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Mardi, juin 1st, 2010
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The other versions are splendid as well, including Lon Chaney’s calm epic; Charles Laughton saving Maureen O’Hara from burning Hollywood; and Demi Moore in her greatest performance in the Disney musical. But for my money, this is the version to steal and appreciate. Filmed in France for Frenchmen, and secondarily for the international market, HUNCHBACK was criticized at home for failure to cast French actors in either of the leading roles. It’s not as if France in 1956-7 didn’t have dozens of mountainous stars, and wouldn’t you have enjoyed seeing a version of this Victor Hugo anecdote with, say, Jean Gabin as Quasimodo, and Brigitte Bardot as Esmeralda? Instead the producers went elsewhere, arguing that in the new, of course, Esmeralda’s “foreignness” was an distinguished fraction of the narrative, and the same for Quasimodo. Gabin was, indeed, a very steady possibility, for he was director Jean Delannoy’s Inspector Maigret in several films and the two clicked together on a personal level as well.
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Thus we have Anthony Quinn as the tortured church servant, and Gina Lollobrigida as Esmeralda. She plays up the Gypsy aspect quite a bit, and in general cavorts like she’s Demi Moore trying to have a qualified time, but something of her fate seems to be hanging over her shapely, tousled head, and the shadow of the gargoyles is like the guillotine–a factor of doom. Lollobrigida had honest finished filming TRAPEZE and was given only four days’ holiday before reporting to Paris for the arduous, twelve-week NOTRE DAME DE PARIS shoot. (Peer how buff her arms are in those sleeveless peasant blouses, that’s a holdover from her training for TRAPEZE.)
Lovers of French film will rejoice to observe Roger Blin in s smallish part: Blin starred in everything from Cocteau’s ORPHEUS to Clouzot’s LE CORBEAU, and in NOTRE DAME DE PARIS he’s very stylish, though badly dubbed into English.
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Best of all is the gleaming color photography! Because this was a production partially financed by the French government, current by Minister of Culture Andre Malraux, the production was allowed to film directly in the Cathedral itself, so every time you glance an interior shot, or so it is said, you are peering into the mysterious Notre Dame itself. The long shots of Quasimodo pouring molten oil over the battlements were recreated largely in the studio. Sight for the noted bateaux-mouches parading lazily up the Seine, which has never looked more beuatiful. This film was nominated for a “Cesar,” the Oscar of France, but somehow lost to a smaller product. The day of the “modern wave” was at hand and it wouldn’t be long before the names of the moment would be Louis Malle, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda, Chris Marker, and Francois Truffaut. When the bells ring in the outmoded cathedral, they’re ringing out the slay of an era, and ringing in a unusual dawn for French film.
Strangely, there has never been a poor film of Victor Hugo’s classic epic, and while this is indeed less successful than Laughton, Chaney or Disney’s versions, this French anguish is composed a surprisingly generous and worthy under-rated film. To find the most out of it, you have to maintain in mind that Hugo did not write a alarm legend but a record of unrequited esteem and danger. There is runt of the Gothic on prove here; rather, everyone is trapped by a desire for what they are denied. This is great more ‘Notre Dame de Paris’ (the novel’s sincere title) than ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’: Quasimodo probably gets less shroud time here than in any of the other films, only dominating the drama in the last third. Instead, as with Hugo, it uses the cathedral of Notre Dame as the thread that binds all social stratas - Kings and beggars, thieves and soldiers, gypsies and alchemists, playwrights and aristocrats - giving a radiant portrait of a time and region half imagined, half steady.
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Quinn is more of a brute than we’re extinct to seeing in our Quasimodos: unlike Laughton, he’s no poetic soul trapped in a broken body but an animal who is given an inkling of what it means to be human. Lollabrigida fares better than usual as Esmerelda, and if their relationship is never interesting, the ending, for once taken directly from the current, is genuinely touching.
There are problems: the dubbing is at times irritating (and there is no French-language option on the disc), while Jean Danet is quite the most embarrassing Phoebus imaginable, stilted, impossibly smug and unprejudiced boring odd-looking. Some key scenes are poorly staged, most notably Quasimodo’s rescue of Esmerelda, while the hunchback is not given a strong entrance. But, if you’re willing to retract a chance and gape it with an commence mind, the noble surprises outweigh them. While not the most lavish version, the scale and colour of the film, particularly in scenes such as the Court of Miracles, gives us a sense of a world around these characters, the addition of CinemaScope and some impressive sets helping to broaden the scale. Delannoy’s direction is occasionally imaginative, with a expedient view for the Scope frame. The script (co-written by ‘Les Enfants du Paradis’ Jacques Prevert) is often witty and doesn’t terrorized from the darker tragic tone of the fresh. Georges Auric’s accumulate, though ill-served by the novel sound recording, is also a magnificent wretchedness.
The transfer is proper, with only a few edge enhancement problems, although it seems very slightly cropped in some shots, and the failings of the early CinemaScope lenses do result in an occasional loss of detail in some shots. The DVD even includes one brief torture sequence that has long been cleave from many prints, as well as the new theatrical trailer.
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Kept out of distribution for years (Disney bought the rights around the time they were working on their version and shelved it), the film has not been able to regain powerful of a reputation. Indeed, it continues to bag short shrift from many critics - ‘Time Out’s film guide is particularly hostile. But, as they say in Britain, ‘Time Out hated it, so it must be salubrious.’ And it is - not broad, but certainly handsome grand.
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