Before I forget…
A link to Thursday’s edition of The Forgotten, which tackled Michel Deville’s RAPHAEL, OU LE DEBAUCHE, with the great Francoise Fabian.
A link to Thursday’s edition of The Forgotten, which tackled Michel Deville’s RAPHAEL, OU LE DEBAUCHE, with the great Francoise Fabian.
September 11, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Great to read your piece on RAPHAEL! It made me fall in love with the movie all over again. Quite an achievement, as I was obsessed with this film for years before I even saw it. I just happened to see some stills from it in a French magazine, and knew at once it was for me.
RAPHAEL may be the definitive portrayal of the Romantic Age on film. It’s one possible rival is Andrzej Zulawski’s LA NOTE BLEUE (made 20 years later and based on the turbulent romance of Chopin and George Sand). Both the leads are exquisite and deserve, as you say, to be better known.
Why is Deville himself not more celebrated? My own guess is that film directors (particularly French ones) seem to become famous if they make the same type of movie over and over again. Just look at Godard, Rohmer, Chabrol…
You can pretty much predict what a ‘typical’ movie by any one of those men will look like. There’s no way you can do that with Deville. Just like Louis Malle (whose work is similar in some ways) he defies all categories and conventions and delights in reinventing himself from film to film.
Personally, I feel that Malle and Deville (along with Jacques Demy) were the most talented French film-makers of the 60s and 70s. At any rate, they make a welcome contrast to the grotesquely overrated Nouvelle Vague…and don’t even get me started on Truffaut!
September 12, 2010 at 10:05 am
Well, the guys who launched the auteur theory had a particular enthusiasm for directors who returned obsessively to the same themes and character types, so it’s natural they inclined that way when they started directing. Although in some cases, like Chabrol’s, it took a while to locate the right furrow to plough.
While most of the NV’s innovations weren’t entirely new, they did popularize a whole bag of tricks which had been excluded from mainstream cinematic language, so I acknowledge their colossal influence. Whatever you think of the movies, there’s no way to overrate their IMPACT.
September 12, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Now poor old Chabrol has died, and I feel really guilty for writing the above! I do love some of Chabrol’s films, although my favourite (ALICE, OU LA DERNIERE FUGUE starring Syvlia Kristel) is probably his most atypical.
September 12, 2010 at 11:11 pm
One would have to call that a very full and satisfying life’s work, even if he dropped his standards more than once. There most probably is something in his oeuvre to suit everyone with an interest in movies.