Vigo Passion for Life
UK/Japan/France/Spain 1997
Reviewed by Michael Temple
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
France, the 20s. The young aspiring film-maker Jean Vigo, who has adopted a pseudonym because of his dead father's reputation as an anarchist, finds himself incarcerated at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the South of France. There he meets Lydu Lozinska, a fellow sufferer, and they fall in love. Vigo persuades Lydu to leave the sanatorium and come with him to Paris, where he intends to make films. They get married and return to the south where he shoots his first film, À propos de Nice, and the couple have a baby. Both are still unwell, but Lydu carries on being a mother, while Jean pursues his art.
He makes Zéro de conduite but the film is banned. Although discouraged and increasingly sick, he agrees to make a feature-length love story called L'Atalante. His condition deteriorates during the filming and post-production. Finally, he learns the film has been recut and given a different soundtrack and even a new title. He dies, at the age of 29, but the handful of films he has made during his brief life are posthumously recognised as classics of French cinema.
Review
"Jean Vigo opened my eyes to cinema. In telling my version of his story, I hope in some way to repay my debt to him and encourage others to find their own inspiration in his films." This message from director Julien Temple appears at the end of Vigo Passion for Life, his filmic homage-cum-biopic of the near-mythical French film-maker Jean Vigo, whose short life produced four wonderful films: Àpropos de Nice (1930), Taris ou la natation (1931), Zéro de conduite (1933), and L'Atalante (1934) and a no-less-wonderful cultural legacy of speculation and melancholy.
It is easy to sympathise with Temple's desire to express on screen his admiration for Vigo's life and work. Indeed, one could argue that Temple is nobly continuing a cinematic tradition of films inspired by Vigo which includes indirect tributes such as François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) and, most famously, Lindsay Anderson's If.... (1968), a version of Vigo's Zéro de conduite reset in 60s Britain.
Given the intrinsically risky nature of the artistic biopic as a genre, one has to applaud Temple's having the good faith, even a certain courage, to take on such an enterprise. Unfortunately, one must also recognise that the resulting film, although absolutely faithful to the facts, is absolutely dreadful. Unlike Vigo's posthumous career, which has been a series of miraculous redemptions and restorations, Vigo Passion for Life leaves nothing to be salvaged. On a conceptual level, the film critically fails to engage with the fundamental myths and legacy of Jean Vigo, and churns out every imaginable Romantic cliché of the starving-artist-scribbling-and-spewing-in-garret variety.
This weakness extends to the film's political content, which is no more than an unthinking rehash of the hagiographic image of Vigo as a turn-of-the-century anarchist: "Imagine a world," opines fellow-anarchist Bonaventure (Jim Carter looking strangely like Kramer from Seinfeld), "in which teachers can learn from children, in which cobblers can be kings, in which parents can no longer tell children what to do!" - prompting a nearby child to cry: "Mummy, I want to be an anarchist!" The ill-conceived script ("based on the original play, Love's a Revolution by Chris Ward" according to the credits) is full of such rough-hewn gems. Indeed, the stagy awkwardness of much of the dialogue and action at length inspires compassion for the struggling actors, especially the French ones such as Romane Bohringer as Lydu who are condemned to speak in their native language-school accents while the remaining cast can use purest British luvvie-speak. There are even points in the film where the poor thespians seem to fumble their lines, but the show, for some unknown reason, is allowed to go on.
James Frain as Vigo does his best to cough and splutter his way through what is a very undemanding range of stock poses, essentially look-sick, look-inspired, look-angry, look-randy, look-sick again. The whole wretched project is so awful that even in those moments when Temple lovingly and faithfully recreates certain scenes from Vigo's films, transposing them into his own narrative, the effect on the informed spectator is more insulting than moving.
In the conclusive words of Jim Carter as Bonaventure: "There are times when failure is a mark of virtue. This is one of them." On this evidence, Temple must be a truly virtuous man.
Credits
- Producers
- Amanda Temple
- Jeremy Bolt
- Screenplay
- Peter Ettedgui
- Anne Devlin
- Julien Temple
- Based on the original play Love's a Revolution by Chris Ward
- Freely adapted from the work of Paulo Emilio Salles Gomes Jean Vigo
- Director of Photography
- John Mathieson
- Editor
- Marie-Thérèse Boiché
- Production Designer
- Caroline Greville-Morris
- Music
- Bingen Mendizabal
- ©Channel Four Television Corporation and Little Magic/DML/Amuse/ TV Tokyo
- Production Companies
- Channel Four Films presents in association with Little Magic Films an Impact Pictures/Nitrate Film/MACT production in association with Tornasol Films, SA/Road Movies Vierte Produktionen with the participation of Canal+ in co-operation with WDR/ARTE
- An Impact Pictures/Nitrate Film/MACT production for Little Magic Films and Channel 4
- Developed with the support of the European Script Fund
- Produced with the help of Babs Thomas
- Executive Producer
- Kiki Miyake
- Co-producers
- Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre
- Mariela Besuievsky
- Ulrich Felsberg
- Line Producers
- Simon Hardy
- Simon Scotland
- France:
- Denise O'Dell
- Associate Producer
- Peter Ettedgui
- Production Co-ordinators
- UK:
- Rosie MacFarlane
- France:
- Lucette Legot
- Production Managers
- France:
- Frederic Bovis
- Art Department:
- Sarah Stinchcombe
- Unit Manager
- UK:
- Tom Horovitch
- Location Managers
- UK:
- Geordie Devas
- France:
- Jose Villalba
- Antonin Depardieu
- Post-production Supervisors
- Emma James
- Chris Nixon
- Specialist Researcher
- Willow Grylls
- Assistant Directors
- Richard Lingard
- Stefan Gates
- Dominique Delany
- Natasha Tahta
- Sandrine Mannoni
- Lucy Amor
- Script Supervisor
- Rosamund Davies
- Casting Director
- Liora Reich
- Additional Photography
- Simon Archer
- Malcolm McLean
- 2nd Unit France
- Jacques Renoir
- Eric Bornes
- Underwater Camera
- Mike Valentine
- Digital Effects
- General Screen Enterprises
- Creative Producer Digital Effects:
- Craig Chandler
- Graphic Designer
- Hugh Greville-Morris
- Art Directors
- Raoul Albert
- Marcus Wookey
- Luis Valles
- Design Positivist
- David Wookey
- Scenic Artist
- UK:
- Niki Bayard
- Costume Designer
- Roger Burton
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Charlotte Couchman
- Make-up/Hair
- Designer:
- Liz Daxauer
- Artists:
- Tony Lilley
- Hanna Coles
- Additional - France:
- Lynne Butterworth
- Carol Hart
- Titles Design
- Janice Mordue
- Opticals
- General Screen Enterprises
- Additional Music
- Nando De La Casa
- Arthur Goikoetxea
- Josu Zabala
- Javi Antoñana
- Orchestra
- Orquesta de Cámera Jesús Guridi
- Conductor/Vocalist
- Juanjo Mena
- Composer's Co-ordinator
- Helena Gonzalez
- Soundtrack
- "Voleur d'etincelles" by Arthur H, arranged by Andrew Crocker, performed by Arthur H, Alexandra Mikhalkova; "La Marché aux poissons" & "La Traversée du gand" from the film L'Hirondelle et la mésange by Raymond Alessandrini; "Fête foraine" from the film Zero de conduite by Maurice Jaubert; "Dans ma peniche" by Charles Borel-Clerc; "L'Ile de Pâques" by Maurice Jaubert; "A Paris dans chaque faubourg" from the film Quatorze juillet by Maurice Jaubert, René Clair; "DarkTown Strutter's Ball" words/music by Shelton Brooks; "Tu veras" by Miguel Matamorusi
- Choreography
- Maryse Laptes
- Sound Mixer
- Barry Reed
- Dubbing Mixer
- Tim Alban
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Paul Davies
- ADR
- Editor:
- Stewart Henderson
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jack Stew
- Felicity Cottrell
- Editor:
- Bernard O'Reilly
- Stunt Supervisor
- Roderick Woodruff
- Film Extracts
- Á propos de Nice
(1930)- Zéro de conduite
(1933)- L'Atalante
(1934)- Protea
(1913)- Battleship Potemkin
(1925)- Cast
- Romane Bohringer
- Lydu Lozinska
- James Frain
- Jean Vigo
- Jim Carter
- Bonaventure
- Diana Quick
- Emily
- William Scott-Masson
- Marcel
- Lee Ross
- Oscar Levy
- Nicholas Hewetson
- Boris Kaufman
- Brian Shelley
- Maurice Jaubert
- Paola Dionisotti
- Marie
- Frank Lazarus
- Nounez
- James Faulkner
- Doctor Gerard
- Francine Bergé
- Mama Lozinska
- Vernon Dobtcheff
- Papa Lozinska
- Adolfo Fernández
- Almereyda
- Nicholas Barnes
- casino croupier
- David Battley
- cinema manager
- Joe Boiling
- Zero Boy
- Anna Bolt
- Misha
- Christine Burlett
- hospital concierge
- Jack Capelli
- Zero Boy
- Charles Collingwood
- plain clothes policeman
- Dean Cook
- young Jean Vigo
- Kenneth Cranham
- the producer
- Marie Dang
- the venus
- Emmanuelle Epstein
- Elizabeth Lozinska
- Donald Gee
- Dominican priest
- Jeremy Greig
- Zero Boy
- Constant Guerrier
- the director
- Michael Harbour
- studio manager
- Blake Keenan
- Zero Boy
- Stephen Kemble
- protestor
- Monique Letitre
- Aunt Lozinska
- Gabriel Pamies
- David Lozinska
- Brian Pettifer
- Fatman
- Hannah Pupkewitz
- Claire
- John Quentin
- sanatorium official
- Joe Roberts
- Tomas
- Simon Scott
- young doctor
- Kay Stonham
- nurse
- Anna Wilson-Jones
- Genya Lozinska
- Juno Temple
- piano girl
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Film Four Distributors
- 9,273 feet
- 103 minutes 2 seconds
- Dolby SR
- Colour by
- Rank Film Laboratories