In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based entirely on where my interests lead me.
Jean-Pierre Grumbach was born in 1917 to Alsatian Jewish parents in Paris and left school at age 17 to go to work. In 1940, he was serving in the French army when France formally surrendered to Germany and then joined the French resistance. After the war, denied a license to become an assistant film director, he became an independent filmmaker under the now familiar name of Jean-Pierre Melville, an extension of his Resistance name (he was a great admirer of the American writer Herman Melville). It was a good career choice, as he went on to make stylish, critically acclaimed films like Bob le flambeur (1956) and Alphaville (1965) as well as acting in films like Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) and became known as the godfather of the French New Wave.
Melville’s first film, Le silence de la mer, is more traditional than his later works but is a strong effort that is partly informed by his experiences in occupied France. The screenplay, also by Melville, is an adaptation of the novella of the same name by Vercors (pen name of Jean Bruller), which was published secretly in 1942 due to the German occupation of Paris. Melville underlines his film’s connection to this well-known literary work through a convention common in literary adaptations of the 1930s and 1940s but which is less common these days outside of children’s movies and comic book adaptations: the title credits are introduced by opening the novel, and the credits themselves appear to be pages of the book. It’s an old-fashioned reminder that books and movies are not in competition with each other but can offer complementary takes on the same story.
The story of Le silence de la mer involves a German lieutenant, Werner von Ebrennac (Howard Vernon, who looks a bit like Boris Karloff), quartered in the rural home of a retired man (Jean-Marie Robain, referred to in the credits as “The Uncle”) and his adult niece (Nicole Stéphane, referred to as “The Niece”). Ebrennac is no cartoon villain—in fact he’s scrupulously polite and tries to engage his “hosts” in amiable conversation. The Uncle and Niece have no choice but to house him, but they do have a path to resistance—to simply refuse to acknowledge his existence beyond the absolute minimum required to carry out their obligations.
The visual style of Le silence de la mer is naturalistic and draws on familiar cinematic language, and the film was clearly shot on a low budget. The finished result is something more elevated, however, as the silent resistance of Uncle and Niece give it the air of a parable. They have no dialogue for most of the film, although we hear the Uncle’s thoughts in voiceover, and generally treat Ebrannac as if he were an inconsequential ghost who happened to be occupying the same space as themselves.
There’s very little action in Le silence de la mer and most of the film takes place within the living room of the Uncle’s farmhouse, which gives this film the feel of a stage play (and in truth, the scenes outside the farmhouse feel like the somewhat gratuitous “opening up” of a play). As time goes on, Ebrennac moves beyond polite and innocuous remarks to talk about himself (in civilian life, he was a composer and is a great admirer of French literature and culture) and his hopes for the future (he believes that France and Germany can achieve a “marriage” that will benefit both parties) while Uncle and Niece go on with their knitting and pipe-smoking as if he didn’t exist.
Le silence de la mer is a film of ideas and a study in power relations which feels particularly relevant to the present day. One overriding theme is that people currently wielding power can be worse than useless if they believe themselves to be on the side of the angels but are unable to appreciate the point of view of the people subject to their coercion. Another is that even in situations of extreme oppression, there’s always a way to resist, and the simplest forms of resistance may also be the most effective. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 755
Technical details: 87 min.; B&W; screen ratio 1.33:1; French.
Edition reviewed: DVD (2 discs).
Extras: Melville’s first film, the 1946 short “24 Hours in the Life of a Clown”; Olivier Bohler’s 2008 documentary Code Name Melville about Melville’s experiences in the French Resistance and how they influenced his filmmaking; Pierre-Henry Gibert’s 2010 short documentary “Melville Steps Out of the Shadows” about the making of Le silence de la mer; 2014 interview with film professor Ginette Vincendeau; 1959 interview with Melville which originally appeared on the French TV program Cinépanorama; illustrated booklet including an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and excerpts from Rui Nogueira’s 1971 book Melville on Melville.
Fun Fact: Lead actor Howard Vernon was born Mario Walter Lippert to a Swiss German family but grew up multilingual and has almost 200 imdb credits for films in a variety of languages, including quite a few by exploitation director Jésus Franco; he also worked as a photographer, stage and radio actor, film dubber, and translator for the BBC.
Parting Thought: Le silence de la mer raises the question of whether it is possible to be one of the “good guys” when working for an evil cause. What other films have examined this evergreen theme?
