A man and a woman arrive in a cafe-hotel near the Belgian frontier. The customers recognize the man from the police's description: his name is Amedee Lange, and he murdered somebody in Paris. Lange was an employee in a printing works. His boss was a real bastard, swindling every one, seducing female workers... One day he fled to avoid facing his creditors, and the workers set up a cooperative to go on working. What then made Lange a killer?
Similar titles
Reviews
Most of the film is in flashback and as soon as this gets under way the film seems to move at such a pace I had trouble keeping up and along the way it only gradually dawned on me it was a comedy. So, once I had sorted that out and got used to the bold and challenging edits and dissolves the film was well under way and I was playing catch up. As has been pointed out by others, looking at this today it would seem that more time than necessary is given to convincing that the old boss is bad and that it would have been good to spend more time with the good times. However, we have to allow for the fact this is almost 80 years old and those early audiences would have needed that time to be fully convinced so that the ending could be accepted. Interesting, bold, amusing and entertaining with plenty of fulsome performances.
Often marked as "one of Renoir's greatest films," LE CRIME DE MONSIEUR LANGE is a platform for us to witness how a director can convert propaganda into memorable art. The script is full of wit but Renoir is the hero, here. He allows for multiple perspectives and concise characterization to produce a quick, jaunty, and bright film.LANGE is dense with insightful staging. Renoir had learned by 1936 that everything serves character. In some ways, he recalls the swift attitude in Hawks's comedies. The camera work is clearly more radical, but they both succeed with abundant charm and aim every device at the service of character. Visually, some usual complexities are reserved for the end where the street allows for at least two excellent tracking shots. LANGE presents some of the most precise and concise characterizations in the Renoir repertoire. Batala is given superior attention. If we compare him to the capitalist villain in something like STRIKE, we find that Renoir believes in the complexity of thought even when working with a simple and economic script. In his frequent manipulation of women, Renoir illuminates the tight bond between money, power, and sex. His metamorphosis into a priest is loaded with dubious criticism, but is still the source of comedy.The best component of LANGE might be the frequent allusions to Americana and westerns. It asserts that the American frontier was imbued with absolute freedom and the characters use it to focus their socialist fantasies. This parallel between socialist idealism and dreams of the West play incredibly well as an object of cinema. LANGE even gets its own joke -- "It's only a movie." The film is dense with the inimitable charm of Renoir, consistently exquisite photography, and forceful characterization. The comedy is presented with ease and subtlety. It is only unfortunate that so much of the commentary is excessively heavy. Capitalism comes back from the dead only to be defeated by Socialism. Socialism gets away with murder and walk happily out into infinity.79.7
One of Renoir's best - a humanist story of worker cooperation under duress and naturally with a strong social undercurrent. It's strongly narrative following the hopes and dreams of the younger generations, contrasted with the wily and self interested actions of some of the older, more experienced characters.The way the story is told, be beautiful cinematography all sweep you along through perfectly choreographed dramatic tableaux. With the little guy at the centre moving the action along without ever really taking center stage. Masterful.I can't help comparing it with "It's a Wonderful Life" by Capra, because of the same "good guy versus corrupt company boss" side, and the strong social message in both. They both leave you feeling "Ah that's alright then" with faith in humanity.So it's one of the happier Renoirs, with his trademark moral undertone.
Prevert wrote this screenplay for Renoir the same year he wrote Jenny for Marcel Carne and it's interesting to speculate what might have happened in French cinema had Prevert forged a partnership with Renoir instead of Carne. There's a lot here about workers 'rights' a subject that still, 70 years down the line, still preoccupies Robert Guidiguian, but given that Prevert IS Prevert there's also a lot of poetic touches and subtle dialogue. Indeed it is tempting to think that the Batala he wrote for Jules Berry was a rough draft for the real Devil that Berry would play a few years later in Les Visiteurs du Soir. Arguably one of the earliest uses of 'flashback' it is also full of holes - the flashback is related by a laundress who has fled with Amedee Lange to a small inn on the border; realizing that the proprietor and customers have recognized Lange as a man wanted for murder, she offers to tell his (Lange's) story and then let them decide whether or not to turn him in. However roughly half of what she relates is stuff of which she herself had no direct knowledge, conversations to which she was not privy, etc. If we make allowances for this we are left with a fairly engrossing story verging on a morality play of good (Lange) versus evil (Batala) and workers banding together and unlike La Belle Equipe remaining bonded via the glue of Lange's humanity. In many small ways it feels earlier than nineteen thirty six but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Now available in a boxed set of 3 Renoir titles of which La Grande Illusion stands out.
