POPULAR EUROPEAN CINEMA European cinema is not just 'art' cinema, but nor is popular cinema in Europe just Hollywood in foreign dress. In fact, the styles, stars and genres of popular European cinema - Swedish melodramas, Italian horror movies, French musicals - all have their own conventions, superficially similar to Hollywood and yet certainly distinct from it. The popular cinema of Europe has been surprisingly little studied either as art or social document. Popular European Cinema seeks to fill this gap while illuminating two compelling contemporary issues: the nature of the 'popular' and the new Europe. Films that are very popular with audiences in, say, Finland and Spain, are seldom successful elsewhere. This book examines this paradox which is further complicated by the fact that Europe itself is not a unified phenom­ enon, not least in the light of recent developments in formerly communist Eastern Europe and post-colonial Western Europe. Through their individual studies, the contributors open up a new area of study, using the medium of film to focus on and celebrate the diversities of popular European culture. The editors: Richard Dyer is head of the Film Studies department at the University of Warwick. Ginette Vincendeau is a lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Warwick. POPULAR EUROPEAN CINEMA Edited by Richard Dyer and Ginette Vincendeau London and New York First published 1992 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Rou tledge a division of Routledge, Taylor & Francis 270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016 Transferred to Digital Printing 2006 The collection © 1992 Richard Dyer and Ginette Vincendeau Individual contributions © the individual contributors 1992 Phototypeset in 10 on 12 point Baskerville by Intype Ltd, London All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Popular European cinema. I. Dyer, Richard II. Vincendeau, Ginette 306.485 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Popular European cinema / edited by Richard Dyer and Ginette Vincendeau. p. em. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Motion pictures-Europe-Congresses. 2. Europe-Popular culture-Congresses. I. Vincendeau, Ginette. PN1993.5.E8P6 1992 791.43'094-dc20 91-40138 ISBN 0-415-06802-9 0-415-06803-7 pbk Publisher's Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent CONTENTS List of plates vii Notes on contributors ix Acknowledgement ti xii Introduction 1 1 Family diversions: French popular cinema and the music hall 15 Dudley Andrew 2 La ley del deseo: a gay seduction 31 José Arroyo 3 Immigrant Cinema: national cinema - the case of beur film 47 Christian Bosséno 4 Images of 'Provence': ethnotypes and stereotypes of the south 58 in French cinema Franqois de la Breteque 5 Author, actor, showman: Reinhold Schünzel and Hallo Caesar! 72 Thomas Elsaesser 6 'We were born to turn a fairy-tale into reality': SvetlyX put' and the Soviet musical of the 1930s and 1940s 87 Mari ia Enzensberei er 7 Studying popular taste: British historical films in the 1930s 101 Sue Harper 8 Was the cinema fairground entertainment? The birth and role of popular cinema in the Polish territories up to 1908 112 Malgorzat ta Hendrykowsk ka 9 The Finn-between: Uuno Turhapuro, Finland's greatest star 126 Veijo Hietala, Ari Honka-Hallü üa, Hanna Kangasniemi, Marti ti Lahti, Kimmo Laine and Jukka Sihvonen ν CONTENTS 10 The inexportable: the case of French cinema and radio in the 1950s 141 Jean-Pierre Jeaneolas 11 The other face of death: Barbara Steele and La masehera del demonio 149 Carol Jenks 12 Popular taste: the peplum 163 Michele Lagny 13 National romanticism and Norwegian silent cinema 181 Anne Marit Myrstad 14 The Atlantic divide 194 V. F. Perkins 15 Early German cinema - melodrama: social drama 206 Heide Schliipmann 16 'Film stars do not shine in the sky over Poland': the absence of popular cinema in Poland 220 Anita Skwara 17 Valborgsmassoafton: melodrama and gender politics in Swedish cinema 232 Tytti Soila 18 A forkful of westerns: industry, audiences and the Italian western 245 Christopher Wagstaff Index 263 VI LIST OF PLATES 1 Glitzy sexual display: Mistinguett in the 1930s 20 2 Community entertainment: Florelle (left), Maurice Baquet (centre) and Rene Lefevre (right) in Le Crime de Monsieur Lange 28 3 Desire: Eusebio Poncela and Antonio Banderas in La ley del deseo 40 4 Kader Boukharef (left) and Remy Martin (right) in Le TM au harem d'Archimede 53 5 Beur humiliation in the French school system: Le TM au harem d'Archimede 55 6 Traditional woodcut representation of the southern French farmhand 61 7 The southern French farmhand in his most famous screen incarnation: Fernandel in Angele 66 8 An emblematic space: the cafe terrace in Berri's lv/anon des sources (centre left: Yves Montand) 68 9 The star-auteur-showman as dandy: Reinhold Schiinzel in the 1920s 73 10 Traktoristj 88 11 Bogataya nevesta 89 12 Charles Laughton in The Private Life oj Henry VIII 104 13 Leslie Howard (right) in The Scarlet Pimpernel 104 14 Anna Neagle in Victoria the Great 108 15 1906: the Plac Wolnosci in Poznan, site by 1907 of three perma- nent cinemas 117 16 1903: the first cinema in Poznan in Leon Mettler's restaurant 117 17 Vesa-Matti Loiri: U uno Turhapuro - high culture, low culture 132 18 'The classic signs of a young rascal': Vesa-Matti Loiri as U uno 135 19 The temptation of monstrosity: Barbara Steele as Katia in La maschera del demonio 155 20 Barbara Steele as Asa the witch, Katia's tempting ancestor in La maschera del demonio 156 vii LIST OF PLATFS 21 The glorification of sport: Steve Reeves (centre left) in La Battaglia di Maratona 165 22 The glorification of virility and the primacy of love: Mylene Demongeot and Steve Reeves (right) in La Battaglia di Maratona 166 23 An unconventional heroine: Anne 'the tramp' in Fante-Anne 185 24 The romanticized peasant: Til Steters 189 25 Stewart Granger, Margaret Lockwood (centre) and Patricia Roc in Love Story 200 26 'Art', 'popular' or 'popular art'? Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in Jean Renoir's La Bete humaine 204 27 Probiermamsell: the camera observes - Elise waits for the count. He lights a cigar as he enters the frame 211 28 Probiermamsell: special effect - Elise sees her weeping mother in her fancy mirror 213 29 Probiermamsell: Maxim's, women enjoying themselves as much as the men 213 30 Polish martyrdom: Ostatni etap 222 31 The 'second Polish cinema's social realism': Krystyna Janda, Jerzy Radziwitowicz and Lech Walesa in Czloziek Z zelaza 224 32 Walborgsmassoafton: the ideal woman - Ingrid Bergman, mother- hood, white mise-en-scene 239 33 Valborgsmassoafton: the bad woman - Karin Kavli, pleasure, dark mise-en-scene 240 34 American icons in an 'Italian' genre: Rod Steiger (right) and James Coburn in Giit la testa 256 35 Europe in Monument Valley: Claudia Cardinale in C'era una volta il west 256 36 What was on in Milan on Friday, 28 January 1966 (Corriere della sera) 258 viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Dudley Andrew heads the Institute for Cinema and Culture at the Uni­ versity of Iowa. He has written widely on film theory and film criticism. He has just completed a study of French poetic realism, forthcoming from Princeton University Press. Jose Arroyo wrote on Almodovar for his MA dissertation at the University of East Anglia in 1989. He is presently writing his doctoral dissertation on 'nation and narration in Quebec cinema' at Simon Fraser University. Christian Bosseno works for La Revue du cinema and CinemAction. He guest­ edited three issues of the latter, on Cinemas paysans (,Rural films'), Cinemas de l'emigration (,Emigration films') and Youssif Chahine l'Alexandrie. He is the author of 200 teliastes fran(ais ('200 French television directors'). Fran~ois de la Breteque teaches film history at the University Paul Valery in Montpellier. He is at present finishing a thesis on the representation of the medieval in film. Thomas Elsaesser is Chair of the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Among his recent publications are New German Cinema: A History and Early Cinema: Space Frame Narrative. Maria Enzensberger taught film studies at Staffordshire Polytechnic, Stoke-on-Trent, and at Derby College of Higher Education, Derby. Sue Harper teaches at Portsmouth Polytechnic. She has published a range of articles on British cinema in the 1930s and 1940s. Her book The Represen­ tation of History in British Feature Film 1933-1950 is to be published shortly by the British Film Institute. Malgorzata Hendrykowska teaches film history and theory at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Her recent publications are on early cinema, and her next book is entitled Film in kulturze polskiej przed rokiem 1914 ('Film in Polish culture before 1914'). Veijo Hietala is Senior Lecturer, Hanna Kangasniemi, Martti Lahti and IX NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Kimmo Laine are research students, and Jukka Sihvonen is Associate Professor, in Cinema and Television Studies at the University of Turku. Ari Honka-Hallila teaches Finnish in Turku. Jean-Pierre Jeancolas works as a film critic for Positif. He is the author of several works on French cinema, including 15 ans d'annees trente, Ie cinema des Franfais 1929-44 ('The 1930s lasted fifteen years, the cinema of the French 1929-44'); he has just finished a history of Hungarian cinema.