Arthur Honegger Movies

Hélas pour moi is the story of journalist Abraham Klimt (Bernard Verley)'s investigation of a case of divine possession. In 1989 God enters the body of filmmaker Simon Donnadieu (Gérard Depardieu). When Simon returns home, his wife Rachel (Laurence Masliah) realizes something is amiss but sticks by her newly divine husband. As in much of his later work Jean-Luc Godard uses a team of cinematographers to create breathtaking images. The theology-filled dialogue makes frequent references to light and illumination, which are in turn reflected in the sun-suffused images. Light comes bouncing off Lake Geneva or streams in from widows behind the characters who stand in shadowy interiors. Multiple narrators provide differing views of the same events, and an intricate web of flashbacks creates an almost impenetrably knotty chronology. Meanwhile, title screens periodically interrupt the action, and the characters introduce lengthy digressions on philosophical, literary and spiritual questions. The result is a beautiful but extremely difficult film, even for those familiar with Godard. This film drew strong protests from the Catholic Church. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

After several years of making films to please only himself, French director Jean-Luc Godard once more invites the audience to the party with The Detective. Not that there's anything so blase as a linear plot or appealing characters, but at least some of Godard's isolated vignettes are accessible this time around. Set in the Hotel Concorde at St. Lazare, the film is set in motion when miserably married Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur attempt to collect a debt from mob-plagued boxing manager Johnny Hallyday. Meanwhile, hotel detective Jean-Pierre Leaud tries to solve an old murder case. These two gossamer plot strands are used to tie together Godard's scattershot views on modern life, with emphasis on the voyeuristic potential of the recent video-camera boom. The director dashed off The Detective to raise money for a film he truly cared about, the controversial Hail Mary. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Most of Storm Over Tibet is built around footage gleaned from a 1930 German documentary lensed in the Himalayas, portions of which had been previously glimpsed in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon. The 1930 film had been directed by Andrew Marton, who also helmed Storm Over Tibet. Concocted by Ivan Tors and Sam Meyer, the script of the later film concerns David, a WW II pilot, played by Rex Reason, who steals a valuable religious artifact from a Tibetan temple. Upon returning to civilization, David is plagued by guilt -- and by the likelihood that a curse has been placed on his head. Seeking redemption, David joins a UNESCO expedition into the Himalayas, hoping to return the artifact to its rightful owners. Diana Douglas, actress-wife of Kirk Douglas, co-stars as the pilot's long-suffering wife. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Returning to films after a six-year absence, French director Raymond Bernard called the shots on Un Ami Viendra Ce Soir (A Friend Will Come Tonight). Michel Simon heads the cast of this pulse-pounding WWII resistance film, set surprisingly in an insane asylum. In truth, the establishment is but a front for anti-Nazi underground activities; after all, who would suspect a group of lunatics? Some of the scenes in which the French patriots feign insanity to throw the Nazis off the track may seem a bit ludicrous to American viewers, but director Bernard makes up for these off-kilter moments with a thrilling finale. Un Ami Viendra ce Soir works on a pure-entertainment level, but it isn't nearly as good as La Bataille du Rails, Rene Clement's definitive French Underground drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally Regain, this Marcel Pagnol masterwork was distributed in the US in 1939, two years after its completion; the hold-up was due to complaints from the New York censors, who disapproved of the plotline's harmlessly adulterous undertones. Told in a simple, straightforward fashion, the film deals with the trials and tribulations of peasant farmer Panturie (Gabriel Gabrio) and his lover, apprentice knife-grinder Arsule (Orane Demazis), as they struggle to revitalize their failing wheat farm. Despite one setback after another, Panturie and Arsule refuse to give up, and it is their devotion to their land-and each other-which sparks a revival of optimism and solidarity throughout the countryside. Fernandel provides wistful comedy relief as Gedemus, the itinerant knife-grinder to whom Arsule is married at the outset of the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on Idol's End, a novel by Claude Anet, the French Mayerling is based on the tragic real-life story of Hapsburg Crown Prince Rudolph and his mistress, Baroness Marie Vetsera. Since the details of Rudolph and Marie's lives and deaths are clouded in controversy, much of the film is romanticized speculation-with emphasis on the romance. The film establishes Rudolph (Charles Boyer) as a rebellious "man of the people", at eternal odds with his despotic father, Emperor Franz Joseph (Jean Dax). To keep him quiet and out of trouble, Rudolph is forced into an arranged marriage, and surrounded by Hapsburg informers and spies. In an effort to escape this oppressive atmosphere, a disguised Rudolph dashes off to a fair, where he meets the beauteous 17-year-old Marie (Danielle Darieux). Thus begins an illicit romance, which the lovers try vainly to keep secret from the prying eyes of the Emperor's flunkeys. One of Rudolph's enemies arranges for Marie to be taken away to Trieste for a "rest cure." Rudolph sinks into a drunken depression, snapping out of it only when Marie returns. They attempt to legitimize their love through marriage, but the Catholic hierarchy will not approve of Rudolph's divorcing his wife. Desperately, the lovers flee to Rudolph's hunting lodge in Mayerling. Here they spend an exquisite last night together, then formulate a death pact. The following day, Marie and Rudolph are found lying side by side-united in death. Transforming this grim story into a tender, moving romance was quite an undertaking, but the end result was worth it: Mayerling was a huge international hit, and the winner of several industry awards, including the New York film critics' "best foreign picture" prize. Mayerling was remade in surprisingly cold and distant fashion in 1968, with Omar Sharif and Catherine Deneuve. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The chef d'ouevre of legendary French filmmaker Abel Gance, the 235-minute Napoleon was supposed to have been the first installment in a multipart film study of the French military hero. Each of the film's set pieces is treated like a movie in itself: the opening pillow fights and snowball battles, staged while Napoleon is still a schoolboy (played by Russian youth Vladimir Roudenko), are choreographed on a scale worthy of D.W. Griffith. The plot proper begins with Napoleon's adult years. From home island of Corsica, Lt. Napoleon (played as an adult by Albert Dieudonné, and old friend of Gance's) decides to side with the Republic during the French Revolution. He quickly proves his mettle in a preliminary skirmish with the British. Offered the office of commander of Paris, Napoleon declines: he does not subscribe to Reign of Terror, nor does he believe in doing battle against Frenchmen. He is thrown in prison, where he meets his wife-to-be Josephine; thanks to a series of governmental upheavals, both are set free. For the next few years, France's bureaucratic bean-counters and pencil-pushers constantly thwart Napoleon's dreams of glory. The film's climax is Napoleon's rallying of the dispirited French troops and his subsequent advance into Italy.
Beyond its patriotic content, Napoléon was largely designed as a showcase for the revolutionary "Polyvision" process. Simply put, Polyvision utilized multiple images for dramatic effect. Sometimes this was accomplished in a fragmentary manner similar to the multiscreen techniques utilized in such 1960s films as The Thomas Crown Affair and The Boston Strangler. Polyvision could also manifest itself into a Cinerama-like "triptych": three screens, side by side, sometimes offering a panorama, sometimes displaying three separate but thematically linked images. Napoleon's spectacular triptych finale was the crowning touch to the remarkable camera pyrotechnics seen throughout the film; Gance hated static scenes, so he mounted his camera on pendulums, horses, gyroscopes, et al., masterfully placing the spectator in the thick of the action. The film also boasts some of the silent era's best color tinting, with special emphasis on the red, white, and blue of the French flag. Except for limited European showings, Napoleon has not been displayed in its original form since its 1927 Paris premiere. At least 19 different versions of the film exist, some horribly mutilated (cut from 17 reels to eight) and scrambled, others haphazardly reedited by Gance himself. Filmmaker/historian Kevin Brownlow's 1968 book The Parade's Gone By renewed public interest in Gance's lost masterpiece, sparking a 15-year campaign to restore Napoleon, spearheaded by Brownlow and American director Francis Ford Coppola. The resultant restoration job is not perfect -- the triptych scenes had to be reduced to postage-stamp size because no existing screen can accommodate them -- but this Napoleon is probably the closest we'll get ever get to the original. The music for the restored version was composed by Francis Ford Coppola's father Carmine Coppola. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide