Le
Jour se Lève (Daybreak)
1939
Director: Marcel Carné
Starring: Jean “Studmuffin” Gabin,
Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty, Jules Berry
Film
noir, as a genre, is most definitely considered an American creation. French film critics of the 1950s and 1960s
noticed that certain American films from the forties and fifties had developed
a distinct tone, look, and shared thematic elements, and they coined the phrase
“film noir” to describe it. In spite of
the French name, though, they were talking about American films, and most will
agree that film noir really started in the early forties. But I really start to question all of that –
that noir is an American cinematic invention, that it started in the early
1940s – when I watch Le Jour se Lève. I suppose it doesn’t fall as neat and tidily
into the film noir category as other classic noirs, but it’s so damn
close. It must have been influential in
helping develop the genre.
The
film opens as François (Gabin) shoots a man (Berry) in his apartment building,
then barricades himself in his room, refusing to open up to the police. He flashes back to how he wound up in such a
situation, starting with meeting pretty Françoise (Laurent), with whom he fell
deeply in love. But Françoise is not as
innocent as she looks, and soon we learn of her history with Monsieur Valentin,
a dog trainer, circus performer, general con man, and, coincidentally, the man
that François shoots. In between spats
of jealousy over Françoise and the lies that Valentin feeds him, François also
meets Clara (Arletty), Valentin’s assistant, who knows all Valentin’s tricks
and isn’t nearly the picture of innocence that Françoise is. His life with these two very different women
who share him and the dastardly Valentin in common flashes before him and leads
him up to the night of the shooting.
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| Jean Gabin holding a teddy bear... my uterus just skipped a beat... |
Although
Le
Jour se Lève is definitely dark, even nihilistic, Carné is smart and
doesn’t take us there right away. He
lets the doom and gloom build slowly, and when we see François’ first
flashback, he’s positively beaming with happiness. To me, this is where the film hooks me. I buy François and Françoise so implicitly as
a couple, and I so adore their early scene of pretend homemaking together, that
I become emotionally invested in both their fates. This scene is so important in the film as it
points out with humor but also pathos just how desperately François longs for
normality in his life. Growing up an
orphan, he feels a connection to Françoise because she was also raised in an
orphanage. As the two of them potter
around her landlord’s house at night while the landlord is out, they play act a
fantasy where it is THEIR house, THEIR ironing, THEIR children who left the toys
out. This dream of mundane domesticity
is everything to François, and he speaks sincerely of marriage and a future
with Françoise, and I’m just putty in his hands. I’m all in.
I want everything for François. I
have bought into the central relationship and the central character of the
film, and everything that happens afterward will be that much sadder because of
it.
 |
| Um, yes please. |
Clara
and Françoise are an interesting pair of women to involve François with, as
they are so much opposites. At first
glance, Françoise is the girl you take home to your parents, all innocence and
sweetness and light, and Clara is the girl you ring up for a booty call because
you know she’ll oblige. What I like
about Le Jour se Lève is how it subverts these expectations. Françoise is not nearly as innocent as she
looks (a revelation that eats away at François as he contemplates the fact that
his darling Françoise is still in love with her shady ex), and Clara has hidden
emotional depth. Every time François
thinks he has everything sorted out, every time he thinks he has a handle on
one or perhaps both of these women, something new comes to light and once again
he realizes he is wrong. I like these
women. They are more than caricatures. As the film hurtles towards its gloomy
finale, these two opposites are even revealed to have so much more in common
than we ever could have thought. Rather
than resigning them to broad strokes, they have depth.
 |
| You have no idea how much I want to be Arletty in this scene. |
Shall
I go on my typical “Jean Gabin = sex god” rant?
Sure, why not, it’s my review.
Jesus Christ, but Gabin is MY KIND OF MOVIE STAR. The male actors I find most attractive
definitely share certain traits, and Gabin has them in spades. First of all, he can act. If an actor is ridiculously awful, no amount
of good looks will sway a damn thing for me.
He’s excellent in Le Jour se Lève at detailing
François’ increasing desperation as he falls deeper in love yet is stymied too
many times by Valentin and his awful hold over Françoise and Clara. Gabin has to take François from very cheery
guy to someone who, whether he meant to or not, shot a man at point blank
range, and he has the range to do it.
Not only is he good at showing François’ emotional journey, but he also
has the task of bringing François through the standoff with the cops, a
harrowing process indeed. When you add
on to all of this the sort of rugged, everyman quality I *really* like in an
actor, I’m hooked. I don’t like my
Hollywood hunks to be prettier than me.
I like some rugged, dirty sex appeal, something less dressed up and more
organic. Let’s put it this way – Marlon
Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire makes my ovaries explode, while
Orlando Bloom does absolutely nothing for me.
Gabin has that same sort of Brando-esque appeal. I can’t help it – I’m crushing on him
hardcore. He acts, he broods, he swoons,
he goes crazy, and (shoutout to Movie Guy Steve) his hair is fantastic. And yes, I'm using this review to shamelessly post sexy pictures of him.
 |
| Jesus effing Christ, slice me off a piece of that. |
When
you take all these elements and add on the noir-in-training of the film, how
could this not be a hit with me? It
really shouldn’t be a secret that this film ends badly; when it opens with
François shooting someone, you can just sense it’s all going to cascade
downhill at some point. I love the
plodding of the soundtrack, moving, unrelentingly, toward the film’s conclusion. There are drumbeats, like a funeral dirge, punctuating
the soundtrack frequently, as François knows only too well what waits for
him. Carné’s photography transitions
from brighter lights in the first half of the film to the significant darkness
of the second half as the desperation ratchets up to the brink of no return.
I
wonder, a bit, at this film being made in France in 1939 with WWII breaking out
in Europe. The sense of fatalism, of
moving toward a foregone conclusion, of being unable or unwilling to fight any
longer, is this what some people in France felt? It must have colored the filmmaking; how
could it not? I believe wholeheartedly
that those American filmmakers who would go on to create the iconic noir of the
next decade must have taken a heavy cue from Le Jour se Lève.
Arbitrary
Rating: 9/10. And one additional note:
when I first started watching films from 1001 Movies, this one was
unavailable anywhere. I am very pleased
to see that in the years since, it has been given the Criterion treatment
(“Essential Art House”) as it deserves to be preserved and seen. Also, I smell a Jean Gabin movie marathon in
my future.
