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Jean renoir's salut à la france : documentary film production, distribution, and reception in france, 1944–1945

2006; Routledge; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439680500533433

1465-3451

Brett Bowles,

Historical and Political Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Among English-language publications, see Martin O'Shaughnessy, Jean Renoir (Manchester, 2000); Célia Bertin, Jean Renoir, cinéaste (Paris, 1994); Ronald Bergan, Jean Renoir: projections of paradise (London, 1992); Jonathan Buchsbaum, Cinéma Engagé: film in the Popular Front (Urbana, 1988); Christopher Faulkner, The Social Cinema of Jean Renoir (Princeton, 1986); Alexander Sesonske, Jean Renoir, the French Films, 1924–1939 (Cambridge, 1980); Christopher Faulkner, Jean Renoir: a guide to references and resources (Boston, 1979); Leo Braudy, Jean Renoir, the World of his Films (New York, 1972). On the French side, see Roger Viry-Babel, Jean Renoir, le jeu et la règle (Paris, 1994); Roger Viry-Babel, Jean Renoir: films, textes, références (Nancy, 1989); Maurice Bessy and Claude Beylie, Jean Renoir (Paris, 1989); Daniel Serceau, Jean Renoir: la sagesse du plaisir (Paris, 1985); Claude Gauteur, Jean Renoir, la double méprise, 1925–1939 (Paris, 1980); Pierre Leprohon, Jean Renoir (Paris, 1967). 2. In 2002 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles donated a complete French-language 35-millimeter negative of the film to the Cinémathèque Française. After the completion of restorations in 2005, a new positive print was made for the three-month Renoir retrospective organized to celebrate the Cinémathèque's grand re-opening at is new site in the 12th arrondissement. The new print's premier on October 8, 2005 was the first public screening of Salut à la France since the war. My thanks to Claudine Kaufmann, Director of Film Collections at the Cinémathèque, for this information. On the Cinémathèque Française and its sister archive, the Bibliothèque du Film, see http://www.cinematheque.fr and http://www.bifi.fr. 3. Jean Renoir, Ma Vie et mes films (Paris, 1974), pp. 201–202. This and all subsequent translations from French sources are my own. 4. Transcribed from the English-language copy at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, MD. 5. Hélène Lazareff, Salute to France, New York Times Magazine, June 11, 1944, pp. 18–19; Schiffrin to Renoir, June 15, 1944, Jean Renoir Papers, UCLA. 6. Jean Renoir, Lettres d’Amérique, ed. Alexander Sesonske (Paris, 1984), p. 151. 7. French Archives Nationales (hereafter AN), F 42/131–132. 8. Memo from National Cinematography Director Jean Painlevé to censorship board members, October 2, 1944. AN, F 42/131. 9. The film ran consecutively at the first three theaters for five weeks, but for only one week at the latter. Dates cited are from Le Populaire and L’Aurore, the only two daily papers that printed cinema listings at the time. References to Salut à la France disappear entirely from both sources on November 18, as well as the weekly Lettres françaises. Seating capacity figures are taken from Le Tout-cinéma: annuaire professionnel du monde cinématographique (Paris, 1942), pp. 240–246. 10. Buchsbaum, Cinéma engagé, pp. 86–88. 11. Dominique Prado, En regardant passer les images de la victoire, L’Aurore, September 28, 1944, p. 1. 12. On the film's making, see Claire Vervin, La caméra sous les balles: comment fut tourné Paris se libère, Les Lettres françaises, September 9, 1944, p. 5; testimony from cameraman Gilbert Larriaga in Sylvie Lindeperg, Clio de 5 à 7: les actualités filmées de la libération, archives du futur (Paris, 2000), pp. 46–50; and Caméras clandestines: la libération de Paris. Originally broadcast on August 21, 1974, this television interview with several surviving cameramen is available at the Inathèque de France. 13. Transcribed from the VHS copy at the Inathèque de France. 14. The original montage of the film is available only at the British Film Institute in London. A detailed inventory of the cuts made is on file at the Inathèque de France. For additional analysis, see Sylvie Lindeperg, Les écrans de l’ombre: la seconde guerre mondiale dans le cinéma français (Paris, 1997), pp. 62–70. 15. Vervin, La caméra sous les balles; Prado, En regarder passer les images de la victoire. 16. Georges Sadoul, Pourquoi nous combattons: un chef-d’oeuvre d’un genre nouveau, Les Lettres françaises, January 6, 1945, p. 7. 17. France-Actualités (1942–1944) and its predecessor, the Actualités Mondiales (1940–1942) are available on VHS at the Inathèque de France in Paris. For a comprehensive written inventory, see Edith Réta, ed., Les Archives de guerre, 1940–1944 (Paris, 1996). Certain episodes are available on-line at http://www.ina.fr/voir_revoir/guerre/videos.fr.html. For an overview of both series, see Brett Bowles, German newsreel propaganda in France, 1940–1944, The Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 24(1) (2004), 45–67. 18. See for example Michel Boivin et al., eds, Villes normandes sous les bombes, juin 1944: les Normands témoignent (Caen, 1994); Michel Boivin and Bernard Garnier, Les victimes civiles de la Manche dans la Bataille de Normandie, 1er avril–30 septembre 1944 (Caen, 1994); André Kaspi, La libération de la France, juin 1944–janvier 1946 (Paris, 1995); Michel Boivin, Les victimes de Basse-Normandie dans la bataille de Normandie (Caen, 1996). 19. Alice Kaplan, The Interpreter (New York, 2005) and Liberation: the view from France, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 8(3) (Summer 2004), 239–252; Nathan Bracher, Commémorations du Jour-J: les jeux de la mémoire et de l’histoire, Contemporary French Civilization 29(1) (2005), 105–136; Michel Boivin, La Libération: militaires et civils dans la bataille décisive, and Les lendemains de la Libération, volumes 5 and 6 of Les Manchois dans la tourmente de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, 1939–1945, 6 vols (Marigny, 2004); Hilary Kaiser, Des amours de GI (Paris, 2004); J. Robert Lilly, La face cachée des GI (Paris, 2003); Elizabeth Coquart, La France des GI (Paris, 2003). 20. See for example the dossier of articles by French historians published in L’Histoire no. 287 (May 2004), especially Olivier Wieviorka, Les dessous d’une opération à risques, pp. 38–45 and Olivier Pottier, Les malentendus transatlantiques, pp. 60–63. This theme is also implicit in Patrick Rotman's documentary Eté 44 (2004), a montage of previously unreleased footage, which offers a holistic portrait of the joy, hope, hatred, and despair felt by French citizens. 21. Pierre Laborie, L’opinion française sous Vichy (Paris, 1990), pp. 239–240; Dominique Rossignol, Histoire de la propagande en France de 1940 à 1944 (Paris, 1991), pp. 306–315. 22. Roger Leenhardt, Trois nations, trois films, Les Lettres françaises, October 21, 1944, p. 8. 23. Renoir, Lettres d’Amérique, p. 16. 24. Renoir, Ma vie et mes films, pp. 113–114. 25. For details see Sam Simone, Hitchcock as Activist: politics and the war films (Ann Arbor, 1985). 26. The British Film Institute restored and subtitled both films in early 1993 at the behest of American distributor Milestone Film and Video, which organized commercial screenings in major US cities that summer. Both were released on VHS and DVD in 1998. To date, scholars have focused on the films’ aesthetic significance rather than their subversive political content: Bret Wood, Foreign correspondence: the rediscovered war films of Alfred Hitchcock, Film Comment 29(4) (1993), 54–58; Sidney Gottlieb, Hitchcock's wartime work: Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, Hitchcock Annual (1994), 158–167; Justin Gustainis and Deborah DeSilva, Archetypes as propaganda in Alfred Hitchcock's ‘lost’ World War II films, Film & History 27 (1997), 80–87; James Vest, Phones as instruments of betrayal in Alfred Hitchcock's Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, French Review 72(3) (1999), 529–543. 27. This according to Hitchcock's own memory, as recorded in 1962 during interviews with François Truffaut. Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, and Claude Chabrol all recalled seeing Bon Voyage (but not Aventure Malgache) in the capital shortly after the liberation. See Truffaut, Hitchcock (New York, 1984), pp. 160–161; Rohmer and Chabrol, Hitchcock (Paris, 1957), p. 83. 28. Donald Spoto, The Dark Side of Genius: the life of Alfred Hitchcock (New York, 1984), pp. 297–335; André Bazin, Le cinéma de l’Occupation et de la Résistance (Paris, 1975), pp. 169–170. 29. On this point see James Vest, Hitchcock and France: the forging of an auteur (New York, 2003), pp. 67–73. 30. Memorandum of agreement between the OWI and the Comité Français de la Libération Nationale, April 28, 1943. AN, F 41/364. Full documentation of the negotiations can be found in the British Ministry of Information files at the Public Records Office (Kew), INF 1/933. The films themselves are preserved at the British Film Institute. 31. Retrospective summary of the OFIC's activities, December 8, 1944. AN, F 42/124. 32. See for example the note from OFIC in Algiers to the French Information Office in New York, November 28, 1943. AN, F 41/825. Initial plans to establish an independent, French-run development lab in Casablanca fell through after railroad connections with Algiers proved unreliable. 33. OFIC accounting department report to the Governor General of Algiers, January 22, 1944. AN, F 41/364. 34. Memo from Free French Information Ministry Director to the Governor General of Algiers, September 20, 1943. AN, F 41/825. 35. Michèle and Jean-Paul Cointet, L’hypothèque de Vichy, in Le rétablissement de la légalité républicaine en 1944 (Brussels, 1996), pp. 279–298. 36. Michèle Cointet, Pétain et les Français, 1940–1951 (Paris, 2002), pp. 263–271. 37. William Leahy, I Was There: the personal story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman (New York, 1950), pp. 339–340. Leahy even envisaged a formal transfer of power from Pétain to De Gaulle. 38. Charles De Gaulle, Mémoires, ed. Marius-François Guyard (Paris, 2000), pp. 474–492. 39. Ibid., pp. 493–495. 40. OFIC dossier of distribution schedules and box-office receipt tables covering the period July 3 to December 15, 1944. AN, F 42/124. Representative excerpts from the Bayeux film are included in Patrick Rotman's documentary Eté 44. On the role of print media and radio, see Jean-Pierre Benamou, L’écho de l’arrivée du Général de Gaulle dans le Calvados, in Le rétablissement de la légalité républicaine en 1944, pp. 223–230. For a detailed account of the event itself, see René Hostache, Bayeux, 14 juin 1944: étape décisive sur la voie d’Alger à Paris, in ibid., pp. 231–242. 41. Transcribed from the VHS copy at the Inathèque de France. 42. Transcribed from the VHS copy at the Inathèque de France. 43. These were Patriotisme, Résistance, and Les faits d’armes de la semaine (all 1944). The term ‘bandits’ appears prominently in the latter film. For details, see Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit, Les documenteurs des années noires: les documentaires de propagande en France, 1940–1944 (Paris, 2003), pp. 169–175. 44. Key titles include Voyage du Général de Gaulle à Brazzaville/De Gaulle Visits Brazzaville (1944), Voyage du Général de Gaulle au Moyen Orient/De Gaulle Visits the Middle East (1944), Marine française libre/Free French Navy (1943), Soldats de la République/Soldiers of the Republic (1943), Une et indivisible/United and Indivisible (1944), and Volontaires féminines de l’air/Female Air Force Volunteers (1943). 45. Retrospective summary of the OFIC's activities, December 8, 1944. AN, F 42/124. 46. Dossier of distribution schedules and box-office receipt tables covering the period July 3 to December 15, 1944. AN, F 42/124. 47. Letter from OFIC Director Robert Lob to French Minister of Information, December 26, 1944. AN, F 41/364. 48. For background on the CLCF, see Lindeperg, Les écrans de l’ombre, pp. 23–60 and Clio de 5 à 7, pp. 22–50. 49. See for example the September 15, October 13, October 20, and December 14, 1944 editions of France Libre Actualités. 50. The one notable exception was footage of the Vercors maquis shot between mid-1943 and July 1944. In November 1944, the CLCF made plans to edit and distribute a film about the incident, but various political and logistical factors held up the project. Directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois, it would finally come to fruition in mid-1948 under the title Au coeur de l’orage/In the Thick of the Storm. For a complete history of the film, see Lindeperg, Les écrans de l’ombre, pp. 86–101. 51. Relevant clips appeared in the September 5, November 10, and December 14, 1944 editions of France Libre Actualités. 52. De Gaulle, Mémoires, pp. 625–627, 685–688. In mid-November, De Gaulle resolved the issue by striking a bargain with Communist leaders: he pardoned Maurice Thorez, who was living in exile in the Soviet Union, for having deserted the French army in 1939; in exchange Thorez agreed not to oppose the dissolution of the militias and not to order any strikes during De Gaulle's tenure as head of the provisional government. 53. For detailed analysis of the tour and its impact, see Laurent Douzou and Dominique Veillon, Les déplacements du Général de Gaulle à travers la France, in Le rétablissement de la légalité républicaine, pp. 641–661. 54. De Gaulle, Mémoires, p. 595. 55. Lindeperg, Clio de 5 à 7, pp. 126–138. 56. Memo from OFIC Director Robert Lob to Foreign Cinema Service Director Simon Schiffrin, October 23, 1944. AN, F 41/364. 57. Le Monde Libre, October 27, 1944. Transcribed from the VHS copy at the Inathèque de France. 58. Le Monde Libre, November 3, 1944. Transcribed from the VHS copy at the Inathèque de France. 59. Denis Marion, Le Dictateur, Combat, February 17, 1945, p. 3. 60. Roger Leenhardt, Trois nations, trois films, Les Lettres françaises, October 21, 1944, p. 7. 61. Georges Sadoul, Vérité et cinéma, Les Lettres françaises, December 23, 1944, p. 7. 62. Philippe Buton, Les lendemains qui déchantent: le parti communiste français à la Libération (Paris, 1993). 63. Graphic reports on Mont Valérien and Oradour appeared, respectively, in the September 15 and September 29, 1944 editions of France Libre Actualités. 64. France Libre Actualités, December 21, 1944. Transcribed from the VHS copy at the Inathèque de France. 65. Georges Sadoul, La Bataille d’Ukraine, Les Lettres françaises, March 10, 1945, p. 5. 66. Transcript of censorship committee meeting, October 9, 1944. AN, F 42/131. 67. Quoted in a telegram from Schiffrin to Robert Valeur at the French Ministry of Information, February 17, 1945. AN, F 41/610. 68. Lindeperg, Les écrans de l’ombre, 211–220. 69. Renoir, Ma vie et mes films, pp. 260–261.