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| Anatole Litvak: L’Équipage (FR 1935). Annabella (Denise/Hélène), Charles Vanel (tenente Maury). |
L'equipaggio / Taistelun tauottua / Stridskamrater / När vingarna brista / Flight Into Darkness / Blutsbrüder 1918
FR 1935. Prod.: Pathé-Natan.
Director: Anatole Litvak. Sog.: dal romanzo omonimo (1923) di Joseph Kessel. Scen.: Joseph Kessel, Anatole Litvak. F.: Armand Thirard, Louis Née. M.: Henri Rust. Scgf.: Lucien Aguettand, Lucien Carré. Mus.: Arthur Honegger. Int.: Jean-Pierre Aumont (Jean Herbillon), Annabella (Denise/Hélène), Charles Vanel (tenente Maury), Jean Murat (capitano Thélis), Daniel Mendaille (Deschamps), Suzanne Desprès (Madame Herbillon), Roland Toutain (Narbonne), Raymond Cordy (Mathieu). 104’. Bn.
Soundtrack: Frédéric Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op. 28: Prelude in A minor (1839). - "On oublie tout avec un peu d'amour" (comp. Maurice Thiriet, lyr. Louis Poterat) perf. Claire Franconnay.
Language: French.
Helsinki premiere: 17 Nov 1935 Capitol, released by Kosmos-Filmi Oy, 2850 m / 104 min
Restored in 4K in 2018 by Pathé with funding provided by CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from the 35 mm original negatives
DCP with English subtitles by Lenny Borger from: Pathé
Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Journeys Into Night: The World of Anatole Litvak
Viewed at Cinema Modernissimo with e-subtitles in Italian by Charlotte Trench, 30 June 2024
Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2024 Catalogue): "Opening with the same train whistle that closed Cœur de Lilas, Jean, a young officer in the French air force during WWI, bids farewell to his lover Denise and heads for the front. There he comes to admire the unpopular Lieutenant Maury whose gunner he becomes, only to discover that Denise is in fact Maury’s wife. Following this revelation, the two men head off on a suicide mission where the hard choice has to be made between fraternal loyalty and grand passion. The final sequence after the battle is pure Litvak: in a sacrificial gesture, Maury pretends he is not aware of his wife’s love for Jean. The deepest of emotions are swept under a rug, left unspoken. "
" By this time in his life, Litvak was trying to balance his love for fluid camerawork with more complex character study. In other words, to settle down to a stylistic approach that informed the rest of his career. With L’Équipage, Litvak also found his soulmate in the form of French novelist, pilot and future résistance fighter Joseph Kessel (of Army of Shadows and Belle de Jour fame).
Even though this Kessel novel had previously been filmed in 1928 by Maurice Tourneur, the understanding between two men, who worked on the script together (and later, on four more), mirrored the tense relationship between the pilots in the film. They both knew the meaning of masculine friendship and the joshing and hard drinking it involved. While making the most of that world, their interest lay more in the moment those men return to their rooms and have to deal with questions of fear or courage, loyalty or betrayal – the very core of their masculinity. For that, Litvak’s mise-en-scène alternates between the ruckus of men’s communal experience and the spartan silence of their loneliness. "
" Despite the film’s success, and its sober portrayal of a love triangle with Oedipal undertones, the antisemitic and xenophobic mood in Europe was growing so unbearable that it became Litvak’s turn to fly off to new horizons, this time to California. Interestingly, in the US the film was released a year after its 1937 American remake, The Woman I Love, which was also Litvak’s first Hollywood film. His timing was right because during the war his name was listed by a Vichy journalist as one of the people responsible for “French decadence and defeat.” Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2024 Catalogue)
AA: In L'Équipage, Anatole Litvak contributed to the noble lineage of WWI air force films including Wings, The Dawn Patrol, The Last Flight and La Grande Illusion.
Based on first hand experiences of the aviator-novelist Joseph Kessel, there is a core of authenticity in this account of the most perilous branch of the military.
The disturbing triangle drama is as devastating as the account of war's hell.
Annabella is on my mind this year thanks to her unforgettable film debut as Violine Fleuri in Napoléon vu par Abel Gance, a performance whose full scope I am only now beginning to grasp.
In L'Équipage, she is the reason to live for both for her husband, Ltn. Maury (Charles Vanel) and the officer candidate Jean Herbillon (Jean-Pierre Aumont). Getting these three actors together was a casting coup, and Litvak rose to the occasion.
Charles Vanel was a hardy perennial. He started early and never changed, ageless when he started and staying that way to the end. Jean-Pierre Aumont was still the jeune premier (like in Lac aux dames).
We are left pondering the two senses of the concept "the Lost Generation". The flower of the young generation in France, England, Germany, Russia, the USA... etc., died. Recently we were reminded of that in Terence Davies's swan song Benediction, about the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who never forgot. The other sense of "the Lost Generation" covered those who came back as shadows of their former selves, like in Douglas Sirk's post-WWI air ace drama The Tarnished Angels.
Brilliant visual quality in this Pathé restoration based on the original 35 mm nitrate negatives.
SOLITUDE. US 1952. Director: Duke Goldstone. 4 min. Repeat screening, seen also before The Snake Pit.
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