Port of Shadows (1938)
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Director: Marcel Carné
Honors:
Outside the glittery films that are produced in Hollywood during its
golden age come a variety of different styles from other countries all over the
world. In France during this period begins a style of movie that is on par in
production quality, but manifests a less polished sense of story and
characters. This genre, dubbed poetic realism, is shown in one of its earliest
and finest examples in Port of Shadows.
In this picture about the emotions of individuals audiences witness a film that
represents the more rough-edge world that parallels real life as we are drawn
into the story of the flawed people that are involved.
Port of Shadows is a drama of
an army deserter attempting to find a way to start his life anew and the young
lady he meets in a small town who feels very much the same things about her own
life attempting to break away from her godfather. Jean (Jean Gabin) finds
himself in a small port town looking for work on a ship to make a fresh start
for himself after abandoning the army when he meets a 17 year-old girl, Nelly
(Michèle Morgan), who has run away from her godfather. Finding a romantic
kinship with each other, Nelly returns to her godfather Zabel (Michel Simon)
who often seems to interrupt their future meetings. This is because Zabel too is
in love with Nelly, with her discovering he had killed her last boyfriend out
of jealousy, but her new love with Jean is blackmailed with Zabel’s knowing he
is a deserter, keeps the lovers apart. Jean would rescue Nelly from her
godfather, but pays the price for finding new enemies in the town.
The picture has a very different feeling overall from most all pictures
of the period. Things feel grittier, dirty with unkempt edges. This is not the
same kind of grit as to a Warner Bros. film, which is more about villains and
corruption. Here people are slouched, clothes are wrinkled, and Jean Gabin
talks out the side of his mouth with a lit cigarette hanging out the other
corner. It evokes actions and moment that come more from the interactions of
the real world. This style, dirty breath of fresh air, would be known as poetic
realism, the art of mirroring the world in more close sullied detail.
A godfather to this art of filmmaking was the director of the film
Marcel Carné. A young man in his mid 20s, Carné had grown up loving the movies,
first as a film critic at a young age, followed by working in the business both
at home and abroad in England. He saw something in motion pictures that he
could take the polished production quality and make it record actions that were
not as much fanciful, but more symbolized what it was like to interact in real
life. He would have his characters slightly hunched, or have Jean Gabin talk with
his mouth full while eating a sausage. These touches made the characters more
real. The emotions of this film’s love story is heightened by its actors acting
more along the lines as actual individuals would; limiting his actors rather
that making them over extravagant. Less was far more in this sense.
Headlining the picture was two of France’s most well-known and well respected
actors. Jean Gabin had made himself into one the country’s top leading men,
with his own hard edge and a demeanor that evoked internal conflict. Michel
Simon was one of the more unique actors in style. His odd look and somewhat bushy
beard would go perfectly with the poetic realism of the film. It is the dominance
of his character that makes him a fine actor. He turns this humble store owner
with a seemingly rebellious goddaughter into a maddened man that could murder
for the sake of keeping her to himself. Both actors are treasures of the French
screen.
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| Gabin and Morgan |
To play the leading lady of the picture is eighteen year old Michèle
Morgan. An aspiring actress from early in her teens, Morgan breaks through with
her performance with the two male stars across from her. She plays a rather
mature looking 17 year-old, but has the innocence of a jaded young lady on the
cusp of breaking away from the umbrella of her guardian, but never quite doing
it. Her character really takes off when she and Jean interact after making
love. It is there that Nelly blooms into maturity, ready for the world beyond
her current status with the help of Jean, but would be held back by Zabel until
she would be rescued. She becomes the center of the film, despite the camera
following Jean the entire time. It is her acting and her story that the
audience cares about the most, as she has more possibility, instead of the
mystery man that is Jean.
The style and story of the picture is a tragic and sad tale. The poetic
realism in this case did not allow for humor and becomes a rather haunting
story. It would leave audiences with a sense that they saw a very good picture,
but also leave them depressed, both for the characters and for the country.
Jean Gabin’s character was a deserter of the army because of his dislike of war
and choosing not to fight made people to think that this poetic realism, this
film included, might have depressed the country to a point that that when war
broke out in Europe France had lost morale, aiding Germany to defeat the
country. This was all speculation, of course.
Port of Shadows would be privileged
as the best picture in all of France by critics and other film personalities in
1938, awarded the coveted Louis Dellus Prize which crown the film for that very
honor. It stands as one of the earliest and best examples of the poetic realism
movement in French cinema. Eventually this style would spread to Hollywood, who
in their own way would glamorize it, but this art here was beginning to imitate
life a bit more than it had in the recent past.
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