| Port of Shadows | |
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original poster |
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| Directed by | Marcel Carné |
| Produced by | Gregor Rabinovitch |
| Written by | Jacques Prévert (scenario and dialogue) Pierre Mac Orlan (novel) |
| Starring | Jean Gabin Michel Simon Michèle Morgan Pierre Brasseur |
| Music by | Maurice Jaubert |
| Cinematography | Eugen Schüfftan |
| Editing by | René Le Hénaff |
| Studio | Franco London Films [1] |
| Distributed by | Osso Films (France) Film Alliance of the United States Inc. |
| Release date(s) | 18 May 1938 (France) October 29, 1939 (USA) |
| Running time | 91 min |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
Port of Shadows (French: Le Quai des brumes) is a 1938 French film directed by Marcel Carné. It stars Jean Gabin, Michel Simon and Michèle Morgan. The screenplay was written by Jacques Prévert based on a novel by Pierre Mac Orlan.[2] The music score was by Maurice Jaubert. It is a notable example of the poetic realism genre. The film was the 1939 winner of France's top cinematic prize, the Prix Louis-Delluc.
A scene from the film is seen projected in the 2007 Oscar-nominated dramatisation of Ian McEwan's wartime tragic drama Atonement.
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Frank S. Nugent called the film "one of the most engrossing and provocative films of the season"; according to him, "it's a thorough-going study in blacks and grays, without a free laugh in it; but it is also a remarkably beautiful motion picture from the purely pictorial standpoint and a strangely haunting drama. As a steady diet, of course, it would give us the willies; for a change it's as tonic as a raw winter's day."[3]
55 years after its premiere, Luc Sante, writing about the film for its DVD release by Criterion Collection, called the film a "definitive example of the style known as “poetic realism.” The ragged outlines, the lowdown settings, the romantic fatalism of the protagonists, the movement of the story first upward toward a single moment of happiness and then down to inexorable doom—the hallmarks of the style had germinated in some form or other through the decade, but in Marcel Carné's third feature they came together as archetypes."[4]
Director Carl Dreyer included the film in his list of top ten films.[5]
Prior to July 2004,[4] Criterion Collection gave the film a "bare-bones" release, with a booklet and limited on-screen special features; according to James Steffen of Turner Classic Movies, the DVD's "high-definition transfer does justice to Carné, Schufftan and Trauner's richly detailed vision", though there are issues because of the "highly variable" quality of the 35 mm film used: "Within the same scene some shots can be startlingly clear, while others are very grainy and have much weaker contrast and detail. On the balance, it still looks extremely good for a film of this vintage." Steffen also noted the "mono sound is clear and without too much distortion. The characters use lots of colorful slang whose flavor is difficult to translate into English, but the subtitles do an admirable job."[6]
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