Jean Renoir will always be best remembered for his prisoner of war film, La Grande Illusion, but if you ask me; this film is better. Based on a book by Émile Zola, The Human Beast tells of the horrible things that humans can do, and follows the story of Severine and her husband Rouband, who kill a man on a train. A train engineer by the name of Jacques spies upon them, and not only does this man not turn the couple in; he falls in love with Severine. The film plays out much a like an entry from the film noir style that was popular in the forties and fifties. The dark tone and the story, which deals with atrocities, gives the film that feel and as a fan of film noir; I found this pleasing. Nobody in the cast stands out above the rest really, but nobody can be singled out for not delivering a fine performance either; and the ensemble comes together well on the whole in that respect. It's evident that this film was made only shortly after the silent film era, as the music is overdone and, at times, undermines the dialogue in certain scenes. Jean Renoir deserves the title of one of the best French directors ever to grace the director's chair as his direction is superb and his list of directorial credits echoes this fact. On the whole, The Human Beast is a quality dark drama and I highly recommend it to fans of French cinema.
53 Reviews
good piece of cinematography
diogoal-25 November 2000
I was very surprised when I watched this film; right in the beginning I spotted a great deal of similarities with Fritz Lang´s 1954 flick "Human Desire", with Glenn Ford and Broderick Crawford, which I had previously seen. Both films are based on Zola´s story, and, obviously, the merit is Renoir´s, since his version is much better. The psychological and deep meaning beneath the coolness of the main character (Jacques Lantier, in a Gabin memorable performance) is handled superbly; so is his troubled relation with Simone´s character. Despite some boring shots, the photography and screenplay are gems, and "Bete Humaine" ends up being a great addition to Renoir´s filmography. I love him; "La Grande Ilusion" and "La Regle du Jeu" are two of my favorite films; a masterful storyteller and a curious observer of the human soul. A humanist.
A Review Admittedly Bothered By Outside Influences
jzappa4 June 2010
The two most noted elements of Jean Renoir's classic "poetic realist" precursor to film noir are indeed the two elements I felt worked more as ends in themselves than seminal features of the story. They are the use of the train as "one of the film's main characters," as Renoir himself describes, and the characterization of Simone Simon's "femme fatale." There is genuinely palpable sensory vibrance in the extensive book-ending sequences of Jacques, played by Jean Gabin, and his best friend utterly obsessed by manning a steaming, chugging locomotive as it speeds down railroads, in and out of pitch black tunnels, and blackens their faces with the smoke it incessantly pumps into the sky. The flames of the furnace, the peripheral landscape speeding by. We have the feeling not of watching reality but of being occupied by it, a feeling prolonged as we experience, as if for the first time, the impact of abruptly emerging from a tunnel, ultimately screeching to a halt in the linear spectacle of a vast rail yard.
I suppose the speeding train is supposed to spark the fierce percussion that outlines the film. Other than these two extended set pieces, La Bete Humaine is a succession of mercurial sketches. It all flows from labor and of the limited time stolen from labor. It's a film of hurried transitions, where all appear to be perpetually passing through doors or climbing stairs or peering out windows. Volumes are spoken when the seductive wife of one of Jacques' colleagues is greeted into her lustful godfather's study while the door is warily closed behind her. A reckless Jacques flees the dance hall unobserved by the dancers, engrossed in their ecstasy. I was intrigued that we see the moments before and after all the murders and seductions but not they themselves. So many crisp exchanges of glances. The blackening impact of a wife's chance admission is found in the way she and her aggressively jealous husband can't bear to look each other in the eye.
Uncharacteristically of me, I found the remake much more affecting. Fritz Lang's Human Desire is, to me, the stronger film in terms of character. La Bete Humaine gets its themes across in its own restless way, but the result is lightweight in effect, while Lang's 1954 version is unyielding in depicting the spiritual isolation of the characters. He punctuates the dramatic action with threatening shots of the many railroad tracks interlacing and breaking away. He needs not brandish any certainty of intention for them to act as metaphor for the characters' paths tying themselves in knots. Lang remained in the shadows as a more effective way of showcasing a distinctive style. Strait-jacketing its insight and intensity, Human Desire is the more resonating parable for the shadows of human rationale and the distortion of the heart, and of desperate characters who lead disappointed lives.
Renoir cast Simone Simon as the adulterous wife at the center of Emile Zola's falling house of cards. He posits that the cute, innocent, kittenish women are the ones to watch out for because you are so enamored with their sweet and endearing nature that you would never suspect them of manipulating you. Well, that is very true. All of us, men and women alike, have encountered a female of this deceptive kind. She is a femme fatale in her own right. But Simon remains in the role of an exotic object, rather than meeting the male characters on their own level, the way Gloria Grahame does in Human Desire. Grahame was always seductive enough to make you crazy, but so audacious. There wasn't a demure bone in her ferociously sexy body, but that made her even more effectively cunning and guileful. She came at her male puppets headlong, and matched their presence as well as their wits.
Grahame and Glenn Ford remain sympathetic in their own respective ways, though one is in some sense a champion and the other is an adversary, just like Gabin and Simon here, but Grahame and Ford evoke a more lucid understanding of their desires, and in the face of the cruelty and ruthlessness in getting what they want, regardless of how far they unravel each other's darkest colors, despite the scorpion-like sidestepping around their flirtatious relationship. Accordingly, Human Desire is a boldly familiarizing study of the sense of right and wrong, achieving its shadowy effect by aiming for your heart and loins rather than only your cerebrum. The development of the drama in La Bete Humaine could be totaled in roughly ten or fifteen close-ups. Renoir just bulks up the lonesome hardships of his three central characters in a wholly animated world of locations and things. If one doesn't totally take in the materiality of the rail yards, rooming quarters and dance halls, the incessant coming and going on platforms and in corridors, the buzz and capricious commotion grinding amidst any personal dilemmas, we can barely be so involved in the uninvited and unconscionable devastation brought down on the three jinxed protagonists.
At any rate, in its own right, La Bete Humaine is a fine piece of stylized realism about disillusionment, done with an embellished aestheticism that, while it draws more attention to its representational elements, is still what gave Renoir's great films Grand Illusion and The River such beauty, humor and vitality. It is best to see this film unfettered by Fritz Lang's later adaptation, to take into account all of the fixations of its own time and culture without any outside influences, to see it as its own (human) beast.
I suppose the speeding train is supposed to spark the fierce percussion that outlines the film. Other than these two extended set pieces, La Bete Humaine is a succession of mercurial sketches. It all flows from labor and of the limited time stolen from labor. It's a film of hurried transitions, where all appear to be perpetually passing through doors or climbing stairs or peering out windows. Volumes are spoken when the seductive wife of one of Jacques' colleagues is greeted into her lustful godfather's study while the door is warily closed behind her. A reckless Jacques flees the dance hall unobserved by the dancers, engrossed in their ecstasy. I was intrigued that we see the moments before and after all the murders and seductions but not they themselves. So many crisp exchanges of glances. The blackening impact of a wife's chance admission is found in the way she and her aggressively jealous husband can't bear to look each other in the eye.
Uncharacteristically of me, I found the remake much more affecting. Fritz Lang's Human Desire is, to me, the stronger film in terms of character. La Bete Humaine gets its themes across in its own restless way, but the result is lightweight in effect, while Lang's 1954 version is unyielding in depicting the spiritual isolation of the characters. He punctuates the dramatic action with threatening shots of the many railroad tracks interlacing and breaking away. He needs not brandish any certainty of intention for them to act as metaphor for the characters' paths tying themselves in knots. Lang remained in the shadows as a more effective way of showcasing a distinctive style. Strait-jacketing its insight and intensity, Human Desire is the more resonating parable for the shadows of human rationale and the distortion of the heart, and of desperate characters who lead disappointed lives.
Renoir cast Simone Simon as the adulterous wife at the center of Emile Zola's falling house of cards. He posits that the cute, innocent, kittenish women are the ones to watch out for because you are so enamored with their sweet and endearing nature that you would never suspect them of manipulating you. Well, that is very true. All of us, men and women alike, have encountered a female of this deceptive kind. She is a femme fatale in her own right. But Simon remains in the role of an exotic object, rather than meeting the male characters on their own level, the way Gloria Grahame does in Human Desire. Grahame was always seductive enough to make you crazy, but so audacious. There wasn't a demure bone in her ferociously sexy body, but that made her even more effectively cunning and guileful. She came at her male puppets headlong, and matched their presence as well as their wits.
Grahame and Glenn Ford remain sympathetic in their own respective ways, though one is in some sense a champion and the other is an adversary, just like Gabin and Simon here, but Grahame and Ford evoke a more lucid understanding of their desires, and in the face of the cruelty and ruthlessness in getting what they want, regardless of how far they unravel each other's darkest colors, despite the scorpion-like sidestepping around their flirtatious relationship. Accordingly, Human Desire is a boldly familiarizing study of the sense of right and wrong, achieving its shadowy effect by aiming for your heart and loins rather than only your cerebrum. The development of the drama in La Bete Humaine could be totaled in roughly ten or fifteen close-ups. Renoir just bulks up the lonesome hardships of his three central characters in a wholly animated world of locations and things. If one doesn't totally take in the materiality of the rail yards, rooming quarters and dance halls, the incessant coming and going on platforms and in corridors, the buzz and capricious commotion grinding amidst any personal dilemmas, we can barely be so involved in the uninvited and unconscionable devastation brought down on the three jinxed protagonists.
At any rate, in its own right, La Bete Humaine is a fine piece of stylized realism about disillusionment, done with an embellished aestheticism that, while it draws more attention to its representational elements, is still what gave Renoir's great films Grand Illusion and The River such beauty, humor and vitality. It is best to see this film unfettered by Fritz Lang's later adaptation, to take into account all of the fixations of its own time and culture without any outside influences, to see it as its own (human) beast.
Renoir & Zola Make a Good Combination
Snow Leopard24 May 2001
Jean Renoir's "La Bête Humaine" is an excellent screen adaptation of Émile Zola's novel, which also contains some excellent photography and a fine performance by lead actor Jean Gabin. While usually overshadowed by Renoir's other more (justifiably) celebrated masterpieces, in itself it is a very good picture, with Zola's ideas and characters providing ideal material for the great director.
Most likely, the reason why "La Bête Humaine" is less appreciated than Renoir's other works is because it is so closely tied to the novel - which itself is actually part of a series of novels. Someone not familiar with Zola would find it harder to understand some of the action, especially the behavior of the main character, railway engineer Jacques Lantier (Gabin). There is a brief message at the opening of the film explaining the basic theme, but it would hardly be possible to bring an audience completely up-to-date with just a short note.
The novel on which the film is based is part of a series of 20 novels that Zola wrote, which cover the history of a single family through several generations and through several decades of 19th-century French history. Each of these stories is capable of standing on its own, but they are more satisfying if you know at least something of the broader context. "La Bête Humaine" is one of the last few volumes in the series, and accordingly, it largely assumes a familiarity with the basic themes. Zola had two main concerns in these novels: (i) to show how certain family traits (positive and negative) re-appear in successive generations, and (ii) to show how the lives of a particular family reflect events and trends in French society as a whole. Zola was a naturalistic writer - he had a strong sense of identification with and sympathy for his characters, but he also portrayed his characters and his country in an uncompromising light, just as they were.
There are at least a couple of ways that this context helps better to appreciate the film version of "La Bête Humaine". First, Jacques Lantier comes from a branch of the family that was particularly plagued with mental instability. He has many positive qualities, but also is tormented by barely-suppressed violent urges. Gabin does an excellent job (as he always does) of portraying his character, but some of it is lost if the viewer is unaware of who he is supposed to be. Second, the railway setting, interesting in its own right, is meant to be suggestive of other forces, both within Lantier's mind and also outside of his life. (The action in this story is supposed to have taken place in about 1870, a tumultuous time in French history.)
All of this comes together in the outstanding opening sequence, which shows Lantier's train rushing across the countryside. The beautiful photography and skillful editing help us to feel as if we were in the train with him, and all of this is supposed to suggest not just the setting of the story to come, but also the powerful forces - both inside Lantier and outside of him - which he cannot control.
All of the subsequent plot developments - interesting and sometimes surprising in themselves - build on this foundation. This is nicely and carefully done, even if some of it is unfortunately lost if the viewer does not know a little of the wider context.
Most likely, the reason why "La Bête Humaine" is less appreciated than Renoir's other works is because it is so closely tied to the novel - which itself is actually part of a series of novels. Someone not familiar with Zola would find it harder to understand some of the action, especially the behavior of the main character, railway engineer Jacques Lantier (Gabin). There is a brief message at the opening of the film explaining the basic theme, but it would hardly be possible to bring an audience completely up-to-date with just a short note.
The novel on which the film is based is part of a series of 20 novels that Zola wrote, which cover the history of a single family through several generations and through several decades of 19th-century French history. Each of these stories is capable of standing on its own, but they are more satisfying if you know at least something of the broader context. "La Bête Humaine" is one of the last few volumes in the series, and accordingly, it largely assumes a familiarity with the basic themes. Zola had two main concerns in these novels: (i) to show how certain family traits (positive and negative) re-appear in successive generations, and (ii) to show how the lives of a particular family reflect events and trends in French society as a whole. Zola was a naturalistic writer - he had a strong sense of identification with and sympathy for his characters, but he also portrayed his characters and his country in an uncompromising light, just as they were.
There are at least a couple of ways that this context helps better to appreciate the film version of "La Bête Humaine". First, Jacques Lantier comes from a branch of the family that was particularly plagued with mental instability. He has many positive qualities, but also is tormented by barely-suppressed violent urges. Gabin does an excellent job (as he always does) of portraying his character, but some of it is lost if the viewer is unaware of who he is supposed to be. Second, the railway setting, interesting in its own right, is meant to be suggestive of other forces, both within Lantier's mind and also outside of his life. (The action in this story is supposed to have taken place in about 1870, a tumultuous time in French history.)
All of this comes together in the outstanding opening sequence, which shows Lantier's train rushing across the countryside. The beautiful photography and skillful editing help us to feel as if we were in the train with him, and all of this is supposed to suggest not just the setting of the story to come, but also the powerful forces - both inside Lantier and outside of him - which he cannot control.
All of the subsequent plot developments - interesting and sometimes surprising in themselves - build on this foundation. This is nicely and carefully done, even if some of it is unfortunately lost if the viewer does not know a little of the wider context.
A breathtaking Gabin
wvisser-leusden17 July 2010
In all his splendid career, Jean Gabin can seldom have acted better than in 'La bete humaine' (= French for 'the human beast'). I do not exaggerate when I label his performance as breathtaking.
Apart from this, 'La bete humaine' is an excellently made film. Competent acting, to start with -- for instance by female lead Simone Simon, a forgotten name. This film's setting in a French railroad-environment adds the right amount of drama, and provides a solid foundation for its plot. According to the technical standards of 1938, its shooting is first-class.
'La bete humaine' is a novel from the Rougon-Maquart-series by the great French author Emile Zola. Back in the second half of the 19th century, Zola wrote 'naturalism': an ultra-realistic style with a bottom-line of pessimism. Coincidence or not, this style fits well with the year 1938, when Adolf Hitler's dark shade was already looming over Europe.
Apart from this, 'La bete humaine' is an excellently made film. Competent acting, to start with -- for instance by female lead Simone Simon, a forgotten name. This film's setting in a French railroad-environment adds the right amount of drama, and provides a solid foundation for its plot. According to the technical standards of 1938, its shooting is first-class.
'La bete humaine' is a novel from the Rougon-Maquart-series by the great French author Emile Zola. Back in the second half of the 19th century, Zola wrote 'naturalism': an ultra-realistic style with a bottom-line of pessimism. Coincidence or not, this style fits well with the year 1938, when Adolf Hitler's dark shade was already looming over Europe.
Code Parameters
bkoganbing5 January 2009
Warning: Spoilers
After having seen Human Desire which was an American version of this film based on a novel by Emile Zola, I knew full well that the French version would be a lot closer to what Zola was writing about. What he was writing about was sex and how it can really put men in a jackpot. It puts two of them there in this film.
The actual Zola novel is set in the 19th century and the climax takes place on a train carrying munitions to the front during the Franco- Prussian War. La Bete Humaine is moved up and it takes place in 1938 France and it opens with Jean Gabin driving a train on the run from Paris to Le Havre. The supervisor of the station is Fernand Ledoux and he's got one young minx of a wife in Simone Simon.
Ledoux gets himself in a situation with a rich man who can make trouble for him on his job. But Simon's got some influence with an even richer dude. But that's not the way Ledoux wants to keep his job. She's a no good woman Simon, but Ledoux is obsessed with her.
So much so that he wants to kill Jacques Berlioz the rich man who Simon bopped. And he conceives of a plan to kill him on the train and forces Simon to go with him. The crime comes off, but Gabin is a passenger on the train who just happened to be out in the corridor and can place at least Simon at the crime scene.
He keeps his mouth shut because he too becomes obsessed with her. American film fans will remember her from Val Lewton's Cat People and from The Devil And Daniel Webster where she's the temptress sent from hell to seduce James Craig. She's Mary Poppins in those roles next to the one she plays in La Bete Humaine. Then again the French did not have the omnipresent American Code to deal with.
Emile Zola when he wasn't defending Alfred Dreyfus as the American film of his life concentrated on, wrote novels just like this, dealing with realistic human weaknesses. I have to wonder who were the real life models for the characters he created. Of course it all ends rather badly for everyone, all around.
Jean Renoir's whole ambiance in this film was gray and rainy, so rainy you would think it was London instead of Paris. The scenes in the railroad yards were realistically depicted. I think they served as a blueprint for what John Frankenheimer did in The Train.
As for Gabin's character, he's a man with issues of his own and plays it quite different than Glenn Ford did in Human Desire. Fritz Lang who directed Human Desire had to deal with Code parameters. I think he'd have preferred to do the same film Renoir did.
Best to see La Bete Humaine back to back with Human Desire. I have no doubt which one you'll rate better.
The actual Zola novel is set in the 19th century and the climax takes place on a train carrying munitions to the front during the Franco- Prussian War. La Bete Humaine is moved up and it takes place in 1938 France and it opens with Jean Gabin driving a train on the run from Paris to Le Havre. The supervisor of the station is Fernand Ledoux and he's got one young minx of a wife in Simone Simon.
Ledoux gets himself in a situation with a rich man who can make trouble for him on his job. But Simon's got some influence with an even richer dude. But that's not the way Ledoux wants to keep his job. She's a no good woman Simon, but Ledoux is obsessed with her.
So much so that he wants to kill Jacques Berlioz the rich man who Simon bopped. And he conceives of a plan to kill him on the train and forces Simon to go with him. The crime comes off, but Gabin is a passenger on the train who just happened to be out in the corridor and can place at least Simon at the crime scene.
He keeps his mouth shut because he too becomes obsessed with her. American film fans will remember her from Val Lewton's Cat People and from The Devil And Daniel Webster where she's the temptress sent from hell to seduce James Craig. She's Mary Poppins in those roles next to the one she plays in La Bete Humaine. Then again the French did not have the omnipresent American Code to deal with.
Emile Zola when he wasn't defending Alfred Dreyfus as the American film of his life concentrated on, wrote novels just like this, dealing with realistic human weaknesses. I have to wonder who were the real life models for the characters he created. Of course it all ends rather badly for everyone, all around.
Jean Renoir's whole ambiance in this film was gray and rainy, so rainy you would think it was London instead of Paris. The scenes in the railroad yards were realistically depicted. I think they served as a blueprint for what John Frankenheimer did in The Train.
As for Gabin's character, he's a man with issues of his own and plays it quite different than Glenn Ford did in Human Desire. Fritz Lang who directed Human Desire had to deal with Code parameters. I think he'd have preferred to do the same film Renoir did.
Best to see La Bete Humaine back to back with Human Desire. I have no doubt which one you'll rate better.
The human beast
blanche-25 December 2009
Jean Renoir's "La Bete Humaine" (1938) stars Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in an adaptation of Emile Zola's novel. Renoir's novel is part of a series following a family. Lantier (Gabin) suffers from an inherited illness, possibly a chemical dysfunction. He's given to violent outbursts. He falls for the beautiful and childlike Sevarin (Simon) who, with her husband, kills her lover. Lantier witnesses this. Sevarin wants him to help kill her husband.
This is a beautifully photographed, bleak story with the symbolism of the railroad (Lanier is a railway engineer) running through it. Gabin is terrific as the tragic Lanier, and Simone Simon is effective as the woman.
Fritz Lang's later film "Human Desire" is also based on the Zola novel, but the Renoir version has more layers, particularly in the characterizations.
Highly recommended.
This is a beautifully photographed, bleak story with the symbolism of the railroad (Lanier is a railway engineer) running through it. Gabin is terrific as the tragic Lanier, and Simone Simon is effective as the woman.
Fritz Lang's later film "Human Desire" is also based on the Zola novel, but the Renoir version has more layers, particularly in the characterizations.
Highly recommended.
Porky and Bess
Spondonman12 March 2006
The point that you really could do with reading at least some of Zola's mammoth saga is well taken - I've only read Germinal so I'm afraid that lets me out. The many puzzling bits in the plot would probably not be: why such fleeting references to ancestral drunkeness and epilepsy, what happened to Cabuche, were Jacques and Bess in a serious sexual relationship?
Basically outraged and cuckolded middle-aged husband murders beautiful young wife's childhood ancient sugar daddy, she (Simon) drifts into stocky Gabin's and/or a lithe young man's arms, sex and violence result as surely as the earthy pre-War French trains ran on time. Some marvellously atmospheric nitrate b&w photography even when under the arc-lights, some scintillating and also some surprisingly clumsy framings from Renoir, some tremendous acting from the leads and trains, some brief but jarring full orchestral incidental music, and what are we left with all these decades later? A clever, well-made, entertaining and then-popular now relatively ignored (IMDB eg Bete Humaine 17 Amelie 1033) film applauded to the rafters as Art because it's Renoir. There could be no other outcome for this film - it was Fated to be Art after all!
It's very good and been one of my favourites for decades now, not as essential mind furniture but more as an enjoyably engrossing proto-noir romp with subtitles.
Basically outraged and cuckolded middle-aged husband murders beautiful young wife's childhood ancient sugar daddy, she (Simon) drifts into stocky Gabin's and/or a lithe young man's arms, sex and violence result as surely as the earthy pre-War French trains ran on time. Some marvellously atmospheric nitrate b&w photography even when under the arc-lights, some scintillating and also some surprisingly clumsy framings from Renoir, some tremendous acting from the leads and trains, some brief but jarring full orchestral incidental music, and what are we left with all these decades later? A clever, well-made, entertaining and then-popular now relatively ignored (IMDB eg Bete Humaine 17 Amelie 1033) film applauded to the rafters as Art because it's Renoir. There could be no other outcome for this film - it was Fated to be Art after all!
It's very good and been one of my favourites for decades now, not as essential mind furniture but more as an enjoyably engrossing proto-noir romp with subtitles.
a pretty good film but perhaps a tad over-rated
planktonrules18 September 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Jean Gabin plays a very nice guy. You can't help but like him. Then, out of the blue, he starts killing and seems unable to control himself. Why? I really cannot say.
Generally this is an interesting movie with some unusual plot twists and turns. The acting is generally good as is the direction and cinematography. However, two glaring problems remain. First, WHY would Simone Simon go along with her nasty husband to commit the murder? Perhaps because she was savagely slapped by him? Possibly, but to continue covering for him? Why didn't she just turn him in to be free of him? Plus, her character is a bit annoying--she is abused repeatedly by men and then ultimately murdered. Wow. Second, Gabin's character is so inconsistent and incomprehensible. He's a nice guy who, out of the blue, strangles (or tries to strangle) women he loves! This unpredictability is interesting for the movie but just seems completely unreal.
Generally this is an interesting movie with some unusual plot twists and turns. The acting is generally good as is the direction and cinematography. However, two glaring problems remain. First, WHY would Simone Simon go along with her nasty husband to commit the murder? Perhaps because she was savagely slapped by him? Possibly, but to continue covering for him? Why didn't she just turn him in to be free of him? Plus, her character is a bit annoying--she is abused repeatedly by men and then ultimately murdered. Wow. Second, Gabin's character is so inconsistent and incomprehensible. He's a nice guy who, out of the blue, strangles (or tries to strangle) women he loves! This unpredictability is interesting for the movie but just seems completely unreal.
Naturalistic forces beyond man's control...
kijii6 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
A few weeks ago, I reviewed Marcel Carné 1953 film, Thérèse Raquin, based one of Émile Zola's novels. There I said: 'Zola, like his naturalistic literary contemporaries--Jack London, Stephen Crane, and Frank Norris--saw man as a brute guided by naturalistic (social or environmental) forces beyond his power or control.' YET, this Renoir film, based on another Zola novel (part of the 20-novel Rougon-Macquart series), comes even closer to representing the naturalistic literary movement at the turn of the century, and I would place it high among Renoir's other famous French films of the 30s..
As the film opens, we see an engineer and his stoker maneuvering their fast train down the tracks and into Le Havre. The opening scenes show the tracks, tunnels, and bridges from an engineer's viewpoint and are some of the most impressive dynamic perspective shots ever seen on film.
After the train arrives at Le Havre, the engineer, Jacques Lantier (Jean Gabin) and his stoker, Pecqueux (Julien Carette), examine the engine and notice that a main axle is broken and has to be repaired. The repairs will take 36 hours, so Jacques decides to visit his godmother near Le Havre.
During his visit, we learn that he has had trouble with attacks involving sudden headaches, rage, and depression. He blames these attacks on the poisonous alcoholic debauchery that he inherited from his father and grandfather. When he finds an old girlfriend, Flore (Blanchette Brunoy), in the country, he attempts to make love to her on a hill by the train tracks. As he does this, he almost strangles her to death. But, he is suddenly stopped by a rapidly passing locomotive, which presumably brings him out of the blackout phase of one of his attacks. Flore, familiar with his condition, asks him if his behavior is the result of his problem. He tells her that his violent urges are beyond his control, again blaming it the hereditary poison that flows though his veins. Though Flore tells him she wants to marry him, he leaves her.
In the meantime, the film follows the problems of Le Havre's stationmaster, Roudaud (Fernand Ledoux), who had taken a formal complaint from one the passengers on his train even though the complaint was lodged against a VIP of the railroad and it could cost him his job. When he goes home to his young and much-too-beautiful wife, Séverine (Simone Simon), he asks her to travel to Paris with him and take the problem to her influential godfather, Grandmorin (Jacques Berlioz). She does this successfully. But, then Roudaud starts to question Séverine's relationship with him. His first thought is that she might be Grandmorin's daughter since her mother had worked for him as a maid at the time when she was born. If so, he thought, they might be coming into his money some day. Séverine seems genuinely shocked at the thought of being Groandmorin's daughter. However, after seeing a ring on Séverine's finger, which Grandmorin had bought her, the conversation between Roudaud and Simon suddenly changes from the thought that she could be his daughter to the accusation that she is his lover.
When Roudaud physically confronts her about this, she confesses that she has been his lover. The shame of being cuckolded by Séverine and Grandmorin immediately sets Roudaud's mind on the fact that he must be killed. He forces Simone to write Grandmorin a letter asking him to meet her in his compartment on the train from Paris to Le Havre. When Grandmorin does this, Roudaud and Séverine kill him and leave him in his compartment. Roulaud tells her that the murder will bind the two together forever. After the murder, they see Lantier in the train car's corridor. Fearing he may have witnessed something, Séverine talks to him on the train to deflect any suspicions.
When the train is stopped at the station and the body is found, the passengers are questioned about the murder. No one claims to have seen anything. But, during the questioning, the prolonged eye contact between Séverine and Lantier makes her suspicious that he knows something that he isn't telling. She then seduces Lantier so that if he knows anything he won't tell anyone.
Even though Lantier and Séverine have a sexual liaison in a railroad shed and they both proclaim their love for each other, neither can ultimately commit to loving each other, either because of a painfully abusive childhood (Séverine) or an indefinable inherited brutality (Lantier).
Although the debate of nature versus nurture on child development still continues today, it is not as dominant in discussions now as it was in the late 19th Century.
As the film opens, we see an engineer and his stoker maneuvering their fast train down the tracks and into Le Havre. The opening scenes show the tracks, tunnels, and bridges from an engineer's viewpoint and are some of the most impressive dynamic perspective shots ever seen on film.
After the train arrives at Le Havre, the engineer, Jacques Lantier (Jean Gabin) and his stoker, Pecqueux (Julien Carette), examine the engine and notice that a main axle is broken and has to be repaired. The repairs will take 36 hours, so Jacques decides to visit his godmother near Le Havre.
During his visit, we learn that he has had trouble with attacks involving sudden headaches, rage, and depression. He blames these attacks on the poisonous alcoholic debauchery that he inherited from his father and grandfather. When he finds an old girlfriend, Flore (Blanchette Brunoy), in the country, he attempts to make love to her on a hill by the train tracks. As he does this, he almost strangles her to death. But, he is suddenly stopped by a rapidly passing locomotive, which presumably brings him out of the blackout phase of one of his attacks. Flore, familiar with his condition, asks him if his behavior is the result of his problem. He tells her that his violent urges are beyond his control, again blaming it the hereditary poison that flows though his veins. Though Flore tells him she wants to marry him, he leaves her.
In the meantime, the film follows the problems of Le Havre's stationmaster, Roudaud (Fernand Ledoux), who had taken a formal complaint from one the passengers on his train even though the complaint was lodged against a VIP of the railroad and it could cost him his job. When he goes home to his young and much-too-beautiful wife, Séverine (Simone Simon), he asks her to travel to Paris with him and take the problem to her influential godfather, Grandmorin (Jacques Berlioz). She does this successfully. But, then Roudaud starts to question Séverine's relationship with him. His first thought is that she might be Grandmorin's daughter since her mother had worked for him as a maid at the time when she was born. If so, he thought, they might be coming into his money some day. Séverine seems genuinely shocked at the thought of being Groandmorin's daughter. However, after seeing a ring on Séverine's finger, which Grandmorin had bought her, the conversation between Roudaud and Simon suddenly changes from the thought that she could be his daughter to the accusation that she is his lover.
When Roudaud physically confronts her about this, she confesses that she has been his lover. The shame of being cuckolded by Séverine and Grandmorin immediately sets Roudaud's mind on the fact that he must be killed. He forces Simone to write Grandmorin a letter asking him to meet her in his compartment on the train from Paris to Le Havre. When Grandmorin does this, Roudaud and Séverine kill him and leave him in his compartment. Roulaud tells her that the murder will bind the two together forever. After the murder, they see Lantier in the train car's corridor. Fearing he may have witnessed something, Séverine talks to him on the train to deflect any suspicions.
When the train is stopped at the station and the body is found, the passengers are questioned about the murder. No one claims to have seen anything. But, during the questioning, the prolonged eye contact between Séverine and Lantier makes her suspicious that he knows something that he isn't telling. She then seduces Lantier so that if he knows anything he won't tell anyone.
Even though Lantier and Séverine have a sexual liaison in a railroad shed and they both proclaim their love for each other, neither can ultimately commit to loving each other, either because of a painfully abusive childhood (Séverine) or an indefinable inherited brutality (Lantier).
Although the debate of nature versus nurture on child development still continues today, it is not as dominant in discussions now as it was in the late 19th Century.
A Pre-Noir Film?
gavin694229 March 2016
In this classic adaptation of Emile Zola's novel, a tortured train engineer (Jean Gabin) falls in love with a troubled married woman (Simone Simon) who has helped her husband commit a murder.
Renoir confessed that at the time when he wrote the screenplay, he had not read Zola's novel in over 25 years: "While I was shooting, I kept modifying the scenario, bringing it closer to Zola ... the dialogue which I gave Simone Simon is almost entirely copied from Zola's text. Since I was working at top speed, I'd re-read a few pages of Zola every night, to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything." Now, I never read the novel at all, and I suspect most who have seen the film have not either. Perhaps this could be a strike against it, but it seems to me that the more obscure the novel, the more liberty you can take. Zola may not be "obscure", but certainly not the big name he once was.
The fact this is considered a precursor to film noir make it all the more interesting. Indeed, it has all the grit of a noir, and the murder aspects make it appropriate to be put in the genre. I suppose it could be called this... now I am curious what other films are considered precursors and at what point the genre came into its own.
Renoir confessed that at the time when he wrote the screenplay, he had not read Zola's novel in over 25 years: "While I was shooting, I kept modifying the scenario, bringing it closer to Zola ... the dialogue which I gave Simone Simon is almost entirely copied from Zola's text. Since I was working at top speed, I'd re-read a few pages of Zola every night, to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything." Now, I never read the novel at all, and I suspect most who have seen the film have not either. Perhaps this could be a strike against it, but it seems to me that the more obscure the novel, the more liberty you can take. Zola may not be "obscure", but certainly not the big name he once was.
The fact this is considered a precursor to film noir make it all the more interesting. Indeed, it has all the grit of a noir, and the murder aspects make it appropriate to be put in the genre. I suppose it could be called this... now I am curious what other films are considered precursors and at what point the genre came into its own.
Impressive
invaderJim26 April 2011
The first thing to mention about this movie is that it is so far ahead of its time, and in almost every way. The acting is much more subtle than what one might expect from a movie from the thirties. The camera work is fantastic but, like the acting, subtle. And the story was incredibly powerful. It had me echoing the title of the film in my head, as there are so many possible applications and implications. This is also, in my opinion, an underrated movie, which lacks none of the depth found in say, a Fellini film, but manages to cut to heart of things without hesitation. And the finale is one that I will not soon forget, similar to many Hitchcock films which don't rely so much on an explosive climax as a sudden release of the tension that has been gradually building. For me, this is quite close to a perfect film.
"Now there'll be a solid bond between us"
ackstasis1 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Well, I'll be damned – it seems that the French did invent film noir, after all! In Jean Renoir's 'The Human Beast (1938),' the noir mould, thematically if not stylistically, is virtually complete. When a husband and wife (Fernand Ledoux and Simone Simon) murder the wife's wealthy lover, one witness – Jacques Lantier (Jean Gabin), a mentally-unstable railway driver – threatens to expose their secret. To protect herself, the wife quickly seduces Lantier, and attempts to maneuver him into murdering her abusive and controlling husband. The following year, Renoir produced 'The Rules of the Game (1939)' as a "pleasant" film about a society that he believed had become rotten. There's no such pleasantness to be found in 'The Human Beast,' in which even the prettiest, most innocent-looking woman is capable of evil (in an introduction recorded in 1967, Renoir remarks that he chose Simone Simon for the role precisely because she seemed perfectly innocuous).
Simone Simon, gracefully seductive in her natural tongue (as opposed to her stunted English in 'Cat People (1942)'), is a classic femme fatale. Jean Gabin's performance is also good, though his character is afflicted with an unlikely psychological condition: for no sensible reason, Lantier occasionally feels the need to throttle the women in his life, a psychosis that is so poorly explored (beyond vague allusions to a family history of alcoholism) that it serves merely as a clumsy plot device. Throughout the film, Lantier spends large amounts of time with his locomotive "La Lison," which is lovingly photographed in action during a wordless opening sequence. Renoir intended the train to be interpreted as a third party in a twisted love triangle also involving Lantier and Séverine. However, I never really got the sense that the train was a major, animate character; perhaps this was more clearly established in Émile Zola's 1890 novel.
Simone Simon, gracefully seductive in her natural tongue (as opposed to her stunted English in 'Cat People (1942)'), is a classic femme fatale. Jean Gabin's performance is also good, though his character is afflicted with an unlikely psychological condition: for no sensible reason, Lantier occasionally feels the need to throttle the women in his life, a psychosis that is so poorly explored (beyond vague allusions to a family history of alcoholism) that it serves merely as a clumsy plot device. Throughout the film, Lantier spends large amounts of time with his locomotive "La Lison," which is lovingly photographed in action during a wordless opening sequence. Renoir intended the train to be interpreted as a third party in a twisted love triangle also involving Lantier and Séverine. However, I never really got the sense that the train was a major, animate character; perhaps this was more clearly established in Émile Zola's 1890 novel.
Pepe de Loco
writers_reign9 March 2005
Somehow the 'greatness' of this movie has always eluded me. The last time I saw it on the big screen was about 5 or 6 years ago when a small art house devoted one day to a Jean Gabin trilogy and I felt strongly that the other two (Quai des Brumes and Le jour se Leve) left this one for dead. Three Jean Gabin films were released in 1938; this one, Quai des Brumes and Recif de corail, in which he was again teamed with Michel Morgan but even a screenplay by Charles Spaak couldn't do much for a hackneyed plot. The great Julien Carette on the other hand, who scores heavily here as Pecqueux, had nine films released that year and managed a better batting average than Gabin. It's hard to put one's finger on the problem; possibly it helps if you've read the book, part of a cycle of nine novels by Emile Zola but given the ratio of the reading public to the cinema going public that's not really good enough, an adaptation of even the largest selling novel should be accessible to non-readers. In my case an aversion to the Simone Simons of this world probably didn't help; the wide-eyed little-girl who expects hot-blooded men to roll over and play dead every time she looks cute will, I suppose, always be with us, witness Simon's natural successors Goldie Hawn and Vanessa Paradis but I was unable to detect even a tissue of sexual chemistry between Gabin and Simon though other viewers may disagree. Nor was I able to swallow easily Gabin's uncontrollable and inexplicable 'rages' - apparently the novel offers a 'hereditary' theory. On the other hand Gabin is always highly watchable, Fernand Ledoux, little known outside France, is an excellent actor and Julien Carrette is beyond praise. The film is now available in another trio format, a three-DVD package of Jean Renoir films and once again the other two, Le Crime de Monsiour Lange and La Grande Illusion, leave this one standing.
Renoir meets Zola:up where they belong.
dbdumonteil10 March 2002
Jean Renoir's work has been the best of all possible cinemas in the French thirties:a ruthless bourgeois wholesale massacre (la chienne,1931,Boudu sauvé des eaux,1932),Italian neorealism ten years before Rossellini,DeSica et al(Toni,1934),cinema verité before Godard (la vie est à nous ,1936)romantic and tragic pastoral,(une partie de campagne,probably his masterpiece,1936),pacifism(la grande illusion,1937,his most overrated,thus the most popular),history (la revolution française,1938)then "la bête humaine".
"La bête humaine" is arguably the best Zola screen adaptation.Seventeenth part of the Rougon-Macquart family saga-one of the peaks of French lit in the 19th century-,this could be the best with the exceptions of "l'assommoir" and "Germinal".The hero is a son of Gervaise Macquart ,Jacques Lantier.He was not mentioned in any of the previous books,because Gervaise had only 3 children (Nana,Etienne(in Germinal) and Claude (in l'oeuvre),and Zola needed one more,so he made up this fourth child from start to finish.What he needed was a hero with a history of mental illness (stemming from alcohol).Jean Gabin portrays Jacques with a sublime conviction:the scene in which he tries to strangle Blanchette Brunoy to whom he confesses he can't help it,he can't escape the terrible fate which is in store for him.
When he meets Severine(Simone Simon,the future heroine of Tourneur's "cat people'(1942)),and is attracted by her sexually,the woman,whose husband (Fernand Ledoux) is anything but handsome, feels in deep in her perverse soul, that she's found the right killer,because she has discovered he's unable to keep his self-control .
Some scenes are absolutely unforgettable:the beginning,which films the railroad tracks as never before;the railroad men dance,during which a murder is committed while a singer is crooning an old song,"le petit coeur de Ninon";the final,faithful to Zola to a fault: a train,belting in the night,gone mad,which becomes a metaphor not only for Lantier's descent into hell,but for the country (it's 1938!) heading for the darkness.Renoir had transposed the action in th thirties.These dazzling pictures perfectly echo Zola's extraordinary lines:"Elle roulait,roulait sans fin,comme affolée de plus en plus par le bruit de son haleine"(It was rolling,endlessly rolling,as if it were more and more panic-stricken by the sound of its breath).
Remake by Fritz Lang in 1954 :"human desire" with Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame;although I admire Fritz Lang very much,I think his effort is neatly inferior.
"La bête humaine" is arguably the best Zola screen adaptation.Seventeenth part of the Rougon-Macquart family saga-one of the peaks of French lit in the 19th century-,this could be the best with the exceptions of "l'assommoir" and "Germinal".The hero is a son of Gervaise Macquart ,Jacques Lantier.He was not mentioned in any of the previous books,because Gervaise had only 3 children (Nana,Etienne(in Germinal) and Claude (in l'oeuvre),and Zola needed one more,so he made up this fourth child from start to finish.What he needed was a hero with a history of mental illness (stemming from alcohol).Jean Gabin portrays Jacques with a sublime conviction:the scene in which he tries to strangle Blanchette Brunoy to whom he confesses he can't help it,he can't escape the terrible fate which is in store for him.
When he meets Severine(Simone Simon,the future heroine of Tourneur's "cat people'(1942)),and is attracted by her sexually,the woman,whose husband (Fernand Ledoux) is anything but handsome, feels in deep in her perverse soul, that she's found the right killer,because she has discovered he's unable to keep his self-control .
Some scenes are absolutely unforgettable:the beginning,which films the railroad tracks as never before;the railroad men dance,during which a murder is committed while a singer is crooning an old song,"le petit coeur de Ninon";the final,faithful to Zola to a fault: a train,belting in the night,gone mad,which becomes a metaphor not only for Lantier's descent into hell,but for the country (it's 1938!) heading for the darkness.Renoir had transposed the action in th thirties.These dazzling pictures perfectly echo Zola's extraordinary lines:"Elle roulait,roulait sans fin,comme affolée de plus en plus par le bruit de son haleine"(It was rolling,endlessly rolling,as if it were more and more panic-stricken by the sound of its breath).
Remake by Fritz Lang in 1954 :"human desire" with Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame;although I admire Fritz Lang very much,I think his effort is neatly inferior.
one of THE great French classics
myriamlenys26 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
A man works for the railroads, driving a locomotive. At first sight he seems normal enough, but in reality he suffers from violent impulses which appear mostly during moments of high emotion or arousal. He does not know himself what causes these murderous impulses ; possibly they're a result of a blasted heredity involving pathological alcohol abuse. Perhaps wisely, he shuns human company and busies himself with driving his beloved locomotive. Sadly for all concerned, he crosses paths with a married couple with a very very dark secret...
The movie is based on a book, which is part of a whole cycle written by Emile Zola. Although the movie is one of the great classics, I saw it for the first time only recently. I was surprised to discover that this movie adaptation made for a good noir or proto-noir, complete with a fascinating femme fatale. It's not the most obvious genre I would have chosen, but it works very well. Go figure... Jean Gabin, as the tortured protagonist, gives a great performance, but he's not the only one delivering sterling work.
It's quite a sombre movie, which treats themes like murder, guilt, addiction and mental instability. However, in terms of darkness, pessimism and misery the movie is but a modest field of cabbage compared to the black and savage wood that is the book. Well, as one of my old teachers put it : "One does not read Zola in order to become happy"...
There's a superb, though disquieting evocation of the world of trains and train transport. As a user of public transport - well, as a user of whatever kind of transport - one always hopes and supposes that the driver / pilot is both competent and sane. But what if one had entrusted oneself to a disturbed, conflicted individual capable of manslaughter or suicide ?
The movie is based on a book, which is part of a whole cycle written by Emile Zola. Although the movie is one of the great classics, I saw it for the first time only recently. I was surprised to discover that this movie adaptation made for a good noir or proto-noir, complete with a fascinating femme fatale. It's not the most obvious genre I would have chosen, but it works very well. Go figure... Jean Gabin, as the tortured protagonist, gives a great performance, but he's not the only one delivering sterling work.
It's quite a sombre movie, which treats themes like murder, guilt, addiction and mental instability. However, in terms of darkness, pessimism and misery the movie is but a modest field of cabbage compared to the black and savage wood that is the book. Well, as one of my old teachers put it : "One does not read Zola in order to become happy"...
There's a superb, though disquieting evocation of the world of trains and train transport. As a user of public transport - well, as a user of whatever kind of transport - one always hopes and supposes that the driver / pilot is both competent and sane. But what if one had entrusted oneself to a disturbed, conflicted individual capable of manslaughter or suicide ?
"The path that bore into your head,behind your ears,the sudden attacks of fever,those bouts of sadness,that made you hide like a beast in a hole."
morrison-dylan-fan19 August 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Nearing the end of my French viewing marathon,I realised that I have never seen a film from one of the most legendary French directors: Jean Renoir. Looking at Renoir DVDs on Amazon,I found out that Fritz Lang's Film Noir Human Desire (which I own,but have yet to see) was a remake of a Renoir (who has "Noir" in his name!) movie,which led to me getting set for my first Renoir viewing.
View on the film:
Starring in the first of his two Film Noirs to get remade in the US, (the other being the soon to be banned Le Jour se Leve,remade as The Long Night) Jean Gabin gives a towering,simmering with anger Film Noir loner performance as Jacques Lantier. Covered with coal from the train,Gabin coils Lantier tightly up and keeps an intense evil under the surface aura bubbling away,which Gabin gradually cracks to cover the coal in blood.
Looking like one of the cat people whose got the cream,the sexy Simone Simon give a seductive performance as Femme Fatale Séverine Roubaud. Catching the stray light in her black coat,Simon brilliantly digs her nails into the psychological trauma of Roubaud,whose delicious,double crossing Femme Fatale sting Simon gracefully carries with an air of impending doom.
Caught between Lantier and Séverine, (plus a Jacques Becker cameo) Fernand Ledoux gives a hard-nosed performance as Mr. Roubaud,whose restless use of force to get his way,Ledoux wonderfully turns into Roubaud seeing the Film Noir darkness in a watch.
Putting Émile Zola's 1890 novel on Film Noir tracks,the screenplay by co-star/co-writer (along with Denise Leblond) /director Jean Renoir places Séverine so tantalisingly close to Lantier that his Noir desires reveal themselves in the rawest form possible.
Hitting the acts of violence with a blunt force,the writers superbly opens up the brittle veins of the Roubaud's and Lantier,where every suspicion Lantier gains on the mystery of the murder,brings the viper charms of Lantier and Séverine burning across the screen.
Rubbing the charcoal pessimism on Lantier's face,director Renoir & cinematographer Curt Courant give their doom-laded train ride an extraordinary, reflective Film Noir atmosphere,by turning the camera to look at the mirrors of poisonous human desire seeping out of the seams.
Entwining Lantier and Séverine in an ultra-stylised Noir embrace,Renoir drives the title with a magnificent Film Noir atmosphere, threading the fractured romance between the Roubaud's and Lantier with merciless lines of shadows uncovering Lantier's human desire.
View on the film:
Starring in the first of his two Film Noirs to get remade in the US, (the other being the soon to be banned Le Jour se Leve,remade as The Long Night) Jean Gabin gives a towering,simmering with anger Film Noir loner performance as Jacques Lantier. Covered with coal from the train,Gabin coils Lantier tightly up and keeps an intense evil under the surface aura bubbling away,which Gabin gradually cracks to cover the coal in blood.
Looking like one of the cat people whose got the cream,the sexy Simone Simon give a seductive performance as Femme Fatale Séverine Roubaud. Catching the stray light in her black coat,Simon brilliantly digs her nails into the psychological trauma of Roubaud,whose delicious,double crossing Femme Fatale sting Simon gracefully carries with an air of impending doom.
Caught between Lantier and Séverine, (plus a Jacques Becker cameo) Fernand Ledoux gives a hard-nosed performance as Mr. Roubaud,whose restless use of force to get his way,Ledoux wonderfully turns into Roubaud seeing the Film Noir darkness in a watch.
Putting Émile Zola's 1890 novel on Film Noir tracks,the screenplay by co-star/co-writer (along with Denise Leblond) /director Jean Renoir places Séverine so tantalisingly close to Lantier that his Noir desires reveal themselves in the rawest form possible.
Hitting the acts of violence with a blunt force,the writers superbly opens up the brittle veins of the Roubaud's and Lantier,where every suspicion Lantier gains on the mystery of the murder,brings the viper charms of Lantier and Séverine burning across the screen.
Rubbing the charcoal pessimism on Lantier's face,director Renoir & cinematographer Curt Courant give their doom-laded train ride an extraordinary, reflective Film Noir atmosphere,by turning the camera to look at the mirrors of poisonous human desire seeping out of the seams.
Entwining Lantier and Séverine in an ultra-stylised Noir embrace,Renoir drives the title with a magnificent Film Noir atmosphere, threading the fractured romance between the Roubaud's and Lantier with merciless lines of shadows uncovering Lantier's human desire.
The human beast is pretty tame
MissSimonetta6 October 2019
Warning: Spoilers
While Jean Gabin is breathtaking in the lead and Simone Simon plays a multi-faceted femme fatale, LA BETE HUMAINE leaves much to be desired. A flatness pervades even the most passionate scenes-- and not in an understated, documentary way, but in a "my soda just went stale" sort of way. Scenes just plod along; character developments often feel jarring. By the end, despite Gabin's wonderful expressiveness, I was not struck by the tragedy as I felt I should have been.
Still, minor Renoir is better than minor most everyone else. The photography is often striking.
Still, minor Renoir is better than minor most everyone else. The photography is often striking.
No accident...
LobotomousMonk10 March 2013
Hereditary flaw... paying the price... suffering... committing acts beyond one's control... reasons locked deep inside. These Zolaist sentiments and characterizations ironically put the story of La Bete Humaine beyond the poetic realist genre. This film never rises to the surface of atmosphere. Image and sound are emotionally charged from the opening scene. Hi-key lighting and soft focus cinematography on closeups create psychological identification and promote the act of gazing. The camera is often stationary and actions moves past it. Closeups are often one-shots. Renoir utilizes a firmly constructed shot-reverse-shot system. There is deep depth of field in staging but not focus. The planes usually are staged with a mix of people and animals or object (horse, train) lending more power to the psychological identifications that run throughout the film. This form of layering creates elusive effects and provided a difficulty in access and privilege (a theme that perfectly describes the psychological paralysis of Jacques). "Feeling like a mad dog" and "haze fills my head" is rhetoric lending to concepts of mental illness sooner than excuses of hereditary responsibility. The mental illness transcends the social classes (like in Bas Fonds) as the wealthy husband commits heinous premeditated acts. "It was an accident for us" becomes the credo of the characters in the film and ties quite nicely to Renoir's own philosophy of the cork in the stream. Certain avant-garde techniques creep up (the rain bucket ellipsis). The only significant use of Renoir's famous stylistic system is at the end where great depth of field and mobile framing help construct a space similar to how it was accomplished at the end of M. Lange. The supersped up rear projection (or "side projection" in the end scene is the most dramatic visual in the film and in film more generally. The themes of immobility and isolation play perfectly when juxtaposed with the high-paced locomotion. Renoir comments "the locomotive was one of the most important characters" and unfortunately tips his hand about believing that his work does not venture into the realm of the psychological. La Bete Humaine should hopefully soon be considered Renoir's greatest film, but it first requires an understanding of the evolution and development of two stylistic systems of his. This will likely lead to his later work being more revered than it is today.
Nice drama for classics lovers...
rainking_es17 June 2006
"The human beast" is above all a love story, but it's quite an atypical love story, because of the way it ends, and because of the complex personalities of the two main characters. specially the man that Gaib plays, a man that's tormented by his past, by the sins of his ancestors and by a powerful impulse that forces him to hurt the people that he loves. The sober touch of Renoir and the matchless beauty of Simone Simon do the rest.
A nice drama. Those ones who love classic films will surely love this film.
*My rate: 7/10
A nice drama. Those ones who love classic films will surely love this film.
*My rate: 7/10
Simple and Complex
Hitchcoc24 November 2009
There are two powder kegs in this film. The first is Lantier (Gabin) who wells up with violence when in the embrace of women. The second is Sevarin, played by Simone Simon. We can see the convergence of the twain as these two make their respective ways toward each other. Lantier is a railroad engineer and a very competent one. His locomotive is his passion. People are aware that he has an illness which he describes as the result of being the lineage of a host of alcoholics. He is lonely, however, and when he falls for Sevarin he falls for good. She is married and is complicit with her husband in killing a man for whom she was a mistress. Her husband, who also is a railroad man, feels he needs to kill him in order to restore his own honor. Lantier is a witness after the fact and this is when he connects with Sevarin. The romance is very passionate, but she needs him to kill her husband. He is not a conscious killer and can't do the job. This complicates everything and ruins Lantier's life. This is a simple tale that is complicated by the nature of the triangle. Renoir does some wonderful things with the camera and sets it all up very well.
Some great imagery at the beginning, but doesn't live up to its potential
gbill-7487710 December 2017
Based on the Emile Zola novel of the same name, you of course expect this film to channel the darker sides of man, and show his animal nature. The beginning sequence on the train is brilliant, with the awesome power, noise, and smoke really setting the tone. Unfortunately the rest of the film didn't live up to this beginning. There are issues that stem back to Zola himself, whose theories about the blood line of a family being poisoned by its ancestors were pseudo-scientific at best. The result is that it's hard to believe the violence that at times suddenly possesses the character of Lantier (Jean Gabin). Simone Simon is a treat to watch and suitably underhanded in her dealings with men, but there is something too cool – too lacking in real passion – about the movie as a whole. The two male performances – Gabin's and that of Fernand Ledoux, Simon's jealous husband – are flat. Zola believed that "love and death, possessing and killing, are the dark foundations of the human soul", and while all of these things are represented by director Jean Renoir, they don't always feel authentic.
Also, I don't mean to go off on a "the book was better than the movie" rant, particularly as the novel itself wasn't Zola's best work, but I would point out that one of the more memorable parts in it was the slow poisoning taking place in a house near a train crossing, and this was a story line that was one of those excised by Renoir. He is also sloppy about other parts of the novel, and when I read later that his screenplay was rushed and that when he started filming he hadn't read the novel in 25 years, I wasn't surprised. It's not horrible by any means, and in some of the train imagery you can see Renoir's influence on films like 1985's "Runaway Train" with Jon Voigt, but it fails to live up to its potential.
Also, I don't mean to go off on a "the book was better than the movie" rant, particularly as the novel itself wasn't Zola's best work, but I would point out that one of the more memorable parts in it was the slow poisoning taking place in a house near a train crossing, and this was a story line that was one of those excised by Renoir. He is also sloppy about other parts of the novel, and when I read later that his screenplay was rushed and that when he started filming he hadn't read the novel in 25 years, I wasn't surprised. It's not horrible by any means, and in some of the train imagery you can see Renoir's influence on films like 1985's "Runaway Train" with Jon Voigt, but it fails to live up to its potential.
Classic Renoir, Indeed !!!
JoeKulik27 August 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Jean Renoir's La Bete Humaine (1938) is classic Renoir. It is a very well thought out, and very well executed piece of cinematic storytelling with a very interesting, and compelling storyline, and it has high entertainment value as well, in my opinion.
The cinematography is particularly good in this film. The use of various camera positions, and camera angles is very effective, and adds real depth to the film, as well as do the great close up facial shots that so dramatically relate the expressions of the actors at appropriate points in a scene. The extensive footage of "all things railroad" are memorable, including footage in the railroad stations, in the rail yards, of close up footage of the trains sailing down the tracks, and camera positions seemingly right on the very front of the train showing the oncoming tracks rapidly approaching, all this being appropriate, of course, because most of the main characters are train company employees.
The acting by the whole cast is really great, but Jean Gabin, and Simone Simone both give particularly strong, and effective performances. Jean Renoir himself gives a rather interesting, and effective performance as Cabuche, a good natured, working stiff who is wrongfully accused of the murder that causes the whole story to spiral into tragedy.
This film has some of the characteristics of a classic Shakespearean tragedy, with characters seemingly chained by the stars to their inalterable fates.
Viewing this great film will always be memorable for me.
The cinematography is particularly good in this film. The use of various camera positions, and camera angles is very effective, and adds real depth to the film, as well as do the great close up facial shots that so dramatically relate the expressions of the actors at appropriate points in a scene. The extensive footage of "all things railroad" are memorable, including footage in the railroad stations, in the rail yards, of close up footage of the trains sailing down the tracks, and camera positions seemingly right on the very front of the train showing the oncoming tracks rapidly approaching, all this being appropriate, of course, because most of the main characters are train company employees.
The acting by the whole cast is really great, but Jean Gabin, and Simone Simone both give particularly strong, and effective performances. Jean Renoir himself gives a rather interesting, and effective performance as Cabuche, a good natured, working stiff who is wrongfully accused of the murder that causes the whole story to spiral into tragedy.
This film has some of the characteristics of a classic Shakespearean tragedy, with characters seemingly chained by the stars to their inalterable fates.
Viewing this great film will always be memorable for me.
Decent but not good!
Gloede_The_Saint14 June 2009
I just saw it today and I was terribly disappointed. Jean Gabin is one of my favorite actors and Renoir is one hell of a director too. Also it had the gorgeous Simone Simon, so what could go wrong? Well it was just too thin! It's like it just speeds through a plot and hope you get the most of it. The character development is really poor, the interactions are often rather silly and Simon seemed quite awkward.
Not too say it's bad. It's entertaining enough and the frames are excellent. One of Gabins least convincing performances but hell that still makes it a good one. And I did quite enjoy Gabins character's humorous friend.
Overall it's only decent. Not a film I would care to watch again.
Not too say it's bad. It's entertaining enough and the frames are excellent. One of Gabins least convincing performances but hell that still makes it a good one. And I did quite enjoy Gabins character's humorous friend.
Overall it's only decent. Not a film I would care to watch again.
The Rise of the Beast.
Jos-528 September 1999
Question 1: What makes a person kill another human being? Psychological incorrect would be the best way to make a summary of this movie. There's no common sense just the worst kind of animal behavior all through the movie. An adulterer is murdered. But the wife can't be with her husband after the murder. She finds herself a new lover. She wants her lover to kill her husband. No sensibility here just wanting, having, getting. This is called the peak of the french poetic realism, but question 2: Can you call this film realistic?
See this movie if you're interested in Renoir, Gabin or early Film Noir, but if you're NOT into films with deeper psychologic meaning just stay away. And tip 1: read the opening by Émile Zola it sort of explains everything.
See this movie if you're interested in Renoir, Gabin or early Film Noir, but if you're NOT into films with deeper psychologic meaning just stay away. And tip 1: read the opening by Émile Zola it sort of explains everything.
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