The Light and the Eye
Tony Zaza
Had it not been for Sidney Janis, there would be no film culture to speak of. At the dawn of the 1960s, Janis, one of a seminal group of extremely influential New York gallery owners that included Leo Castelli, Andre Emmerich , and Tibor De Nagy, determined that cinema was an art form worthy of preserving and, in keeping with the spirit and substance of his own collecting, set out to acquire and distribute what he felt would be classics of world cinema. The Janis Collection selections were shown in limited release in the first true "art house" cinemas of Manhattan, and form the basis of a sophisticated aesthetic of the art form. Moreover, when the collection was made available on 16mm, it became the backbone of cinema studies courses throughout the country.
The temperament of the ‘70s and ‘80s did much to pollute and challenge that aesthetic while Hollywood succeeded in creating and holding an audience uninterested in being ‘active’ viewers; shock cinema followed fast food. Exhibitors could not pay the rent on the receipts from the limited engagement of a film like Pepe Le Moko. The collection didn’t so much recede into the background as it was flushed away on a torrent of Post-Vietnam triviality and self-indulgence.
Fortunately we have The Criterion Collection and Homevision Cinema to resurrect the enduring value of the Janis initiative. Every new release is an investment in preserving and sharing the landmarks and little gems of cinema history. A case in point, the nearly lost and forgotten Pepe Le Moko, Julien Duvivier’s 1937 story of a French gangster hiding in the maze of the Algerian Casbah, has been restored from original nitrate masters to a pristine black & white DVD release by Homevision.. Important for several reasons; it’s curious mix of actual and constructed sets, it’s charming Pan-Arabic detailing, its depiction of the thoughtful, tough, but sensitive hood (Jean Gabin) , its forum for the voices of the "little people" of the streets, and the overriding tone of lament for Pepe’s estrangement from polite French Society (the greatest value for any Frenchman), the film, like a primal gene pool, fathered a variety of gangster portraits.
Another new Homevision release Godard’s Band of Outsiders (1964) defines the mid-point of development of the crime caper form. With documentary-like clarity ,the black & white DVD captures all of the sharp and deep focus of Coutard’s portable Aaton camera; Godard’s favorite and wife-to-be Anna Karina, and co-stars prance though the outskirts of Paris with the style of year 2000 Ralph Lauren fashionistas. This film embodies many of Godard’s anti-formalist scruples: the moment of silence, the digs, aural and visual, upon the work of other directors, the offbeat romance-a-trois, the real-time long shot, verite locations, spontaneous dialogue, clumsy trajectories, camera asides, and unexpected viciousness and acceptance of its unpunished consequences. Again, the crystal-clean transfer enhances the impact of Godard’s breezy open-aired mise-en-scene , one which reverses that of Duvivier in that its lightness conceals its harsh anti-romantic existentialism.
