Nanà

I really looked forward to seeing Nana after seeing Renoir amazing debut work, Whirlpool of Fate. I had read that Nana was generally considered his best silent film so I had high hopes. Sadly this felt like a huge step backwards.

Catherine Hessling is the main problem with this film. Her acting is over the top, even for a silent film. Her acting is more like what one would expect in a film from the early teens, not the late 20s. She usually has the same face, which reminds me (sorry to say) of someone with constipation pains. It was also very difficult to believe that any man would fall for this femme fatale. There was nothing charming about her at all.

The film was also quite long drawn, the camera work was uninteresting (aside from a shot of a horse race) and the editing was dull. The story reminded me of Pabst's Pandora's Box. It is interesting to compare the two because there are only 3 years between these films. Pandora's Box simply scores on every level where Nana fails.

This film is only for Renoir completists or very serious silent films buffs.

The premise of Emile Zola's magnificent cycle of novels 'Les Rougon-Macquart' is that we are what we are through a combination of genetics and environment and that bad social conditions are apt to bring hereditary vices to the surface.

We are first introduced to Nana as a girl in book seven of the series 'L'Assommoir', in which her blood has been spoiled by a long heredity of misery and drunkenness and where she is already on the path to being a cocotte. She appears again as the title character of book nine and here the process is complete. Having failed miserably as an actress she decides to make her fortune by employing her talents in the boudoir. Her life as a courtesan can be viewed either as a symbol of Second Empire corruption or as a means by which she can gain revenge for her deprived childhood.

Jean Renoir's version represents his most challenging film of the silent era and he comes through with flying colours. The elements we have come to expect from this director are all here in terms of theatricality, tragi-comedy, relations between the upper and lower classes and of course excellent characterisations. Visually there is the painterly influence of his father Auguste. He has certainly got his money's worth here as future director Claude Autant-Lara is not only credited as set and costume designer but also plays the role of Fauchery whilst Pierre Lestringuez has adapted the novel as well as playing Bordenave. Memorable sequences are the Grand Prix races, Nana dancing the Can-Can in the Bal Mabille and not least the disturbing scene where Nana's maid and hairdresser witness her ridiculing and degrading her three high society lovers one by one.

Renoir has chosen to concentrate mainly on the trio of Nana and Counts Muffat and Vandeuvres. Muffat, whose obsession with Nana brings only disgrace and despair, is played by the brilliant Werner Krauss. He became one of Germany's most respected and honoured actors despite his closeness to Hitler's regime and his virulent anti-Semitism. His mesmerising performance epitomises aristocratic arrogance and disdain which makes his character's fall from grace even more pitiful. As Vandeuvres we have Jean Angelo, an actor of great presence and sensitivity whose character pays the ultimate price for his 'amour fou'. As Nana, Renoir has cast his then wife Catherine Hessling whom he met when she was modelling for his father. Her portrayal has been described as 'idiosyncratic'. Physically she is a far cry from Zola's imagining but she has captured Nana's innate vulgarity and there is no mistaking that her character has, in Zola's own words, "grown from the Parisian pavement."

Beautifully restored with some gorgeous tints, the film has retained a little of Maurice Jaubert's original score and an imaginative, newly composed score has been provided by Marc-Olivier Dupin for a fourteen piece ensemble.

Despite the film's success it could never recoup its massive budget and Renoir himself lost the money he had put in through the fault of the distributors. Not far short of a century later it remains the work of a master and as Renoir himself has said "It is the only one of my silent films that is worth talking about."

This is the first Jean Renoir Silent film I have watched and perhaps rightly so since it is generally regarded to be his best, besides being also his first major work. Overall, it is indeed a very assured and technically accomplished film which belies the fact that it was only Renoir’s sophomore effort. For fans of the director, it is full of interesting hints at future Renoir movies especially THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (1946) and THE GOLDEN COACH (1952) – in its depiction of a lower class femme fatale madly desired by various aristocrats who disgrace themselves for her – but also THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939) – showing as it does in one sequence how the rowdy servants behave when their masters' backs are turned away from them – and FRENCH CANCAN (1955) – Nana is seen having a go at the scandalous dance at one point. Personally, I would say that the film makes for a respectable companion piece to G.W. Pabst’s PANDORA’S BOX (1928), Josef von Sternberg’s THE BLUE ANGEL (1930) and Max Ophuls’ LOLA MONTES (1955) in its vivid recreation of the sordid life of a courtesan.

Having said all that, the film was a resounding critical and commercial failure at the time of its release – a “mad undertaking” as Renoir himself later referred to it in his memoirs which, not only personally cost him a fortune (he eventually eased the resulting financial burden by selling off some of his late father’s paintings), but almost made him give up the cinema for good! Stylistically, NANA is quite different from Renoir’s sound work and owes a particular debt to Erich von Stroheim’s FOOLISH WIVES (1922), a film Renoir greatly admired – and, on a personal note, one which I really ought to revisit presto (having owned the Kino DVD of it and the other von Stroheims for 4 years now). Anyway, NANA is certainly not without its flaws: a deliberate pace makes itself felt during the overly generous 130 minute running time with some sequences (the horse race around the mid-point in particular) going on too long.

The overly mannered acting style on display is also hard to take at times – particularly that of Catherine Hessling’s Nana and Raymond Guerin-Catelain’s Georges Hugon (one of her various suitors)…although, technically, they are being their characters i.e. a bad actress (who takes to the courtesan lifestyle when she is booed off the stage) and an immature weakling, respectively. However, like Anna Magnani in THE GOLDEN COACH, Hessling (Renoir’s wife at the time, by the way) is just not attractive enough to be very convincing as “the epitome of elegance” (as another admirer describes her at one stage) who is able to enslave every man she meets. Other notables in the cast are “Dr. Caligari” himself, Werner Krauss (as Nana’s most fervent devotee, Count Muffat), Jean Angelo (as an initially skeptical but eventually tragic suitor of Nana’s) and future distinguished film director Claude Autant-Lara (billed as Claude Moore and also serving as art director here) as Muffat’s close friend but who is secretly enamored with the latter’s neglected wife!

The print I watched – via Lionsgate’s “Jean Renoir 3-Disc Collector’s Edition” – is, for the most part, a lovingly restored and beautifully-tinted one which had been previously available only on French DVD. Being based on a classic of French literature (by Emile Zola, no less), it cannot help but having been brought to the screen several times and the two most notable film versions are Dorothy Arzner’s in 1934 (with Anna Sten and Lionel Atwill and which I own on VHS) and Christian-Jaque’s in 1955 (with Martine Carol and Charles Boyer, which I am not familiar with).

Another film to cross off my Jean Renoir Complete List, another probably never to watch again. It's not that it's bad, generally it's pretty good and nearly always interesting but it's over-melodramatised and simplified Zola for my taste.

Actress Nana has men especially rich men eating out of the palm of her hand and begging for more, she has at least 3 suitors vying for her courtesan favours. How it all unravels is the subject of the classic tale. And the sets are marvellous, sub-Stroheim, the modern tinting and music very good (Studio Canal), the print clear and sharp, and the photography excellent considering the then technical limitations Renoir had to contend with. The big problem is Hessling's – and the other leads – constant over-acting spoil the flow of the story. Definitely not tres chic! They all make the contemporary British barnstorming actor Todd Slaughter look subtle in comparison, although to be fair for a lot of the time the leading men seemed to understudy statues to Nana's wildly waving arms. As a rule silent films needed expressive acting to hold wandering eyes in the cinemas, but this reminded me of the mickey-taking in Singin' In The Rain. A red blooded male swooningly said at the beginning in response to her stage dancing that she was "the pinnacle of elegance"! And I also doubt whether either sexists or feminists will find anything worthwhile.

But I enjoyed the 129 minutes as I like silent films anyway – if you're only a Renoir completist I think it'll be an ordeal for you to complete. Nice print and tints!

NANA is a dramatic love story by Renoir, one of the few directors that understood all aspects of cinematography. For me, these early mutes are the reason why cinematography is also an art form. Much more then the money driven "products" that came out the last years (spending millions on 1 film, but not including a story?). NANA only strengthened that opinion. It's certainly not the best film from the thirties I've seen. I find some scenes too long for that, but it's still very good. The sets are inside the hotel and house are amazing, the plot is strong. The actor that played Muffat is the best I've seen from that generation of films. I'm not really a fan of films that have a dramatic love story as a starting-point, I find it quickly too slow, but that's just really un-PC from me. ;) 6.5/10