We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
DOCUMENTARY FILM SINCE 1 939
defiant support of the doomed men. But in some ways the scope of the film was limited, giving little impression of the impact of war on the whole life of a people, on the railwaymen's homes and families. The emphasis was wholly on the more adventurous work of the Resistance; in marked contrast to the more rounded picture of life in the equivalent Italian productions.
The same is true of Les Maudits (1947), a more ambitious film about an escaping German U-boat. In both instances, however, Clement showed what could be achieved with non-professional actors. An interesting point about Bataille du Rail and its period was that it was made by the Cooperative Generale du Cinema Francais, a co-operative formed in the immediate post-war enthusiasm under Louis Daquin, secretary of the technicians' union. Made by the same unit, Gremillon's Le 6 Juin a VAube (1946) used the Normandy invasion to tell the story of that region with a certain oblique poetic brilliance. From the same unit came Mme Mercanton's La Revolution de 1848 (1949) which used prints and engravings, including Daumier cartoons, to recreate with considerable effect the spirit of another age.
The more obvious aspects of reconstruction appeared as the theme of a number of films like Tony Leenhardt's Reconstruction des Ponts Routiers on bridge-building and Camus's Reconstruction du Port du Havre. Andre Gilet's Genissiat (1948), on the Rhone hydro-electric scheme, gave a straightforward factual account of progress over ten years or so but, with uneven coverage and little dramatic feeling in the assembly, it failed to convey the full sense of achievement. It is curious how often imagination runs dry when French film-makers tackle constructive social subjects. They are happier when they can be analytical and introspective. Aubervilliers (1946) by Eli Lotar and Jacques Prevert, for example, attracted considerable notice. It detailed the life of a Paris slum in all its sordidness, but was unsatisfactory in its lack of any kind of conclusion. Yannick Bellon's Goemons (1947), though completely different in its setting — the drudge-like existence of a group of men harvesting seaweed on a little island off the west coast of France — was equally oppressive in its effect despite certain reminders of Vigo.
The work of Georges Rouquier, who abandoned printing for film-making early in the war, provided a welcome contrast. In Le Tonnelier (1945), a brief and pleasant study of the work of a village cooper, and Le Gharron, of a wheelwright, the mood was
270