Marcel Carne’s little-shown pre-war classic “Le Jour se leve” is at the Film Forum on West Houston Street in downtown New York and must be seen by fans of Jean Gabin, admirers of Arletty (daringly naked in one scene), devotees of “film noir” in its earliest incarnation, and would-be writers and artists of all stripes who will, with a nostalgic ache, watch Gabin smoke one Gauloise after another as he is holed up in his top-story hideout, alone, with dawn about to break and les flics poised to come in for the kill. The dialogue is by Jacques Prevert and while it is fashionable to denigrate the man’s poetry, as a writer of screenplays he possessed something approaching genius. The picture’s title translates as “Daybreak” but is best left in the original. That’s Gabin with co-star Jacqueline Laurent in the picture below:.
If you plan to take in the 9:30 PM screening on Monday the 17th, you can make a rare double-bill for yourself as “Vertigo,” one of Hitchcock’s greatest pictures, will be ending its limited run at the Film Forum — and you can take in the 6:45 PM show, refresh yourself in powder room or nearby bar for a quickie, and head back to the theater for “Le Jour se leve” at 9:30 PM. The former explores the consequences of unquenched desire for an illusory object; the latter is a masterpiece of melancholy and murder. In a sense both movies qualify under the heading of murder mysteries; the plot in each case revolves around a homicide. But the real subject — one might say the real hero — is Eros. — DL
from the archive; first posted November 17, 2014
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Author: The Best American Poetry
