La Marseillaise (1938)

La Marseillaise
Directed by Jean Renoir
Written by Jean Renoir, Carl Koch and N. Martel-Dreyfus
1938/France
Compagnie Jean Renoir, Societé d’Exploitation et de Distribution de Films (SEDIF), Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT)
First viewing/Streaming on Amazon Instant (free to Prime members)

[box] Arise, children of the Fatherland,/ The day of glory has arrived!/ Against us tyranny/ Raises its bloody banner — “La Marseillaise”, French lyric by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle[/box]

I love Jean Renoir but the first time I heard of this film was in doing research for my 1938 viewing.  It did not disappoint though I would probably have appreciated it more if I knew more about French history.

Renoir tells the story of the first three years of the French Revolution through stories of common citizens of Marseilles who become soldiers of the Revolution, the French court, and French aristocrats in exile.  The birth and popularization of the French anthem are a running thread.  With Renoir’s brother Pierre as King Louis XVI, Louis Jouvet as a Parliamentary official, and Julien Carrette in a tiny role as a soldier.

I think Renoir excels with character-driven pieces so this does not reach the top-tier of his work for me.  However, he was a genius at choreographing large groups of people so that each one shines as an individual and this is fully in evidence here.  This was probably a patriotic boost for the French as war anxiety was reaching its peak.

Clip – The People’s army marches off to Paris to the first strains of “La Marseillaise” — the use of the details and camera in the first part of this are just masterful – subtitles unnecessary