Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 7 No. 2, January 2003
Ronald W. Wilson
The Auteur of Darkness: Jacques Tourneur
_Jacques
Tourneur: The Cinema of
Nightfall_ Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2001 ISBN
0-8018-6561-1 xii + 328 pp. One of the most
distinctive characteristics of Jacques Tourneur's films are
the proliferation and visual style of night scenes. From
such works as _The Cat People_ (1942), _I Walked With a
Zombie_ (1943), to _Stars in my Crown_ (1950), and _Berlin
Express_ (1948), Tourneur proved himself a master of
nocturnal sequences that highlighted the atmospheric quality
of his films. According to Chris Fujiwara, in his recent
book _Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall_, the
director 'best represents an 'expressionistic' style of
lighting' through his films (10). Using a cinematic palate
primarily consisting of black and white, and utilizing light
sources (lamps, fireplaces, etc.) within his sets,
Tourneur's expressive use of light and shadow established
relationships between characters and objects. Much of
Tourneur's career has been overshadowed by his relationship
to producer Val Lewton, who has generally taken the credit
as an auteur producer with his 'B' unit at RKO. Fujiwara has
at last provided a much needed critical study of the
director whose consistent atmospheric style is noticeable to
those familiar with his work. One of those is fellow
filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who provides a highly
complimentary Foreword to the book. Scorsese notes that:
'For many directors, an atmosphere is something that is
'established', setting the stage for the action to follow.
For Tourneur it *is* the movie' (xi). Fujiwara has written
an auteur study of Tourneur that emphasizes the stylistic
devices inherent within his films. There are two forms that
auteur criticism can take: one examines the thematic motifs
within a filmmaker's work, and the other examines the
filmmaker as a cinematic stylist, utilizing celluloid much
as a painter uses a brush. It is much to Fujiwara's credit
that he elects to do the latter in regard to his subject, as
it is the most consistently noticeable trait in Tourneur's
films. Fujiwara begins by
providing an informative introduction where he outlines the
basic stylistics of Tourneur's technique. This is followed
by a chapter discussing the career of Maurice Tourneur,
Jacques's filmmaking father. The author sees a distinct
connection in film technique, especially in the creation of
mood through composition. Fujiwara writes: 'An extreme
attention to detail, particularly of lighting and decor, a
naturalistic acting style, and a love of unusual and
striking scenic effects are features that characterize the
work of both men.' (18) Jacques Tourneur's career is then
considered in two biographical chapters that separately
cover his film career in Europe and America. Fujiwara then
proceeds to examine the films themselves. It is much to the
author's credit that he looks at Tourneur's apprenticeship
within the studio system in Hollywood. Beginning as a second
unit director at MGM in 1934, and then as a director of
short subjects, Tourneur was able to develop his craft bit
by bit. Fujiwara spends a considerable amount of time
examining these short subjects and the stylistics of
Tourneur's camera and mise-en-scene. For example, with
regards to the short subject, _Romance of Radium_ (1937),
Fujiwara concludes that the film, 'exhibits both Tourneur's
themes and his visual style. The set of the Curies
laboratory is a marvelous miniature world in which lamps and
laboratory flasks frame compositions, the shadows of leafy
branches are projected on a translucent skylight, and
windows stream with rain. Even the acting in the film is
memorably Tourneurean: intense yet unspectacular.'
(50) This apprenticeship period
was extremely important in Tourneur's cinematic education
and played an important part in the development of the
unique film style that is regularly associated with the
director. Fujiwara's auteur study does not simply rely on a
handful of films that make up the Tourneur style. In
contrast to many such works, Fujiwara looks closely at the
entire output of the director, examining both the weak films
as well as the strong ones. The films Tourneur
directed for Val Lewton's production unit at RKO are
arguably his most famous. Fujiwara provides very intelligent
and scholarly accounts of their production histories, as
well as a critical interpretation of their effectiveness
within Tourneur's cinematic development. With regards to
_The Cat People_, for instance, the author claims that
Tourneur's composition emphasizes the emotional barriers
between Irena (who believes she can turn into an animal when
emotionally aroused) and her husband, Oliver. Building on a
subtext of 'cultural difference', the visual barriers, such
as cage bars, furniture, doors, fences, 'represent the
dividing line between human and animal' (74). Fujiwara also
analyzes the many 'cat signs' throughout the film. Even
though this film is regarded as a master text in Tourneur's
filmography, he suggests that it is still underrated by
many, especially in regard to its acting. But this is also a
part of Tourneur's technigue -- an underplayed naturalistic
acting style. This performance style is crucial to the muted
tone of the films themselves which evince a natural world in
order to reveal hidden secrets. The films Tourneur made
with Val Lewton make up a trilogy of narrative ambiguity
which set them apart from the horror films at Universal
studios. Carlos Clarens has stated that these films
were, 'compact little novellas
set in a recognizable modern world, where man-made monsters,
vampires, and werewolves had no place. In their stead, they
substituted a very real fear of the unknown, the dark, of
ancient superstition, and what Moncure D. Conway called 'the
reason of unreason' -- for the night creatures themselves,
these films substituted our dread of them.'
[1] _I Walked With a Zombie_
(1943) and _The
Leopard Man_
(1943) both prove the effectiveness of the Tourneurian
vision of the poeticism of darkness through the power of
suggestion. Fujiwara notes that Tourneur often cited _I
Walked With a Zombie_ as his personal favourite among his
films. This type of filmmaking is not entirely lost among
current filmmakers, as the critical and box-office success
of both _The Blair Witch Project_ and the effective ghost
story _The Others_ will attest. Fujiwara then examines the
post-Lewton films in Tourneur's oeuvre. What proves
interesting here is the evidence of style that is maintained
in a variety of genres such as westerns: _Canyon Passage_
(1946), _Stars in my Crown_, _Wichita_ (1955), and _Great
Day in the Morning_ (1956); swashbucklers: _The Flame and
the Arrow_ (1950), _Anne of the Indies_ (1951); noir-like
thrillers: _Out of the Past_ (1947), _Berlin Express_
(1948); and a return to the supernatural thriller with
_Night of the Demon_ (1957), aka _Curse of the Demon_. In
all of these Fujiwara traces the Tourneurian stylistics,
however minimal they may be. In the case of the films the
author views as less important, primarily because the auteur
influence is weak, the analysis is of course brief.
Nonetheless, Fujiwara includes them in his overall analysis,
rather than concentrate solely on a handful of films which
distil the essence of Tourneur's style. The book concludes
with an examination of Tourneur's television work, which
includes episodes from such series as _The Twilight Zone_,
_The Walter Winchell File_, and _Bonanza_. Thus the book is
quite comprehensive and thorough in its detailed analysis of
Tourneur's work. In conclusion, Fujiwara
has provided an additional model of auteurism that joins the
recent work of Tom Gunning (_The Films of Fritz Lang_),
David Bellos (_Jacques Tati_), and Deborah Alpi (_Robert
Siodmak_) in a revival of interest in auteur studies. This
revival relies less on simply examining a core group of
films that best exemplify the author's style (as well as the
writer's particular interests). Instead it considers every
facet of the director's work, finding clues to the
development of that style. Tom Gunning, in his excellent
work on Fritz Lang, discusses the 'inscribed/imprinting
hand' of the author within his/her body of work: 'His hand beckons to us to
enter his texts and find him. Since there will be no
author's hand in this maze to grasp ours and show us the
way, we encounter the language of the cinema itself and our
own work as film viewers. The search for the author takes
place in a labyrinth in which at times even the film
director himself may have lost his way.'
[2] This language of cinema
(editing, lighting, composition, sound, acting) provides a
context to help understand the author through his work.
Fujiwara, in his book _Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of
Nightfall_ has contributed a long overdue journey into the
labyrinth of Tourneur's films, and has shed some invaluable
light on this auteur of darkness. Lawrence, Kansas,
USA Footnotes 1. Carlos Clarens, _An
Illustrated History of Horror and Science Fiction Films: The
Classic Era, 1895-1967_ (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p.
112. 2. Tom Gunning, _The Films
of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity_ (London:
British Film Institute, 2000), pp. 5-6. Copyright ©
Film-Philosophy 2003 Ronald W. Wilson, 'The
Auteur of Darkness: Jacques Tourneur', _Film-Philosophy_,
vol. 7 no. 2, January 2003
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol7-2003/n2wilson>. Join the _Film-Philosophy_
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