Jean Vigo
L'Atalante

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"The censorship has mutilated my film and look how much infamy!" (J. Vigo)

"Aesthetic filmmaker and realist filmmaker, Vigo avoids both the pitfalls of aestheticism and those of realism" (Truffaut).

It was the distant 1934 and the young Jean Vigo, with producer Nunez, realized what is considered one of the masterpieces of entire cinematography according to many critics (including Francois Truffaut himself): "L'Atalante".
A film that marks the transition between the old way of making cinema and the modern use of the camera, photography, music, and actors' work. With a cast of actors of a certain caliber (Michel Simon, Jean Daste, Dita Parlo), and a plot about an "almost banal" love story, the 28-year-old Vigo constructs a work that dictates the laws of a new cinematic grammar, and in many aspects foreshadows what would become the cinema of our days.

Vigo in "L'Atalante" will indeed reach the culmination of his masterpiece. Here, after some documentaries on the world of swimming, he adopts for the second time (the first in the world) the slow-motion effect to achieve effects of great suggestion and poetry (the first was in the equally splendid "Zero for Conduct"), forsakes accelerations in action scenes much loved by his predecessors, tells through images thoughts, doubts, and introspection never before addressed by cinema. He films a reality that feeds on an elaborate symbolism reaching moments of the highest poetry.

"L'Atalante" tackled a great theme: the birth of a young couple, the difficulty of the relationship between man and woman where, to the initial euphoria of coupling, inevitably succeed the first clashes, the desire for confrontation, escape, reconciliation, and finally, acceptance of one by the other. The classic journey of 80% of the couples in our beloved/hated society.
The plot indeed speaks of Jean (an alter-ego?!), a young captain of a boat, the "Atalante", who marries Juliette, a country girl, and brings her to live with him on the boat. After a few months, Juliette begins to grow bored and, influenced by the stories of the old sailor "Father Jules" (a great character, gruff & poet together, a true forerunner of the bohemian life), decides to flee and escapes to the Big City. Befuddled and disappointed by the city, the girl will, however, return to the boat, discovering that her jealous husband has abandoned her. The old sailor will use all his expertise to persuade Jean to come back.

A visionary film even within a story I would call "classic" with some unforgettable scenes: when the captain of the boat, abandoned by the young wife, dives into the river waters to follow the ancient legend according to which in the water you can see the face of your beloved: and indeed in overexposure, he will see the angelic face of the woman (a scene extensively raided and made iconic by the title of "Fuori Orario" by Ghezzi on Rai3). The other scene is when the wife enters the city with stroboscopic effects of alienation and confusion given by the new discovery, set to jazz music alienated and sound effects truly avant-garde for that era. And then the cut between the close-up of the two spouses embraced and the very long field, from the top of the barge in backlight. Scenes quite "normal" today but that then represented a true revolution in language.

Vigo's film was judged "non-commercial" and unsuitable for viewing by censorship not used to so many "oddities" and attempts were made to "save it" by cutting some scenes and giving more prominence to a popular French song of the time, "La chaland qui passe" launched by Lys Gauty, which was nothing but the French remake of "Parlami d'amore Mariù". The film's title changed to "La chaland qui passe", and the original songs composed by Jaubert were removed.
The new film (the 29-year-old Vigo, now ill, was not made aware of the cuts made to his work), was launched at the end of 1934 and was an unprecedented flop. A few days after the screening, the director would die of tuberculosis, attended by his young wife.

Gentlemen: how to enter the Olympus of the History of Cinema at only 29 years old with only two real films (and with less than 3 hours of edited material)!
This is what we call A LEGEND.