Every time I see a film starring Jean Gabin, I’m amazed anew. I love his acting style, the roles he plays, the directors he works with, and the artistic style of his films. Before yesterday, I’d seen and loved:
- The Grand Illusion (1937)
- La bête humaine (1938)
- Moontide (1942)
- Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954)
When searching for Pepe le Moko (1937) — which I put on my Cinema Shame 2018 list of must-sees) — I found Le jour se lève (1939). And I am so glad I did. The film is a stunner in so many ways, from style and direction to acting, plot, and social message. Given that this is a noir blog, I’m organizing this review by elements of noir style.
Expressionism and the Noir Look
The sets for this film are stupendous. They have an expressionist feel, and it doesn’t surprise me that both the main street, featuring the tall apartment building in which our protagonist François (Gabin) resides, and the side street, on which his beloved Françoise (Jacqueline Laurent) lives and works, are sets made especially for the film.
Artfully chosen camera angles (looking down the deep stairwell or through windows) and low key lighting and heavty shadows add to the effect, leading me to call this expressionistic film noir, although some call it poetic realism.
Characters
In addition to its style and era of production, there is a very noir quality to the film’s central characters. At firsts they seem heavily typed, but there’s a twist to each. There is the ill-fated everyman (Gabin’s manual laborer François), who turns out to be unfaithful; the femme fatale (Arletty as Clara), who turns out to have a heart; the good girl (Jaqueline Laurent as Françoise), who is not as innocent as she seems*; and an homme fatale (Jules Berry as Valentin), who is as domineering and heartless to the dogs he trains for a stage show and his mistress (Clara) as he is to the much younger women over whom he obsesses.
Narrative
Classic noir often features complex timelines, especially in the ample use of flashbacks. Most of Le jour se lève is told in flashback, after François has shot and killed Valentin. François locks himself in his room after Valentin stumbles out then tumbles down the stairs to his death. Through multiple dissolves, we follow the path of his mind as he thinks back over his life since meeting Françoise. Interspersed with present moments, including police shooting at his door and through his window, we see the first meeting of the ill-fated lovers, their courtship, the arrival of Valentin and Clara, François’ affair with Clara even as he pursues Françoise in hopes of marriage, and multiple unwanted intrusions from Valentin, includ an emotionally intense scene in which the corrupt Valentin claims (complete with tears) to be Françoise’s estranged father, only wanting the best for her.
As this description shows, it is not only the non-chronological order that makes Le jour se lève noirish. Love, lust, deceit, betrayal, murder: the underside-of-life stuff on which classic noir is built. Moreover, the film is bolder than Code-era American films about sexual experience and deviance, even showing partial nudity. This results in a film whose cynicism and style feel like American moviemaking of the 1940s, while its frankness is closer pre-Code Hollywood.
Ultimately, although made several years earlier than the 1940s Hollywood films that post-war French critics would come to identify as film noir, I’m entirely convinced that the label suits this picture well.
* By the end of the film, we learn that Valentin has sexually seduced Françoise, and the direction and lighting that grace the character work to hide this fact. The character seems as if she doesn’t know she’s had sex, especially in the scene in which she declares her love to François. One way to read this seeming conflict of style of presentation vs. content is to accuse the director of manipulating the viewer, keeping the truth from us as she keeps it from François. The other is to see Françoise as out of touch with reality, as living in a fantasy world. Either way, François is deceived and this leads to his mistrust of the world and desire to end his life.
January 23, 2018 at 12:52 AM
Another great post! Might I reblog, pretty please?
Every time a see a film starring Jean Gabin,
Love the Southern accent . . .
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January 23, 2018 at 3:20 AM
You may always reblog, and thank you for the praise.
Thanks also for catching the typo! LOL
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January 23, 2018 at 3:32 PM
Thanks!
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January 23, 2018 at 3:37 PM
Reblogged this on Noirish and commented:
***Jean Gabin is a favorite of this site, as is French noir in general, and the same could be said for the blog B Noir Detour. Many thanks to the latter’s Salome Wilde for permission to reblog her splendid evaluation of 1939’s Le Jour se Lève.
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January 28, 2018 at 1:38 AM
Aw thanks.
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January 23, 2018 at 10:07 PM
The only evidence we have that Valentin has seduced Françoise is Valentin’s own claims and we also know Valentin is a liar. Whether or not he has seduced Françoise, how far is Valentin trying to get François to kill him? He undoubtedly despises himself and his behaviour is very strange if he isn’t out to die.
There’s a good set of Gabin films to go! Not a noir, La Grande Illusion is one of the greatest films ever; Le Quai des brumes is a noir – more doomed lovers and a Prévert script and Marcel Carné directing; Voici le temps des assassins is frighteningly bleak; he does a good job as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables…
Apart from these there are quite a few more masterpieces or near-masterpieces in store for you.
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January 24, 2018 at 12:22 AM
Thanks so much for this reply. I thought we shouldn’t trust Valentin, but every review and summary for the film I found said we cannot doubt Françoise is not innocent, so I believed them. I prefer your view. And I really like the idea that Valentin was suicidal, luring François into killing him.
As for the films, I have seen Grand Illusion (see above) and I adored La bete humaine. I’ll definitely keep seeing others as I can.
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January 27, 2018 at 12:30 PM
Incidentally, did you know that RKO made a version – The Long Night – with Henry Fonda and bought up and destroyed every copy of the original they could find?
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January 28, 2018 at 1:37 AM
Yes, indeed, I’d read that. Oh, Hollywood, money before everything else.
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March 12, 2018 at 7:52 PM
I wish I shared your enthusiasm for Jean Gabin. Alas, he is not one of my favorites, although many hold him in high regard. Maybe it’s simply the period differences. For example, he slaps women around in almost every film. I guess that was more acceptable behavior in times past (Dan Duryea did the same, after all). But Gabin just doesn’t draw me into his stories the way Duryea does. This won’t stop me from seeing some more of his films (I’ve seen Moontide, Pepe le Moko, and Bete Humaine so far), but it’s a bit of a struggle for me, I’m afraid. When I blog about one of Gabin’s films (at Make Mine Film Noir, http://makeminefilmnoir.blogspot.com/), maybe I’ll let you know and we can compare notes. I’m open to being convinced to appreciate his style!
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March 13, 2018 at 12:39 PM
You’re forgetting that Gabin was an actor – some of the parts he plays slap women around, but we aren’t meant to think it’s OK just because it’s a part played by Gabin. In fact, François in this film is shown to be two-faced. He can have an affair with Clara, but when he believes without proof that Françoise was seduced by Valentin he becomes murderous. We aren’t meant to take him as irreproachable.
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March 13, 2018 at 3:22 PM
I haven’t seen Le jour se leve, so I cannot comment on Gabin’s performance in it. But I have seen three of his films, and his performances have not impressed me so far. Maybe that will change. Thank you for your reply.
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March 14, 2018 at 8:45 PM
One reason it is easy for me to love Duryea is that I know what a kind family man he was outside of film. But, as Roger says below, I also agree that we are in some cases meant to judge the male abuser. Touchez Pas Au Grisbi features him as a deplorable gangster, for example. Grand Illusion might be a better choice if you opt to see him again.
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March 21, 2018 at 7:51 PM
It might have more to do with Gabin’s style than the characters he plays. But I appreciate the suggestion. I’ll put Touchez Pas au Grisbi next on my Gabin queue, so to speak.
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