Summary
During a stay at a roadside inn, long-distance lorry driver Jean Viard meets a young woman
Clothilde who works there. Their friendship soon develops into a passionate love
affair, even though Jean is already married and is old enough to be Clothilde’s father.
Things take a turn for the worse when Jean loses his job and his wife finds out about
his affair. But Clothilde’s predicament is even more distressing...
Review
One of the most highly regarded French film directors of the 1950s, Henri Verneuil did
not achieve the international celebrity of his contemporaries Renoir or Carné.
Yet most of his films follow the tradition of the classic tragic romance which has been
the mainstay of French cinema since the 1920s. Through some exemplary photography,
and often supported by some of the greatest French actors, he achieves great intimacy
with his subject, and it is this makes his films intensely involving and memorable for
the spectator.
A prime example of this is his 1955 film Des gens sans importance. This has
a strong resonance with an earlier Gabin film, Le Quai des brumes, although Jean
Gabin is now clearly much older than his co-star. In spite of the age difference,
or perhaps because of it, the romance has a tragic note from the start, and Gabin’s melancholic
performance is entirely spot on – his most poignant performance since his return to French
cinema after the war.
Verneuil was one of the few serious French film directors to make use of extensive location
filming in his work, breaking away from the tradition of studio-based films which persisted
up until the end of the 1950s. In many ways, he was the inspiration for the New
Wave, and he certainly had an influence on the new generation of directors such as François
Truffaut who greatly admired his work.
Where Verneuil was particularly successful was in using location work to complement the
studio work and add depth and atmosphere to the story. Des gens sans importance
illustrates this clearly. The film’s opening shot of the roadside inn immediately
establishes an impression of isolation, whilst the latter scenes involving the torturous
night-time lorry journey is overwhelming in its tragic intensity.
© James Travers 2001
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