Film Review
When he began shooting his fifth full-length film
Rendez-vous de juillet in February
1949, Jacques Becker could not have imagined the phenomenal impact it
would have on French cinema in the decade that followed. Becker's
sole preoccupation was to deliver an authentic portrayal of that
stratum of society that had been almost totally neglected in European
cinema up until this time - young people about to embark on their adult
lives. Marc Allégret's
Entrée des artistes
(1938) was one of the few French films that had given a realistic
representation of modern youth prior to this, and this may well have
been one of the main inspirations for Becker's film.
Immediately prior to this, Jacques Becker had made a far more sombre
work,
Antoine et Antoinette (1947),
which depicted a young couple struggling with the privations of
post-war austerity. The contrast between this film and
Rendez-vous de juillet could not be greater, and shows the dramatic
change in mood in France as rationing started to be phased out and
American-style consumerism began to take off. Becker concludes
France's bleakest decade of the 20th century with his most upbeat and
infectiously exuberant film, in which the young generation look forward
to the future with unbridled optimism, imagining that anything is
possible. No wonder the film was so popular with the young: it
snatched the Zeitgeist like a hungry cheetah felling a passing antelope
and instantly excised the pall of gloom that had hung over French
cinema for almost a decade with a burst of Charleston-drenched euphoria.
Rendez-vous de juillet was not
only a box office hit (with an audience of 1.8 million in France, it
was one of Becker's most commercially successful films), it also found
favour with the critics and won the coveted Prix Louis-Delluc in
1949. More significantly, it was to have an enormous influence on
the next generation of filmmakers in France, in particular the auteurs
of the French New Wave, many of whom would be similarly preoccupied
with the problems and aspirations of the young. As a critic,
François Truffaut was one of Becker's keenest admirers, and
Becker's realist, intimate style of filmmaking is evident in many of
his early films. Jacques Rozier's
Adieu
Philippine (1962) may be the most obvious homage to
Rendez-vous de juillet, but the
first films by Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer also
bear the imprint of Becker's youth-oriented film to a greater or lesser
extent. Another filmmaker to make his mark in the late 1950s was
Marcel Camus, who worked on
Rendez-vous
de juillet as an assistant director; he would win an Oscar and
the Palme d'Or at Cannes for his 1959 film
Orfeu Negro.
A glance through the credits of
Rendez-vous
de juillet reminds us that there was another Nouvelle Vague in
the 1950s - an insurgence of a new generation of talented actors who
would change the landscape of French cinema as much as the
iconoclastic, rule-breaking directors. Daniel Gélin had
his first important role in this film, and would become a major star as
a result. Maurice Ronet made an impressive screen debut,
monopolising our sympathies with a younger version of the conflicted
character portrayals that would form the mainstay of his remarkable
screen career. Nicole Courcel and Brigitte Auber were two other
notable newcomers who proved their talents here in the principal female
roles, but whilst Courcel's career flourished, Auber's soon waned, but
not before she had had a brush with the Master of Suspense, Hitchcock,
in
To Catch a Thief (1955).
With the crowded wine cellars of Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
throbbing with jazz, the anthem of youth, providing a suitable setting
for several keys scenes in the film, Jacques Becker foisted on an
unsuspecting cinema audience an essay on youth culture that could
hardly fail to impress with its vitality, truth and modernity. It
was whilst working as an assistant to Jean Renoir that Becker acquired
his penchant for realism, and it is his striving for authenticity in
all of his films which most marked him out from his
contemporaries.
Rendez-vous de
juillet is the closest that Becker came to making a documentary,
and some would argue that is essentially what it is - the most truthful
incursion into the mindset of the young adult that a French filmmaker had so
far attempted.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.
Next Jacques Becker film:
Édouard et Caroline (1951)
Film Synopsis
In his early 20s, Lucien Bonnard has made up his mind to become a
celebrated explorer, but his bourgeois parents are insistent that he
abandons these wild delusions and instead settle for a more
conventional career like banking. After a row with his father,
Lucien leaves home and sets about trying to arrange transport for his
next expedition to Africa. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Christine
Courcel is nurturing ambitions of her own; she intends to become a
famous actress, and is ready to do anything to achieve this
result. With her friend Thérèse, she gets a part in
a stage play and allows her director to take advantage of her
naivety. Just when Lucien's dreams are so close to being
fulfilled, he discovers that Christine has been unfaithful to him...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.