056 - La Chienne, 1931, France. Dir. Jean Renoir.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

056 - La Chienne, 1931, France. Dir. Jean Renoir.

Every frame a Renoir!

We will discuss that later.

Meanwhile, the pimp is getting rich off the prostitute.

But not by her doing that.

He is struggling by her doing that.  He has a spending problem.  He always needs money.  He is always in debt.

No, he is getting rich off her by her doing something else.

What is she doing?

Not painting.

What?

She is not painting.

She is pretending to be a painter.

And that brings in the big bucks.

The two of them got into an argument in the street one night.  They were in the neighborhood of the Moulin Rouge outside a hosiery company.

The gentlemen of the hosiery company stayed late that night.  They had a meeting.  They catered dinner.  It turned into a good time.  They decided to go out.  All except one of them.  All except M. Legrand.

Maurice Legrand has the face of the cross-section of a banana.

He stresses.  And when he stresses he fills his cheeks with air.  He fills his lower lip with air.

Maurice Legrand is a stuffed shirt.  A wet blanket.  A stick in the mud.  A fuddy duddy.  He is proper.  He does everything according to an inner set of principles.  He lives life in a predictable and upright manner.  He is the dream employee of the company.  He is just not available for going out on the town.

M. Legrand goes home alone.  He sees the prostitute and the pimp--Lulu and Dede, really!--having their fight.  Dede hits Lulu.  He knocks her to the pavement.  She is hurting.

M. Legrand is chivalrous.  A respecter of ladies.  A knight in shining armor.  He comes to Lulu's defense.  He attacks Dede.  Pushes him to the ground.  Dede fights back.  Lulu fights back.

Lulu fights back?

Dede has physically attacked Lulu.  Verbally abused her.  Treated her like dirt.  Like his own personal slave.

Legrand is a good man.  He has come to her rescue.

Lulu sides with Dede.

You have seen it.

The woman wants to be loved.  She wants to feel safe.  She wants to be protected.  She wants to receive attention.  She wants to feel special.

Except she aims her life in the opposite direction.

She hooks up with the bad boy.  The player.  The abuser.  He makes her feel something.  And somehow she places that feeling above her own self worth.

She trades in love for drama.  Safety for excitement.  Protection for intoxication.  Loving attention for desperate begging.  Feeling special for feeling used.

She tries to change a man who will not change.

She tries to please a man who will never appreciate her.

She attacks the man who comes to her rescue.

She got high off the bad boy once.  Then she got hooked on him.  Now she needs her fix.  She is addicted.

Dede is no dummy.  He knows how to work a woman.  He works it out with Legrand.  He tells them they are okay.  They were just having an altercation.  A couples' spat.  He invites him to join them.

The three of them go together.  They arrive at Dede's place.  Dede whispers to Lulu.  Let Legrand take you home.  Work him.  Take his money.  Do not come back unless you have it.

Lulu obeys.

Legrand walks Lulu home.  He is a gentleman.  He does not take advantage of her.  He treats her with respect.  He sees her beauty.  He values her worth.  He falls for her.

She despises him.

Legrand has the ability to rescue Lulu, but she looks down on him as much as Dede looks down on her.  They are in a chain of abuse.  She passes the abuse down the chain.

Legrand has his own challenges.

He too is abused at home.

His own wife, Adele, used to be married to a soldier.  A war hero.  He died in battle.  She keeps his pictures prominently displayed in the home where Maurice can see them.  She talks about him.  Compares the two of them.  Tells Maurice he can never measure up to her first husband.

Legrand is a painter.  Adele despises him.  Painting is a waste of time.  Your canvases are junk.  Your paints are junk.  Get your junk out of my house.

A contentious wife is like a continual dripping on a rainy day.

Adele uses her words to belittle Legrand.  All day every day.  She cuts him.  Reduces him.  Deflates him.  He longs for a way out.

The man needs love too.

Legrand turns to Lulu.  He gets her an apartment.  Furnishes it.  Puts her up.  Puts his paintings on the wall.  Takes care of her.

The kept man is keeping the kept woman.

Only Dede is siphoning it off.

Legrand has no money.  He sneaks it from his wife.  He gives it to Lulu.  Lulu has no money.  Dede sneaks it from her.

Legrand and Lulu are at the bottom of the chain of abuse, and Legrand is further beneath Lulu.

And he is the only good person in the whole lot of them.

Dede has gone through all of Lulu's money.  He wants more.  She does not have it.  He hits her.  He takes her paintings off the wall.

And with the paintings everything changes.

The paintings are unsigned.  Legrand has so little self-esteem that he thinks his own paintings are not worth signing.

But in the art world the signature is everything.

The art dealer tells Dede that when selling a painting, the quality of the painting does not matter.  The signature is the only thing that matters.

The art critic explains that the critics set the prices.  They tell the public what is good and what is bad, and the public believes them.

This film is cynical about the art world.  Maybe the director knows something.

The art critic goes in with Dede.  They make up a name.  Clara Wood.  The name of a filly that lost the horse race that day and lost Dede's buddy his money.  The art critic will tell the public that Clara Wood is a great painter.  He will make her name great.  He will make all them a lot of money.

Lulu is now a prostitute for Dede in two ways.  First, in the way that you know.  Second, as the face and body of a painter who does not exist.

Legrand is now a prostitute for Lulu.  He paints paintings for her.  She signs them.  She makes Dede and his buddy and the art critic and the art dealer a lot of money.  She and Legrand still have none.

Paintings are a commodity.

Human talent is a commodity.

Human bodies are a commodity.

Human beings are a commodity.

Something comes out later in the film that is stunning.  When Dede is later accused, he is not accused of prostituting women.  He is accused of white slavery.  He cavalierly responds that he introduces young girls to great men and shows them the world.

This is 1931, and we are not talking about local street prostitution.  We are talking about international human trafficking.

Some things never change.

Legand's own lack of self worth is cemented in one scene.  He walks down the sidewalk to the art dealer.  He sees his own painting prominently displayed in the window.

He steps inside.  He makes up an excuse for being there.  As if he has to have an excuse!  He tells the saleslady that he was sent by his employer to check on the price of the painting.

She tells him 25,000 francs.  He nods and leaves.  He never does anything to claim his rightful place as the painter of the paintings.

In 1931 the exchange rate of French francs to U.S. dollars was 25.51 to 1.  So for ease, let us say that in 1931 25,000 francs was roughly $1,000.

$1,000 in 1931 is worth $15,976.25 in 2017.

Legrand has the ability to make $16,000 by selling one painting.  And he has painted many paintings.  And he can paint more at a fairly good pace.

Legrand has the ability to be a rich man.  A great man.  A world-class man.

Yet he lives like a pauper, abused by his wife at home, abused by his mistress in her apartment, abused by the pimp, abused unknowingly by the public at large.

And by the way, she never yet has slept with him.  The prostitute refuses to sleep with the man who provides for her!  How low can a man be?

This will not end well.

Something bad will happen.

And there will be some surprises.

And every person involved will experience consequences of some kind.

The film is entitled La Chienne.  The word la chienne means "the bitch."  This is 1931.  We are not pulling any punches.

And do we even know to whom the title refers?  Could it not be more than one person?  Legrand finally calls Lulu by that name when at the end of everything he still tries to rescue her and she still laughs at him.  Yet his wife drove him to all of this to begin with.

The drama in this film is palpable.

This film, whose plot hinges on paintings, was directed by Jean Renoir.

Jean Renoir was the son of one of the greatest painters in the world.

And we will discuss that phenomenon later.