La Marseillaise (1938)
Directed by Jean Renoir

Film Review

Jean Renoir's second propaganda piece in support of the Popular Front - after the semi-documentary La Vie est à nous (1936) - adopts a similarly didactic tone but on this occasion the director's naïve political posturing is redeemed by an obvious desire to depict a chapter of French history as authentically as possible.  La Marseillaise continues and concludes the neo-realist theme of Renoir's 1930s films, presenting several episodes of the French Revolution (between the storming of the Bastille and the fall of the monarchy) as a series of loosely connected sketches which, whilst historically accurate, were calculated to chime with a contemporary audience.  Renoir was not minded to present a complete and authoritative account of the Revolution.  Rather, his intention was to present certain historical events in such a way that his audience could see reflected in them present day concerns and thereby realise the extent of the challenges facing their country.

The political objective of La Marseillaise was an ambitious one - to rekindle something of the erstwhile Popular Front euphoria and help to unite a divided country at a time of worsening political and economic crises.  Renoir's optimism proved to be as misplaced as that of the Popular Front itself.   As the uneasy coalition of socialists and communists failed to come to grips with France's problems and ultimately collapsed (before the film was ever screened), so Renoir's film fell on deaf ears and proved to be a massive commercial failure, scarcely recovering one-tenth of its 10 million franc production cost.  The political aspirations of La Marseillaise were perhaps as deluded as those of the Popular Front project itself.

There is an obvious thematic connection between La Marseillaise and the film that Jean Renoir made immediately before it, La Grande illusion (1937).  Both films represent an ardent appeal for national unity through the removal of class boundaries.  Both recognise the present political threat that France faced from anti-republican forces (namely the Fascists both within and beyond her borders).  Yet whilst La Grande illusion has a fairly overt anti-war subtext, urging a greater understanding between different nations to avoid a repetition of the madness that was the Great War, La Marseillaise feels almost like a call to arms, an acceptance of the inevitability of World War II.  The parallels between revolutionary France and the situation of the late 1930s are readily apparent.  To counter the threat posed by an aggressive external power (be it Imperialist Prussia or Nazi Germany), the French people must set aside their differences and put up a united front, or else disaster will surely follow.  The spectacular failure of both the film and the Popular Front government was a grim harbinger of the troubles which were to follow.

When he embarked on the making of La Marseillaise early in 1937, Jean Renoir could not have been more enthusiastic about the film.  Originally, he envisaged a 12 hour long epic on the scale of Abel Gance's Napoléon (1927), produced along the lines of the cooperative model which had featured in his previous film Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936).  Indeed, he managed to persuade the trade unions and workers' organisations, notably the CGT (Confederation Générale du Travail), to help finance the film.  Renoir raised over two million francs by selling what were effectively shares in the film to individual members of these institutions, who were entitled to watch the film for free when it was first shown.  The commercial reality hit home as soon as Renoir realised that he needed to look for additional funding by more conventional means, and so the cooperative dream very soon evaporated.  Even then, the director had to substantially rein in his ambitions and content himself with a film that ran to no more than two and half hours.

Mindful of his limited budget and the need to complete the film before the French Republic completely fell apart, Renoir shot La Marseillaise remarkably quickly, in just over 10 weeks in the summer and autumn of 1937.  Union members volunteered their services (during their summer holidays) to appear as extras in the crowd scenes, which were shot economically using a mobile crane that allowed sequences to be recorded in rapid succession, almost as a continuous take.  With much of the film shot on location, Renoir was motivated to employ the similar neo-realist style that he had previously used on Toni (1935) and Les Bas-fonds (1936), and in doing so he gives the film a crisp documentary feel.  Some parts of the film, notably the remarkably well choreographed climactic battle at the Palais des Tuileries, have such an impact and immediacy that they might almost be mistaken for a newsreel straight from revolutionary France.

As was typical of Renoir, the focus is less on historical events and more on the individuals who participated in these events.  It is, after all, individuals who make history, and so it is by presenting the characters in the film as fully rounded human beings that Renoir makes the history understandable and relevant to a contemporary audience.  Again, the director reveals his naivety by his overly generous assessment of human nature.  There are no villains in this film, not even the slightest attempt to demonise the aristocracy or the monarchy.  King Louis XVI (played by the director's older brother Pierre Renoir) could hardly have been portrayed more sympathetically, a tragic victim of a cruel but necessary overthrow of one social system by another.  Much of the film focuses on the anonymous revolutionary Jean-Joseph Bomier (movingly portrayed by Edmond Ardisson in his first and most memorable screen role) - he is both the everyman character we are compelled to identify with and a vivid representation of Marianne, the soul of France.  It is through Bomier's bright eyes that we see the spirit of Revolution take hold and a new nation begin to emerge from the chaos of conflicting ideals.

The other central player in the drama is of course the Marseillaise itself, a rousing marching song and hymn to liberty which, despite its bloodthirsty lyrics and uncertain provenance (did the Jewish peddler who conceived it come from Strasbourg, Montpellier or Croydon?), somehow caught the public mood and very quickly became France's national anthem.  The raw visceral power of the Marseillaise resonates throughout this film, guiding it and invigorating it as it builds towards its momentous climax, and you do not have to be French to sense the patriotic fervour this is likely to have instilled in the film's target audience in 1938.  Had the mood at the time been less grim, had the Popular Front been less programmed for self-destruction, Renoir's film may well have galvanised national unity and helped to make France a less easy victim of Nazi aggression.  As it was, with dark storm clouds gathering over the Rhine and the Third Republic collapsing under the weight of its decadence and inertia, Renoir's call to arms went pretty well unheard.  The writing was on the wall, but unfortunately the words were not those of the Marseillaise - not unless the phrase "Le jour de gloire est arrivé" was meant in a highly ironic vein.

After the film's first disastrous release, virtually all prints of La Marseillaise were destroyed and it was rarely screened outside France.  Many years later, the film was partially reconstructed by the Cinémathèque française (only a few scenes are believed to be missing).  It was subsequently re-released in 1967, but with very limited success.  This remains one of Jean Renoir's least known and most unappreciated works, although the film has both considerable artistic merit and historical importance, significant as it marks the end of the director's commitment to the ideals of the Popular Front.  The contrast with Renoir's next film, the grimly doom-laden La Bête humaine (1938), could hardly be greater...

Film Synopsis

On 14th July 1789, the Duke of Rochefoucauld informs King Louis XVI of France that the Bastille has fallen to a Parisian mob.  This is no commonplace riot.  It is the start of the French Revolution!  A year later, in Provence, a peasant farmer narrowly escapes being hanged for killing a pigeon and flees to the mountains around Marseille, where he is befriended by two other outlaws, Bomier and Arnaud.  Seeing châteaux on fire in the distance, they realise the revolution has reached their town.  They are outlaws no longer.  In 1792, Bomier and Arnaud join a battalion of volunteers who march north to engage with the attacking Prussians.  They adopt a marching song which will later be known as La Marseillaise.  In Paris, the rift between the revolutionaries and the aristocracy is growing, and the king is forced into accepting the Brunswick Manifesto, which calls for the leaders of the Revolution to be executed once the French monarchy has been restored by the Prussian and Austrian armies.  Roederer, an officer of the municipal government of Paris, persuades King Louis to place himself under the protection of the Legislative Assembly.  At the Tuileries Palace the stage is set for a violent showdown between the revolutionaries and the troops still loyal to the monarchy...