"The cinema competes not only with the tavern but also with the church. And this rivalry may become fatal for the church if we make up for the separation of the church from the socialist state by the fusion of the socialist state and the cinema." -Leon Trotsky, from "Vodka, the Church, and the Cinema"
Trotsky's comment is indicative of the Soviet struggle for a common ground, a place where people can meet, and forge a new solidarity. The sense of exclusion is geopolitical, not personal. It means the arguments will no longer be made from a preexisting faction's vantage point. On with the new. As for the old vantage points, the line is drawn.
Later in the United States, such a battle took place during the McCarthy era when Hollywood was under attack. Perhaps cinema being embraced by Trotsky was enough to make the film industry deeply suspicious to members of HUAC. Perhaps the film industry was just another red herring for the right wing after prohibition failed. Enter Jules Dassin, a Hollywood director who made it on to the blacklist.
Four years out of work, he moved to France to make a film with a low budget and virtually unknown actors. Up against the strain of unemployment, Dassin reluctantly embraced the truism that some work is better than none, and despite his distaste for the Auguste Le Breton novel, created the noir masterpiece Rififi. Highlighting the greatness of the film's direction in contrast to the written work scored a point with auteur theorists, but the point remains a distraction to the greater social point scored by Dassin: the cinema was for the people, not McCarthy. (Trotsky's line has emerged.)
Rififi happens in three parts. The first is largely introductory, the second is the heist, and the third is the kidnapping. Criticism has focused on the latter two for the most part. The suspense of the heist is regarded for cinematic excellence, while Tony le Stephanois' (Jean Servais) self-sacrificing rescue of his kidnapped godson is taken as a triumph of the human spirit. Both viewings are reactionary and worse still, mundane for merely meeting the critic's studied expectations.
Today's viewership enjoys film without the critic's nostalgic framework. The demands of today are that of wanting truth in film. The peculiar penchant for wonder when someone remarks, "And it's true!" (as if it makes a better story qua story) illustrates the longing for truth from cinema. And though Rififi is not a true story, Dassin's is. The viewer wants a film to connect to the real, and in a roundabout way, Rififi does.
The scene where Viviane (Magali Noel) sings about "Rififi" at L' Age d' Or, is worth examination. In the club, a shadow figure represents a character with "lotsa philosophy" and lives for"rififi," which we are told means, "rough n' tumble," both in terms of his street persona and bedroom manners. The word "rififi," we are also told, is not something the average listener to the song would know. Meanwhile, Cesar le Milanais (played by Dassin himself) is in the front row fawning over the singer though he cannot even speak the language she sings in. The hint is toward a world outside of what we see on the screen, a world with struggle. Dassin is portraying such a longing.
If McCarthy was paranoid over messages in film, Samuel Goldwyn disowned the accusation with, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union." In such a predicament, Rififi is a circumlocutory film. Sure, there are both cinematic and humanist triumphs up front, but also a struggle in the background, with a real life Dassin. The film projects a story complete with characters and the viewer's sympathy towards them, but there is also something distinctly more involved about today's viewership. There is decidedly less pressure to agree with those who believe that allies must be few in number. There is also the added advantage of knowing that if a truth is not directly there, it is at least casually loitering about the streets of Paris in a shadow figure, the shape of real struggle: it is quite possibly a displaced Dassin himself, forging a Trotsky like common ground fit for a later generation.
Other films by Dassin include The Naked City, Night and the City, Never on Sunday, and Up Tight.
IMDb rates this film 8.2 out of 10
Film 101 rates this film 5 stars out of five (not red stars)
Roger Ebert includes the film in his list of Great Movies
Trotsky's comment is indicative of the Soviet struggle for a common ground, a place where people can meet, and forge a new solidarity. The sense of exclusion is geopolitical, not personal. It means the arguments will no longer be made from a preexisting faction's vantage point. On with the new. As for the old vantage points, the line is drawn.
Later in the United States, such a battle took place during the McCarthy era when Hollywood was under attack. Perhaps cinema being embraced by Trotsky was enough to make the film industry deeply suspicious to members of HUAC. Perhaps the film industry was just another red herring for the right wing after prohibition failed. Enter Jules Dassin, a Hollywood director who made it on to the blacklist.
Four years out of work, he moved to France to make a film with a low budget and virtually unknown actors. Up against the strain of unemployment, Dassin reluctantly embraced the truism that some work is better than none, and despite his distaste for the Auguste Le Breton novel, created the noir masterpiece Rififi. Highlighting the greatness of the film's direction in contrast to the written work scored a point with auteur theorists, but the point remains a distraction to the greater social point scored by Dassin: the cinema was for the people, not McCarthy. (Trotsky's line has emerged.)
Rififi happens in three parts. The first is largely introductory, the second is the heist, and the third is the kidnapping. Criticism has focused on the latter two for the most part. The suspense of the heist is regarded for cinematic excellence, while Tony le Stephanois' (Jean Servais) self-sacrificing rescue of his kidnapped godson is taken as a triumph of the human spirit. Both viewings are reactionary and worse still, mundane for merely meeting the critic's studied expectations.
Today's viewership enjoys film without the critic's nostalgic framework. The demands of today are that of wanting truth in film. The peculiar penchant for wonder when someone remarks, "And it's true!" (as if it makes a better story qua story) illustrates the longing for truth from cinema. And though Rififi is not a true story, Dassin's is. The viewer wants a film to connect to the real, and in a roundabout way, Rififi does.
The scene where Viviane (Magali Noel) sings about "Rififi" at L' Age d' Or, is worth examination. In the club, a shadow figure represents a character with "lotsa philosophy" and lives for"rififi," which we are told means, "rough n' tumble," both in terms of his street persona and bedroom manners. The word "rififi," we are also told, is not something the average listener to the song would know. Meanwhile, Cesar le Milanais (played by Dassin himself) is in the front row fawning over the singer though he cannot even speak the language she sings in. The hint is toward a world outside of what we see on the screen, a world with struggle. Dassin is portraying such a longing.
If McCarthy was paranoid over messages in film, Samuel Goldwyn disowned the accusation with, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union." In such a predicament, Rififi is a circumlocutory film. Sure, there are both cinematic and humanist triumphs up front, but also a struggle in the background, with a real life Dassin. The film projects a story complete with characters and the viewer's sympathy towards them, but there is also something distinctly more involved about today's viewership. There is decidedly less pressure to agree with those who believe that allies must be few in number. There is also the added advantage of knowing that if a truth is not directly there, it is at least casually loitering about the streets of Paris in a shadow figure, the shape of real struggle: it is quite possibly a displaced Dassin himself, forging a Trotsky like common ground fit for a later generation.
Other films by Dassin include The Naked City, Night and the City, Never on Sunday, and Up Tight.
IMDb rates this film 8.2 out of 10
Film 101 rates this film 5 stars out of five (not red stars)
Roger Ebert includes the film in his list of Great Movies
