In the late '30s and early '40s, the films of Marcel Carné gave eloquent voice to a mood of fatalistic, romantic pessimism
After the war, however, his career was a sad shadow of its former self
Central to Carné and Prévert's conception of doomed love was Jean Gabin's proletarian antihero, trapped in darkened rooms and foggy streets while awaiting retribution for crimes he barely knew he might commit: in "Quai des Brumes," Gabin's deserter comes violently up against local gangsters in a battle over the girl with whom he has fallen suddenly, passionately in love; in "Le jour se Léve," surrounded by police but unable to contemplate surrender, he recalls the events leading to his shooting of a girlfriend's seducer
Widely described as poetic realism, Carné's style is in fact anything but realist; the squalor, shadows, and smoky bars all externalize the hero's melancholy resignation to an unjust Destiny Without Carné's expert control of atmosphere, the effect might seem merely picturesque, for rarely have solitude, alienation and death been imbued with such elegance and beauty
Central to Carné and Prévert's conception of doomed love was Jean Gabin's proletarian antihero, trapped in darkened rooms and foggy streets while awaiting retribution for crimes he barely knew he might commit: in "Quai des Brumes," Gabin's deserter comes violently up against local gangsters in a battle over the girl with whom he has fallen suddenly, passionately in love; in "Le jour se Léve," surrounded by police but unable to contemplate surrender, he recalls the events leading to his shooting of a girlfriend's seducer
Widely described as poetic realism, Carné's style is in fact anything but realist; the squalor, shadows, and smoky bars all externalize the hero's melancholy resignation to an unjust Destiny Without Carné's expert control of atmosphere, the effect might seem merely picturesque, for rarely have solitude, alienation and death been imbued with such elegance and beauty