Bases Teóricas de las Categorías

In 1949 Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of production at Twentieth Century Fox, went to Jules Dassin’s home in Los Angeles, gave him a book by Gerald Kersh, and told him to get out of town immediately and go to London. Zanuck also told Dassin to get a screenplay completed as fast as he could and then begin shooting the most expensive scenes in the script so that it will be costly to remove him from the fi lm. Dassin, who was a member of the Communist Party, took Zanuck’s advice and fi lmed Night and the City, one of the best noir fi lms ever made. Just prior to shooting, Zanuck told Dassin that he owed him a favor and wanted a part for Gene Tierney, who was going through a bad emotional period. He complied with Zanuck’s request, and while the fi lm was a success, Dassin’s career at Twentieth Century Fox, and in Hollywood, was fi nished due to the blacklist.

It was fi ve years before Dassin made another fi lm, Du Rifi fi chez les hommes, which was released in the United States, Britain, and Australia as Rifi fi . This fi lm, based loosely on Auguste Le Breton’s novel, initially had little appeal to Dassin. However, attracted to the possibilities of the robbery sequence that he transformed into a 28-minute tour de force, Dassin’s motivation for reworking Breton’s novel had more to do with his experiences over the past fi ve years than merely aesthetic considerations.

Dassin was part of a culture that was repressed and marginalized in the period after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945. This community, who played a prominent part in the development of fi lm noir throughout the 1940s, was under attack as the simmering bitterness that was held in check by the demands of war broke down as soon as the war was over. This community included Communists, socialists, liberals, and other left-wing factions of actors, writers, directors, and producers such as Dassin, Edward Dmytryk, Robert Rossen, Abraham Polonsky, Dalton Trumbo, Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, Nicholas Ray, Cy Endfi eld, John Garfi eld, Lee J. Cobb, Howard Da Silva, Karen Morley, Sterling Hayden, John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, and Robert Ryan.

James Naremore (1998, 124) argues in More Than Night that some of these people “responded to the threat of political repression by creating what amounted to a subgenre.” This included John Huston and Jules Dassin, who utilized many of the conventions of fi lm noir while intensifying the level of social realism and, sometimes, psychological depth. By 1949, many members of this community realized that their dream of a tolerant liberal democracy in the United States was

not feasible. As actress Karen Morley remarked years later, the “right wing rolled over us like a tank over wildfl owers” (qtd. in Naremore 1998, 107). Some acqui-esced before the HUAC; others left the country or the fi lm industry.

For members of this group this realization was bitter as many, such as Dassin, Edward Dmytryk, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Joseph Losey, Abraham Polonsky, Nicholas Ray, and Robert Rossen, began their careers in the 1930s in the social and radical theaters of New York. This included the Group Theater and the Yiddish Artef (Arbeter Theatre Farband or Workers Theater Organization), which was founded as an agitprop theater based on the Soviet model. Born in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1911 of Russian immigrant parents, Dassin began in the Artef as an unpaid actor and director while working in a paid occupation during the day.

During this period he worked with Elia Kazan on a Federal Theater Production of the Marxist children’s play The Revolt of the Beavers, which was terminated after three weeks by the New York police commissioner.

When the radical theaters collapsed in the late 1930s, Dassin went to Hollywood and RKO, and in 1941 MGM offered him his fi rst fi lm as director, Nazi Agent, star-ring Conrad Veidt. Dassin hated his period at MGM, and it was not until 1947, when he began working with producer Mark Hellinger at Universal on the prison fi lm Brute Force, that he felt comfortable in Hollywood. He followed this with Naked City (1948), with Hellinger and Universal, and then directed another fi lm noir, Thieves Highway (1949), at Twentieth Century Fox.

While Dassin felt dissatisfi ed with these fi lms, each blended the conventions of fi lm noir with a left-wing ethos as well as mixing social realism with, especially in the case of Naked City and Thieves Highway, documentary techniques. Brute Force perpetuated the wartime theme of collective action against Fascist tyranny.

However, instead of a combat unit, this theme is developed within a prison setting that, unlike the propaganda fi lms of World War II, yields a kind of fatalistic melo-drama. In the fi lm the sadistic Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn) runs his prison as a fascist state, and because the liberal authorities are powerless to stop him, death provides the only relief for the prisoners. After most of them die trying to escape, the fi lm concludes with the humane prison doctor (Art Smith) facing the camera and telling the audience that “nobody escapes, nobody ever really escapes.”

The social message in Naked City and Thieves Highway was less obvious, although the latter fi lm, scripted by proletarian writer A. I. Bezzerides, emphasizes the cor-rupt side of capitalism through the exploitation of farm workers by mercenary wholesalers. However, these fi lms, along with other fi lms with a relatively strong social-realist infl ection, such as Crossfi re (1947) and Force of Evil (1948), created severe problems for those involved in the production after 1947 as the political climate moved rapidly to the Right.

In 1946 the Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress, and President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, ordered that government employees must take a loyalty oath. In 1947 the Taft-Hartley Act forbade communists in labor unions, and the so-called Waldorf Declaration, following a meeting of prominent

studio executives at the Waldorf Hotel in New York, initiated the blacklisting of many left-wing and “troublesome” fi lmmakers. This was accompanied by a sus-tained congressional attack, orchestrated by the Republican-controlled Congress, on the Left in Hollywood, and in 1947 and 1951 the HUAC, which was formed in 1938, conducted public hearings in Washington, D.C.

Dassin had just left Rome for Cannes, after investigating the possibility of direct-ing a fi lm about a Communist and a priest, Le Petit monde de Don Camillo, when he heard that he had been publicly named as a Communist. As he was eager to be ques-tioned, he returned to the United States, and while waiting to receive a summons to appear before the HUAC, he directed a revue starring Bette Davis. The subpoena never eventuated, and he was forced to leave the United States in search of work.

Dassin was offered the direction of L’ Ennemi public no 1, starring Fernandel, in France. However, just before the start of fi lming, Roy Brewer, a highly infl uential Hollywood union offi cial, told the fi lm’s producer that this fi lm, and any other fi lm he produced, would never be released in the United States if Dassin was involved in the production. Brewer also threatened the career of one of the fi lm’s stars, Zsa Zsa Gabor. After he was ejected from the fi lm, the French press took up Dassin’s case, but this did not help his career. His career was also damaged when his American passport was revoked, which meant travel in Europe was diffi cult. However, friends enabled him to get to Italy to work with Italian writer Vitaliano Brancati on developing a script based on the classic Italian novel Mastro Don Gesualdo. Again, he was removed from this project when the American ambassador to Italy, Clare Boothe Luce, intervened, and Dassin was forced to leave the country.

He returned to France and the close-knit community of exiled Hollywood fi lm-makers living in Paris. This was a painful, diffi cult period for Dassin. Not only was he broke and dependent on others, but the news came through of close friends in Hollywood who were appearing before the HUAC as “friendly” witnesses and who were supplying the committee with the names of left-wing and Communist actors and fi lmmakers in Hollywood. Dassin wept and suffered every time one of his “champions” caved in, and he considered the testimony of friends such as Lee J. Cobb, Elia Kazan, and the “poet of the working class” Clifford Odets a betrayal of their ideals.

Rifi fi rescued Dassin from fi ve years of unemployment. Ironically, his political exile from Hollywood was a signifi cant factor in receiving the offer to script and direct the fi lm. First, the fi lm’s producers knew that Dassin was unemployed and consequently that they could get him for little money. Second, they were wor-ried that the North African nationality of the villains in Auguste Le Breton’s story would cause problems for the fi lm as relations between France and Algeria were very volatile at the time. Hence the producers wanted the villains to be Americans, and they thought that Dassin would be an ideal director. Dassin, however, convinced them to change their nationality to French.

Dassin had one weekend to read the novel and give his answer. However, he could not understand the dense argot in the book, and only after he forced his

agent to forgo an amorous weekend and read the book to him could Dassin make any sense of it. He still did not like it as he considered it cruel and perverse. One incident, however, intrigued him—the robbery. Nevertheless, he decided to reject the project. But broke and desperate to work, he heard himself say yes.

Rifi fi was infl uenced by The Asphalt Jungle. Huston’s fi lm established many of the key narrative conventions and characterizations that would shape the caper fi lm for many years. Based on W. R. Burnett’s novel, Huston reworked Ben Maddow’s script by shifting the emphasis toward the criminals and away from the activi-ties of a reformist police commissioner determined to eradicate corruption in a Midwestern town. The fi lm’s sympathies are obvious—especially when corrupt lawyer Alonzo D. Emmerich (Louis Calhern) tells his wife that “crime is only the left-handed form of human endeavor.”

Huston, like Dassin in Rifi fi , gives each of the criminals his own story. The hooligan, the petty crook Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), desires to go back to his childhood farm in Kentucky, the mastermind “Doc” Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe) wants money to retire to Mexico, and the boxman, safecracker Louis Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso), needs money for his sick child.

Both The Asphalt Jungle and Rififi emerged from the gangster genre. Here W. R. Burnett is a crucial fi gure. His 1930 novel Little Caesar established the basis of the 1930s gangster fi lm, while his 1940 novel High Sierra, fi lmed by Warner Bros. in 1941 (and scripted by John Huston), replaced the energy and arrogance of the 1930s gangster with an aging gangster, Roy Earle. Earle, a sad fi gure, prefi gured the change in the gangster genre in the 1940s as the genre became increasingly infl ected by the fatalism and despair associated with fi lm noir.

Many 1940s fi lms, such as The Killers (1946), Criss Cross (1949), and Gun Crazy (1950), contain robbery sequences. The Asphalt Jungle, however, changed the formula by introducing a three-part narrative structure—the recruitment of the criminals; the rehearsal and robbery; and the aftermath resulting in the deaths of the criminals, often due to the combined action of fate and human weakness.

However, it is the point of view of these fi lms that makes this cycle interesting.

As James Naremore (1998, 128) argues, “after 1947, many leftist fi lmmakers were treated as outlaws, and it is not surprising that they made some of their best pic-tures from the point of view of criminals.” This is certainly true of The Asphalt Jungle, which shows institutional corruption permeating every level of American life. This theme is conveyed in the fi lm’s schematic style whereby each scene is intensely claustrophobic, with horizontal and vertical lines fracturing each frame.

The only visual relief comes at the end, with Dix dying in a fi eld in the Kentucky bluegrass country. Catharsis comes only with death.

Dassin, like Huston, also uses this genre as a response to the subjugation of the Left in the late 1940s and 1950s. However, Dassin adds betrayal to this mix-ture, and he is explicit as to his motivation in reworking Le Breton’s novel and shifting the fi lm’s sympathy toward the criminals and away from the police. As he stated later, his script refl ects his view of himself as being a “crook at heart.”

Years later he said, “I like authority being conquered so I always want my guys to succeed, and since I am on their side I try to fi nd good things for them to do”

(Dassin 2005).

Betrayal of the code that binds these criminals together is a central motif in the fi lm. This appears early when the consumptive criminal Tony le Stéphanois (Jean Servais) learns from Jo le Suedois (Carl Möhner) that Mado (Marie Sabouret), Tony’s ex-girlfriend, is living with Pierre Grutter (Marcel Lupovici), the owner of L’Age–D’Or. Tony, who has recently been released from jail after serving fi ve years, goes to Grutter’s club and takes Mado back to his dingy apart-ment, telling her, “I got busted in May. In June you were on the Riviera with a gigolo.” He forces her to remove her expensive fur and jewelry before taking her into his bedroom, where she has to take off her clothes. Tony then hits her violently with a belt seven times before throwing her, half-dressed, out of his apartment. Mado accepts her punishment but refuses to forgive him until late in the fi lm.

After throwing Mado out of his apartment, Tony changes his mind and tells Jo and Mario that he will participate in their plan to rob a large jewelry store—pro-viding they drop their idea of a smash and grab and rob the store’s safe. The moti-vation for this change is not clear as Tony appears to have no plans as to what he will do with his share of the money from the robbery.

As the men need a safecracker, they recruit Cesar (Jules Dassin as Perlo Vita), who forms a close bond with the men, especially Tony. However, Tony is aware of Cesar’s weakness for women, and he warns the Italian after the robbery, “You sleep here at Mario’s. No hotel registers. And no runnin’ around Montmartre.” Cesar gives Tony his word, but he really intends visiting L’Age–D’Or, where he has formed a relationship with singer Vivienne (Magali Nöel). This action is indicated during the robbery when, unknown to the other men, he takes a valuable ring.

Cesar’s weakness brings disaster, just as Doc’s penchant for young women leads to his capture in The Asphalt Jungle. Grutter traces the ring back to the robbery, and as a result, Mario and his wife, Ida, are murdered. When Tony discovers their bodies, he confronts the Italian, who is tied to a pole in the backroom of Grutter’s nightclub:

Cesar: Forgive me.

Tony: It was you. You ratted on him.

Cesar: Forgive me.

Tony: I liked you. I really liked you, Macaroni.

But you know the rules.

Cesar, like Mado, accepts his punishment and gently nods: “The rules.” Tony walks backward as the camera shifts to a point-of-view shot of the Italian looking at Tony, who fi res three shots into Cesar’s body. Later, Dassin, who was forced to play Cesar when another actor pulled out because of a dispute over his contract, said that

this scene was directly motivated by his reaction to the HUAC hearings, where his friends betrayed him and other members of the Left in Hollywood: “There I was just thinking of all my friends who, in a bad moment during the McCarthy era, betrayed other friends and that was what I was writing and thinking about.” Pointedly, Dassin contrasts Cesar’s betrayal of the group with the heroic actions of Mario and Ida, who accept death rather than inform on Tony to Grutter. After Remi Grutter (Robert Hossein) cuts their throats, Mario and Ida receive a lavish funeral.

In terms of the genre, Rifi fi is structurally similar to The Asphalt Jungle. There are, however, signifi cant differences due to the different cultural context in each country in the 1950s. For example, the censorship strictures underpinning each fi lm are different. In France, there was greater tolerance of nudity and deviate behavior compared with the United States. In The Asphalt Jungle the corrupt lawyer, Alonzo D. Emmerich, participates in the heist because he requires money to fi nance the needs of his young mistress, Angela Phinlay (Marilyn Monroe).

However, although the sexual basis of this relationship is clear, the Production Code prohibited any literal representation of this relationship—the closest the fi lm comes is Emmerich lovingly holding up Angela’s stiletto shoe after she kisses him before going off to her bedroom. Huston, however, bypasses the restrictions of the code by emphasizing Monroe’s inherent animal sexuality and her references to Emmerich as “Uncle Lon.”

Dassin in Rifi fi has more freedom. Tony’s whipping of the naked Mado with his belt is still shocking, even though the director pans away to a photo of the couple in happier times as he is hitting her. Yet the noise the belt makes on her body has a powerful impact, and this scene provoked a negative review from Pauline Kael.

Similarly, when the men return from the robbery to Mario’s apartment, Ida greets them in a negligee that exposes her nipples. This follows an earlier scene with Ida, in a brief costume, washing Mario in the bath. These and other scenes show the healthy sex life that Mario shares with his wife—which only makes their sacrifi ce more poignant.

The other major distinction between the two fi lms emerges as Dassin emphasizes a sense of community and shared values among his thieves—not only the four men and Ida, but also in a wider sense. After Jo’s young son is kidnapped by Grutter, there is outrage in the Parisian criminal community, and they band together to assist Jo and Tony. It is this action that brings Mado back into the fold, and she provides the vital piece of information that leads Tony to the boy. Consequently, as Andrew Dickos (2002, 78) argues in Street with No Name, “Rifi fi literally defi nes the phrase ‘honor among thieves’ as only a Gallic noir could render understand-able.” Whereas The Asphalt Jungle and subsequent Hollywood caper fi lms, such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing (1956), reiterate a nihilistic view of the world,

The other major distinction between the two fi lms emerges as Dassin emphasizes a sense of community and shared values among his thieves—not only the four men and Ida, but also in a wider sense. After Jo’s young son is kidnapped by Grutter, there is outrage in the Parisian criminal community, and they band together to assist Jo and Tony. It is this action that brings Mado back into the fold, and she provides the vital piece of information that leads Tony to the boy. Consequently, as Andrew Dickos (2002, 78) argues in Street with No Name, “Rifi fi literally defi nes the phrase ‘honor among thieves’ as only a Gallic noir could render understand-able.” Whereas The Asphalt Jungle and subsequent Hollywood caper fi lms, such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing (1956), reiterate a nihilistic view of the world,