The Complete Jean Vigo (1930-1934) [REPOST] [The Criterion Collection #578]

Even among cinema’s legends, Jean Vigo stands apart. The son of a notorious anarchist, Vigo had a brief but brilliant career making poetic, lightly surrealist films before his life was cut tragically short by tuberculosis at age twenty-nine.
These are the witty, visually adventurous works of a pivotal film artist.

The Criterion Collection

Even among cinema's greatest legends, Jean Vigo stands apart. The son of a notorious anarchist, Vigo had a brief but brilliant career making poetic, lightly surrealist films before his life was cut tragically short by tuberculosis at age twenty-nine. Like the daring early works of his contemporaries Jean Cocteau and Luis Bunuel, Vigo's films refused to play by the rules. This set includes all of Vigo's titles: A Propos De Nice, an absurdist, rhythmic slice of life from the bustling coastal city of the title; Taris, an inventive short portrait of a swimming champion; Zero De Conduite, a radical, delightful tale of boarding-school rebellion that has influenced countless filmmakers; and, of course, L'Atalante, widely regarded as one of cinema's finest achievements, about newlyweds beginning their life together on a canal barge. These are the endlessly witty, visually adventurous works of a pivotal film artist.



Featuires:
Disc 1:
- Audio Commentaries Featuring Michael Temple, Author Of Jean Vigo
- Score for A Propos De Nice, Featuring Footage Cut by Vigo

Disc 2:
- Episode of the French Television Series Cineastes de Notre Temps About Vigo, From 1964
- Conversation From 1968 Between Filmmakers Francois Truffaut and Eric Rohmer on :'Atalante
- Animated Tribute to Vigo by Filmmaker Michael Gondry
- Video INterview From 2001 With Director Otar Losseliani on Vigo




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Jean Vigo was twenty-five when he made this, his debut film, a silent cinematic poem that reveals, through a thrilling and ironic use of montage, the economic reality hidden behind the facade of the Mediterranean resort town of Nice. The first of Vigo’s several collaborations with cinematographer Boris Kaufman (Dziga Vertov’s brother and a future Oscar winner), A propos de Nice is both a scathing and invigorating look at 1930 French culture.

Director: Jean Vigo

IMDb








Director: Jean Vigo
Cast: Jean Taris

IMDb

Jean Vigo knows he can't be too bland with a subject like swimming, no matter how good the swimmer might be in his style and speed and graceful varieties of stroke (so to speak). Jean Taris is actually an excellent swimmer, as Vigo makes abundantly clear within the first minute: in a simple over-head shot, with the occasional close-up cut-away, we see Taris defeat his opponents in a swimming race lickety split. But it's how Vigo then treats the whole nature of how to instruct the audience on a topic that makes it worthwhile to find (it's available on you-tube, by the way). We hear the Taris voice-over describe the different movements that can be used- including the "new" one, called the breast-stroke- and that, simply, swimming cannot be taught indoors. Vigo puts his words into an assemblage of images that reminded me of the great scene in L'Atalante with the character Jean underwater, only here taken steps further, and visually it's always a wild little treat.

Like his Apropos de Nice movie, Vigo is out to explore possibilities with the frame and the camera and certain techniques that today might come off a tiny bit goofy, but nevertheless display a true resiliency on part of the filmmaker and his technical crew (notably Boris Kaufman). It's all experimentation, but it ends up working better in its favor due to the step-by-step narration and detail. A constant image is that of the swimmer going backwards out of the water into original diving pose, which doesn't lose its appeal as eye-catching. There are also the many tight close-ups from a multitude of angles as the swimmer goes about his instruction: his arms, his feet kicking, his face trying best not to somehow get too much water in the mouth while breathing. And perhaps the most interesting bit when we see the swimmer underwater, likely seen through an aquarium or some other safe place for the camera, and the Taris goes through many different movements. What begins as a relatively easy-going tutorial short on film, by way of the inventiveness of the filmmaker, becomes something much better- a subjective lesson in the art of swimming.

There's even a touch of the absurd to much of it, as is the way of the director in his works, like when he does show a man trying to swim indoors, on a chair. And the final images, by the way, are definitely the best, as one last time the swimmer comes up onto the side of the pool backwards, then is seen in a business suit, jacket and hat, and in a great super-imposition walks ahead into the water. Whatever it might mean, I can't say, but throughout as Vigo's eye follows this man on his lesson to those who wonder 'can I be like him', there are moments of wonderful exercises in limitless cinematic expression too.
~ MisterWhiplash

In a repressive boarding school with rigid rules of behavior, four boys decide to rebel against the direction on a celebration day.

Director: Jean Vigo
Cast: Jean Daste, Robert le Flon, Du Verron, Delphin, Leon Larive, Madame Emile, Louis de Gonzague, Raphael Diligent, Louis Lefebvre, Gilbert Pruchon, Coco Golstein, Gerard de Bedarieux, Georges Belmer, Georges Berger, Pierre Blanchar, Maurice Cariel, Jean-Pierre Dumesnil, Michelle Fayard, Igor Goldfarb, Constantin Goldstein-Kehler, Felix Labisse, Lucien Lincks, Charles Michiels, Georges Patin, Roger Porte, Jacques Poulin, Pierre Regnoux, Albert Riera, Ali Ronchy, Georges Rougette

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Director: Jean Vigo
Cast: Michel Simon, Dita Parlo, Jean Daste, Gilles Margaritis, Louis Lefebvre, Maurice Gilles, Raphael Diligent, Claude Aveline, Rene Blech, Lou Bonin, Fanny Clar, Charles Dorat, Paul Grimault, Genya Lozinska, Gen Paul, Jacques Prevert, Pierre Prevert, Albert Riera

IMDb

When Juliette marries Jean, she comes to live on his ship, on board of which are, besides the two of them, only a cabin boy and the strange old second mate Pere Jules. Soon bored by life on the river, she slips off to see the nightlife when they come to Paris. Angered by this, Jean sets off, leaving Juliette behind. Overcome by grief and longing for his wife, Jean falls into a depression and Pere Jules goes and tries to find Juliette.
~ Leon Wolters

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