24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (Jean-Pierre Melville)
France Before the New Wave
•
18m
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville • Documentary • 1946 • 19 minutes
In Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1946 film debut, we follow aging circus clown Beby, from one night’s performance to the next. After the show, Beby eats the same spaghetti dinner his wife has been preparing for decades, lingers over fond memories, including a signed photo from Groucho Marx, and curls up with his tiny dog (while his wife sleeps in the next room). The next day, Beby and his longtime partner, Maïss, linger at a cafe, watching passers-by who provide plenty of fodder for that evening’s performance. Melville captures both the drudgery and delight of circus performance — a job that’s the same as any other, but at the same time unlike any other.
Up Next in France Before the New Wave
-
La Dénonciation (The Immoral Moment)
Directed by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze • Drama • With Maurice Ronet, Françoise Brion, Nicole Berger • 1961 • 72 minutes
An innocent man, a dark bar, a body already on the floor, a brawl – what happened? And who’s innocent, anyway? Jacques Doniol-Valcroze’s game-playing mystery begins with a simple ...
-
Fric-Frac
Directed by Maurice Lehmann • Drama • With Fernandel, Michel Simon, Arletty, Hélène Robert • 1939 • 106 minutes
Fernandel was a 20th-century French phenomenon – once he emerged from supporting roles in the early ‘30s, with his inimitable equine mug, enormous incisors and friendly eyes, he comman...
-
A Game for Six Lovers (L’eau à la bou...
Directed by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze • Drama • With Bernadette Lafont, Françoise Brion • 1960 • 84 minutes
One of the founders of the epochal film magazine Cahiers du cinema, and therefore a prime mover of the French New Wave, Doniol-Valcroze joined all the upstart critics making films in the lat...