new age, revolutionize industry throughout the 20th century. Clair parallels the assembly line with that of a prisoners life. It shows how the workers have very little skill, little freedom, and are watched closely by superiors like that of prison guards. Clair obviously did not like the lack of creativity and the obilivousness of the factories which can be seen as the reason for the picture.

If there is anything that is most famous about this film it would be the legal battle it had with Charlie Chaplin. 1936 saw the release of Chaplin's classic Modern Times which too shared the similarities of the situations of factory work in an assembly line. The two pictures had similar scenes where its protagonist has trouble working in an assembly line leading to ciaos and hilarity. The French production company Tobis Films did not like the fact that these two scenes would so similar and sued Chaplin for plagiarism. Chaplin would claim to have never even seeing the À nous la liberté, and Clair did not wish for Tobis to sue Chplin. Clair saw that if Chaplin did rip off his gag it as flattering. Clair felt if anything he owed Chaplin for being an inspiration for many filmmakers like him, but the property was not Clair's, instead it was Tobis'. The legal struggle pushed on into WWII and picked up after the war with the two side coming to an outside settlement as Chaplin found it cheaper to settle then to fight for his ego and lose more money.

À nous la liberté is an example of how the business world can try to jeopardize art and the artists. Clair produced a film that is entertaining and does preach a message of anti-assembly line lifestyles and pro-friendship as the path in life. The picture is a fun French film that manifests a lighter side of European films. The stylizing of motion pictures is still there, but its lighthearted story gives it a feeling of joy that brings you into the story of two men that at one time did something bad enough to land in prison, but definitely have their hearts set in the right place and you wish them only the best.