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promise of any kind is made with the sentimentality of the so-called commercial cinema. Vigo had courage to show children as seen by themselves, and better still, grown-ups as seen by children.
The majority of the English critics who saw this film at the Film Society completely misunderstood it and took it for a comedy. The poetry which runs through the film escaped them, as did the truth of the presentation of children in their relations to one another. Zero de Conduite had the spirit of revolt and the harsh satirical outlook which is common to all sur-realist work. For although the surrealist leaders in France never recognized Vigo as one of the " pure of heart," nevertheless, the scenes in the headmaster's study, those of the afternoon walk and of the dormitory can be quoted as perfect examples of sur-realism, just as a poem by Eluard or a painting by Max Ernst, and better, perhaps, than the films of Bunuel.
After %ero de Conduite, Vigo prepared a whole series of scripts and worked out all kinds of financial schemes ; a film with Blaise Cendrars, another with G. de la Fouchardiere, whose La Chienne had impressed all of us, as well as a film on the convict settlements with Dieudonne.
Delays and disappointments could not discourage him; he stuck to his work. At last he managed to get the production of U Atalante moving. It was an important film, and Vigo might have imagined that he had passed the period of his worst difficulties.
The work of the film is conceived and carried out with the greatest enthusiasm. The Hungarian actress, Dita Parlo, who had worked for Pommer, the great French comedian, Michel Simon, Daste of the Compagnie des Quinze, who had played already in Zfro de Conduite, and Gilles Margaritis, also from Les Quinze, whose work was to be a revelation, form the cast. The music is composed by Maurice Jaubert. The subject is vast and simple. Kauffman's camera work is superb. So U Atalante has every chance of success.
The film is finished. Vigo falls seriously ill. Everyone round him knows that he is doomed. His wife and his friends do all they can to lighten his sufferings. Meanwhile, U Atalante is put into the hands of the distributors. The sur-realism of its story with a barge for a hero against a severe background of canals frightens the trade and it insists on making a box-office version.
A theme song is added of which the title is self-explanatory, "Les Chalands Qui P assent." This title becomes the title of the film, and as a final insult, close-ups of a popular music-hall artiste are superimposed more or less throughout. The mutilation of his work is a torture to Vigo during the last weeks of his illness.
Such was the life of one of the most gifted of young French directors. He could have made great films. He possessed enormous powers not only of imagination, but also of action. And above all, he had
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