Renoir's Boudu: A Classic Satire of Bourgeois Folly

Boudu Saved From Drowning
Criterion Collection// 1932 // 84 Minutes // Not Rated
Review by Steve Evans

The pitch:

A sharp class satire by that master of cinema, Jean Renoir, son of an Impressionist painter.

The Criterion Collection delivers a sterling presentation of Boudu Sauvé des Eaux (Boudu Saved From Drowning), a timeless French film and small marvel of social satire, captured seven decades ago in luminous black-and-white by the filmmaking son of an Impressionist painter.

This early 1930s film by master director Jean Renoir presents the folly of Parisian bourgeois as farce—a theme that would dominate his later work and reach its apex with the 1939 production of Rules of the Game, widely acknowledged today both as Renoir's masterpiece and one of the greatest films of all time.

Actor-director Paul Mazursky, a Renoir devotee, would remake Boudu Saved From Drowning in 1986, crafting a similarly broad satire of materialistic obsession and class differences, updated for the Reagan era. Down and Out in Beverly Hills is a fine retelling, and would make a satisfying double feature with Renoir's film, presented here in a beautiful transfer by the cineastes at Criterion.

A bit of plot:

Boudu, a tramp, haunts the parks of 1930s Paris, yearning only to be left alone. When his dog wanders off and abandons him, Boudu (Michel Simon, L'Atalante) despairs of living and decides to kill himself. Wandering into the city, the tramp crosses a bridge near the Louvre and leaps into the Seine. Wealthy bookseller Lestingois (Charles Granval, Golgotha) witnesses this suicide attempt and dives into the river to save the waterlogged bum. He does this as much from an altruistic spirit as a desire to inject some excitement into his life. When he's not cheating on his shrill wife, Lestingois fancies himself an idealistic liberal, devoted to the abstract ideal of Natural Man. Boudu, "the perfect tramp," represents the culmination of Lestingois' liberal-intellectual obsessions.

With the help of several bored onlookers, the bookseller carries Boudu back to his store and well-appointed home on the second floor. Lestingois' high-maintenance wife worries that Boudu will stain the carpets, or worse. The housekeeper, who is also the bookseller's torrid mistress, bemoans the thought of cleaning up after a tramp. Lestingois tells the women to hush, vowing to help Boudu get back on his feet and on a path toward respectability. But the irrepressible vagrant, who never wanted to be saved from the river, repays his benefactors with chaos. Boudu rocks the household to its foundation with boorish behavior and manners befitting a beast. He spits and stomps and smashes dishes in gleeful obliviousness. Boudu is not so much an anarchist (which would require careful calculation) as a force of nature unencumbered by social restraints. He is, quite plainly, a pain in the ass.

Aesthetics, Thematics & Context:

Satire may be the most difficult of literary forms to translate into film. Whether cloaked in bitterness and pessimism or ham-fisted proselytizing, there's always a risk that the satiric film will send an audience reeling for the exits—especially if they are the targets of the mockery. Even seasoned film buffs may be hard pressed to name more than a dozen successful cinematic satirists; most people draw a blank after dropping the names of Kubrick, Lindsay Anderson (O Lucky Man!), or more recently, David Fincher (Fight Club). Satire works best when it antagonizes, when it holds up a fool's mirror before an audience. This shock of recognition can only be a good thing, as complacency is the moss that gathers on a stagnant soul.

Renoir and star Michel Simon acknowledge in an interview on this disc, conducted more than 30 years after Boudu's initial release in 1932, that police were called to restore order at several first-run theaters. Turns out French audiences were outraged by Boudu's antisocial behavior, which remains fairly obnoxious today. Renoir recalls that his picture was even pulled from some theaters after three days due to the angry reception. Society ladies, especially, complained they were offended (or were they threatened, maybe even aroused?) by Boudu's rakish charm. They could not forgive his penchant for polishing his shoes with a woman's silken undergarments and bed sheets, or his rather nasty habit of spitting in rare books of an intellectual or poetic bent, especially volumes of Voltaire.

Yes, it seems Renoir plucked all the right nerves.

Criterion provides a sparkling transfer of this 77-year-old film, with a remarkably clean mono track and a marvelous set of extras. Perhaps the best supplemental feature on the disc (there is some competition here) is a virtual tour of 1930s Paris, incorporating maps, film clips, and uncommonly intelligent narration. The 1967 interview with Renoir and his star offers superb perspective on the film. Their comments make it clear that working on Boudu was a career highlight and the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

Only the absence of a commentary track prevents this superb disc from flying into that rarefied realm of perfection. A 12-minute interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin, recorded in 2005, merely whets the appetite for a feature-length commentary.

Why is this important? Because history can become confused and obfuscated, depending on who’s telling the story. The lingering influence of Boudu, from staged play (by René Fauchois) into film, demands clarity and candor.

Renoir infused his films with symbolism and metaphor, while drawing inspiration from his father, Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir, in terms of composition and setting. Today, the son's influence on cinema arguably exceeds the significance of the father's work as a painter. A decorated veteran of World War I, Jean Renoir's experiences in battle never dulled the essential humanity at the core of his art—even when he was at his scathingly critical best in films like Grand Illusion. So a commentary track by a Renoir expert would have added to our appreciation of Boudu. Still, Criterion delivers a superb selection of added-value content, as is their custom. Their DVD product costs a little more, but you can see, hear and feel where that extra money went.

As a freewheeling film fan, I would not restrain Monsieur Boudu, who is undoubtedly raising hell somewhere even as I conclude my thoughts on an entertaining and timeless film by Jean Renoir, one of the great provocateurs of world cinema.

So let us dispense with further verbosity and get down to it: Boudu Saved From Drowning belongs in any serious collection.

Copyright © 2008 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Thoughts on Lindsay Anderson's "O Lucky Man!"

Time to re-examine an overlooked classic: O Lucky Man!

A surreal, wildly allegorical satire of politics, business -- aw, hell, of humanity itself -- this 1973 film by British director Lindsay Anderson towers among the greatest motion pictures.

I first saw this picture 15 years ago in a film-appreciation course in graduate school at the University of Virginia. It blew my mind. Immediately, I went out and bought what was, at the time, the only available version of this 3-hour film: a scratchy print spread across two VHS cassette tapes. I've watched O Lucky Man! at least once a year ever since and never grow tired of viewing the picture. I discover something new and amazing with every viewing; it is a rich cinematic entertainment – provocative, terrifying, wickedly funny, scathingly satirical and ultimately…yes…refreshingly optimistic, albeit in a guarded way.

Warner Bros. finally and without fanfare released this brilliant masterwork on DVD in late 2007. So quiet was the release on DVD that even I did not hear about it until stumbling across the news quite by accident months later. I placed an order through Amazon and waited with great anticipation until the two-disc special edition finally arrived. Hallelujah.

O Lucky Man! chronicles the episodic adventures of one Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell), a young coffee salesman whose thirst for success drives his every move. Given an opportunity to prove himself in the coffee company's north territory of England, Travis sets out with a compass and an apple (!) given by his manager. In rapid succession, he is seduced by his landlady, taken to a strip club by the mayor, presented a gift of a golden suit, captured and tortured at a military base, subjected to bizarre human experiments at a private medical clinic (reminiscent of Island of Lost Souls), taken under the wing of a rock band, featuring keyboardist Alan Price (of Animals fame) and seduced yet again by the band's muse, Patricia (a stunningly beautiful and far-out Helen Mirren). Incredibly, all of this flows seamlessly and with a wry, detached British humor that might be the missing link between pictures produced in the late 1940s by Ealing Studios (see Kind Hearts and Coronets) and Monty Python. Patricia's dad Sir James is a corrupt British industrialist looking to exploit third-world countries in Africa for financial gain. Travis becomes his executive assistant and ultimate fall-guy when Scotland Yard closes in on Sir James' evil schemes, including genocide.

From would-be capitalist to prison convict, Travis emerges with a newfound belief system: altruism. He quotes Thomas Payne! He preaches brotherly love to London's poor – the bums, the meth abusers, those who guzzle paint thinner for a cheap high. And they scorn him just as readily as the British aristocracy had used him as scapegoat for their international crimes. Travis stands apart from all social classes, much like Voltaire’s Candide, who found he had to remain detached from society to maintain his idealism.

All the while, like a Greek Chorus, Alan Price and his incredible band sing original compositions that comment upon and provide wry counterpoint to the story unfolding before us:

"Smile while you're makin’ it. Laugh while you’re takin’ it. Even though you're fakin’ it. Nobody’s gonna know."

In the hugely satisfying twist ending, the movie actually turns into itself, spiraling around like a snail shell to evolve into the motion picture we have just witnessed. Mesmerizing.

Even this rudimentary plot outline cannot do justice to a film that unspools like dream logic, punctuated by the stuff of nightmares.

Director Lindsay Anderson shared a world-view not unlike that of Stanley Kubrick, which is to say both artists had an abiding mistrust of social systems and politics, especially. Kubrick directed Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), arguably the greatest satire ever committed to film. Anderson's O Lucky Man! has to rank second. For perspective, I would place David Fincher's Fight Club (1999) in 3rd place.Lindsay Anderson toiled under the radar for much of his career, although he directed at least three modern classics, starting with the stark realism of This Sporting Life (1963), continuing with the nightmarish If… (1968) and following with his greatest film, O Lucky Man! McDowell appeared as Mick Travis in If..., O Lucky Man and Anderson’s less effective Britannia Hospital (1982), although the character appears to be the same in name only.

It can be difficult to determine if Anderson was a misanthropist, or perhaps a great humanist throwing up a warning cry against subservience to politics and blind, social obeisance of any kind.
I believe he argues in favor of turning our backs on society, on a world he sees as being hopelessly entrenched in corruption – whether it is the world of the rich or the destitute. He offers no solution, nor is that his obligation. If anything, Anderson’s film retreats into idealized fantasy by the end, although he may be equally suggesting that escape in any form is preferable to living in a world dominated by powerful, larcenous men with nothing but money and murder on their minds.

For those who question the morality of our society, or merely seek better to understand the place we occupy as individuals within that society, O Lucky Man! is essential viewing. It is no mere mockery of later 20th century capitalism; indeed, in its themes and exploration of the human condition, O lucky Man is timeless. Approach it with an open mind and it might just change your life.

I mean this most sincerely; no hyperbole intended. O Lucky Man! is the cinematic equivalent of expanded consciousness. It remains, 35 years later, a tremendously fulfilling work of art cleverly disguised as film entertainment.

If you have a friend on whom you think
you can rely - You are a lucky man!
If you've found the reason to live on and
not to die - You are a lucky man!
You know, the preachers and the poets and the scholars don't know it,
Temples and statues and steeples won't show it,
If you've got the secret just try not to blow it - Stay a lucky man!

If you've found the meaning of the truth
in this old world - You are a lucky man!
If knowledge hangs around your neck like
pearls instead of chains - You are a lucky man!
Takers and fakers and talkers won't tell you.
Teachers and preachers will just buy and sell you.
When no one can tempt you with heaven or hell-
You'll be a lucky man!

Copyright © 2008 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.