Elevator To The Gallows/ascenseur Pour L’echafaud
This recently restored 1958 French film was shown at the Music Box (my favorite theater in Chicago). I hadn’t seen the non-restored version but from the reviews I read, it sounds like the restoration really improved the quality of the actual film medium. The other major treat besides the cinematography was the score by Miles Davis, which added a great affect to the overall tone and feel of the film.
This film noir uses some interesting devices to raise the suspense level. There are many scenes of the female lead, Mrs. Carala (Jeanne Moreau) walking around France all night and her thoughts are echoed and heard by the audience as if shown a constant reflection of her. Moreau herself is quite a cinematic vision and when the image of her first emerges on screen, it is in a telephone conversation with her secret lover, Mr. Tavernier (Maurice Ronet). They immediately profess their love for one another (no great tumultuous love scenes, though, because within the first few minutes of the film, Tavernier does something so foolish and ends up getting trapped in an elevator.) Of course, being trapped in such a small enclosed space only builds on the suspense level and you can see how modern films have sort of used this premise as well.
In addition, director Louis Malle uses some more traditional suspense building tactics…pretty much every film I have seen like this from Hitchcock films to the Coen Brothers’s Blood Simple, sort of relies on the fact that the main characters aren’t all that bright or good at making rational decisions. The other couple of this story is a younger one whose male counterpart is a reckless and impulsive petty thief. His girlfriend is an overdramatic flake who has delusions that she can erase immoral acts with another one on calibar of Romeo and Juliet. It is scary how clueless they both are. Fast car chases, intense police interrogations, and dark rainy nights all abound.
The political undercurrent of the film was also interesting as it definitely touched on the French occupation of Algiers. The involvement of Tavernier and Mrs. Carala’s husband was definitely political as well and I wasn’t completely sure as to the whole ligistics of the top secret document either.
Overall, it was enchanting in terms of cinematography and engaging as far as the suspense.
And man was it fun to ask the guy selling tickets: “Two for the Gallows.”
more with spoliers…
****spoilers****
The only real flaw I found with this film is that I wasn’t so sure it was believable that they would actually be able to pin the crime on Tavernier and Mrs. Carala. Yes, they were obviously having an affair with the pictures to prove it. And yes, they had lied to the police regarding how well they knew eachother. But, wouldn’t they do this anyways to keep the affair secret? I mean, that doesn’t mean Tavernier necessarily killed Mr. Carala (we know he did but how do the police and the law prove it?) The evidence has been removed and it does look like a suicide. Unbeknownst to Tavernier, even the rope he foolishly forgets about and leaves hanging off the side of his workplace building is taken by a little girl. He can technically still use his secretary as an alibi during the time of the murder. There is nothing to connect him to the actual crime. Why not say he went back up to his office to get some work and was caught in the elevator over night? The evidence seems circumstantial at best. This isn’t to say that I think murderers should get to roam free in the streets just because they happen to be handsome and French, mind you. But we’re talking suspension of disbelief here.
Also, at the end, the police chief tells Mrs. Carala (Jeanne Moreau) that Tavernier will end up getting a lesser sentence with time off for good behavior but that the court will not be so symathetic with her and (I think) he says she’ll be imprisoned for 20 yrs. Now, why is that? She’s technically the accomplice. But she didn’t actually commit the crime. I know nothing about the legal system in France either now or then but common sense wise, I don’t see how this would be possible. Say he admits to the crime and she says she knew about it. She wasn’t even actually there at the time. She didn’t specifically hire him either. She was just having an affair with him. I get the feeling that the point being made there was that what Mrs. Carala did was more wrong because she betrayed her husband and convinced Tavernier to kill him. And yes, what she did was very wrong. But does a man not have his own free will? He pulled the trigger…that action is what eventually ended the life. He made the final choice. So why would she get the harsher sentence?
Last, I wanted to say that the ending was the highlight of the film. It’s almost as if Mrs. Carala/Moreau is in an absolute trance as the image of her in Tavernier’s arms becomes visible on the photo paper in the dark room. There’s an idea here that she can cope with the fact that her life is over and that there will be a long separation with her and Tavernier because they are together and united in an image….the idea of immortality. It’s definitely a vivid romantic notion. It’s just too bad they had to be murderers.
September 29th, 2005 at 8:53 am
i too liked ‘escalator to the gallows’ – and yr last remark reminded me of when andy warhol’s ‘women in revolt’ played here. i asked woman ticky seller if it’d bother her if i referred to movie as ‘revolting women’ and she said ‘call it whatever you want, yr seeing it’ (ya know, why didn’t the guy use his cellph, when he was stuck in the elev?)
September 29th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
I think if there was a remake of it, Tavernier would use his cell phone and it would end up being a very short fim. But that would be okay too because short films can be great.