Kino Eye: A Popular Front film, 1936
The recent French elections have revealed a left that is in chaos. In 1936, much of that left united in the “Popular Front”. It was riddled with contradictions, and short-lived. Trotsky was scathing in his analysis. Yet one aspect of the Popular Front was a flourishing of films with a left orientation. Many film directors, gathered in the Groupe Octobre, sided with the Popular Front. The best known was Jean Renoir, who directed The Crime of Monsieur Lange in 1936. Amédée Lange (Rene Lefevre) is a writer who works for a publishing company owned by the loathsome Batala (Jules Berry) who is...