The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (71 page)

He made
The Reckoning
(03, Paul McGuigan);
Blueberry
(04, Kounen);
Ocean’s Twelve
(04, Steven Soderbergh); as the thug who breaks in on Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston in
Derailed
(05, Mikael Hafstrom);
Ocean’s Thirteen
(07, Soderbergh); as the depraved, weakling son in
Eastern Promises
(07, David Cronenberg); playing a famous French criminal in
Public Enemy Number One
(08, Jean-Francois Richet) and
Killer Instinct
(08, Richet). There are fleeting moments when Vincent Cassel seems either weary from or bewildered by his savage progress. But it’s hard to see him playing a gentle schoolteacher—and maybe it’s just hard to think of him in old age.

Alberto Cavalcanti
(Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti) (1897–1982), b. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1926:
Rien Que les Heures
(d). 1928:
En Rade; Yvette; Le Train sans Yeux
. 1929:
La P’tite Lilie; La Jalousie de Barbouille; Le Capitaine Fracasse; Le Petit Chaperon Rouge; Vous Verrez la Semaine Prochaine
. 1930:
Toute Sa Vie
. 1931:
Dans une Île Perdue; A Mi-Chemin du Ciel; Les Vacances du Diable
. 1932:
Tour de Chant
(d);
En Lisant le Journal; Le Jour du Frotteur; Revue Montmartroise; Nous Ne Ferons Jamais du Cinéma
(d). 1933:
Le Mari Divorce
. 1934:
Coralie et Cie; Le Tour de Chant; Pett and Pott
(s);
New Rates
. 1935:
Coalface
(d);
SOS Radio Service
(d). 1936:
Message from Geneva
(d). 1937:
We Live in Two Worlds
(d);
The Line to Tschierva Hut
(d);
Who Writes to Switzerland?
(d). 1938:
Four Barriers
(d). 1939:
Men of the Alps
(d);
A Midsummer Day’s Work
(d). 1941:
The Yellow Caesar
(d). 1942:
Film and Reality
(d);
Went the Day Well?; Alice in Switzerland
(s);
Greek Testament
(d). 1943:
Watertight
. 1944:
Champagne Charlie
. 1945: “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy,” episode from
Dead of Night
. 1947:
Nicholas Nickleby; They Made Me a Fugitive; The First Gentleman
. 1949:
For Them That Trespass
. 1952:
Simão, o Caolho; O Canto do Mar
. 1954:
Mulher de Verdade
. 1955:
Herr Puntila und Sein Knecht Matti
. 1956:
Die Vind Rose
(supervised, in collaboration with Joris Ivens). 1958:
La Prima Notte; Les Noces Veni tiennes
. 1960:
The Monster of Highgate Ponds
(s). 1967:
The Story of Israel
(d);
Thus Spake Theodor Herzl
(d).

Was Cavalcanti a nomad or an idealist always being edged out of compromising establishments? The very scattering of his work makes him a difficult man to assess. But it seems clear that there is always something artificial about his naturalism, a taste for cinema that is more experimental than expressive. Grierson acclaimed Cavalcanti as one of the founders of realism, but it was Grierson who enthused over the “creative” treatment of actuality and who often dignified it with the attention of renowned and deliberate artists from other fields. The British documentary movement of the 1930s all too often treated realism as if it were dogma; to work in documentary was a vouchsafe of good faith. But within years of his work for the Crown Film Unit, Cavalcanti showed every sign of interest in the polished mysteries of
Dead of Night
. Even there, his invocation of the supernatural is more obtrusive but less disturbing than Robert Hamer’s.
Dead of Night
is the best-known example of Cavalcanti’s work and it suggests a proficient but shallow craftsman. To prove or disprove that theory requires a chance to see much more of his work than is generally available.

He was an architecture student, who went from interior design to set decoration for Marcel L’Herbier on
L’Inhumaine
(24) and
Feu Mathias Pascal
(24). By 1926, he was making
Rien Que les Heures
, a symphonic but rather nostalgic study of the Parisian poor. To call it realistic is only to expose the standards of 1926; but undoubtedly the film influenced Walter Ruttmann as well as the British. Cavalcanti worked in France until 1934, directing Renoir in two films and writing
Tire au Flanc
(28). In 1934, he came to Britain and worked for the GPO Film Unit. Sound recordist on
Night Mail
(36, Basil Wright and Harry Watt), he produced
Big Money
(36, Pat Jackson and Watt);
The Savings of Bill Blewett
(37, Watt);
The First Days
(39, Humphrey Jennings);
Speaking from America
(39, Jennings);
Squadron 992
(39, Watt);
Spare Time
(39, Jennings); and
Spring Offensive
(40, Jennings). He joined the Crown Film Unit and produced
The Big Blockade
(41, Charles Frend);
The Foreman Went to France
(42, Frend); and
Find, Fix and Strike
(42, Compton Bennett). He then went to Ealing and produced
Halfway House
(44, Basil Dearden). His own films at Ealing include Tommy Trinder in
Champagne Charlie
, Michael Redgrave’s highly strung ventriloquist in
Dead of Night
, and Trevor Howard in
They Made Me a Fugitive
. In 1949, he went to Brazil and to an executive position, only to be dismissed after American complaints that he was a Communist. He worked with Brecht on
Herr Puntila
and with Joris Ivens on
Die Vind Rose
, before splitting his time between directing for the theatre, teaching in America, and working for French TV.

André Cayatte
(1909–89), b. Carcassonne, France
1942:
La Fausse Maîtresse
. 1943:
Au Bonheur des Dames
. 1944:
Pierre et Jean; Le Dernier Sou
. 1945:
Roger-la-Honte; Sérénade aux Nuages
. 1946:
Le Revanche de Roger-la-Honte; Le Chanteur Inconnu
. 1947:
Les Dessous des Cartes
. 1948:
Les Amants de Vérone
. 1949: “Tante Emma,” episode from
Retour à la Vie
. 1950:
Justice Est Faite
. 1952:
Nous Sommes Tous des Assassins
. 1954:
Avant le Déluge
. 1955:
Le Dossier Noir
. 1956:
Oeil pour Oeil
. 1958:
Le Miroir à Deux Faces
. 1960:
Le Passage du Rhin
. 1962:
Le Glaive et la Balance
. 1963:
La Vie Conjugale
(in two parts: “Jean-Marc” and “Françoise”). 1965:
Piège pour Cendrillon
. 1967:
Les Risques du Métier
. 1969:
Les Chemins de Khatmandou
. 1970:
Mourir d’Aimer
. 1974:
Verdict
. 1975:
Le Testament
. 1977:
A Chacun Son Enfer
. 1978:
La Raison d’Etat
.

Throughout the 1930s, Cayatte was a novelist, journalist, and lawyer. His first involvement with films was as a scriptwriter:
Entrée des Artistes
(38, Marc Allégret);
Remorques
(41, Jean Grémillon);
Caprices
(41, Leo Joannon); and
Le Camion Blanc
(42, Joannon). Cayatte’s own work returned with grim fervor to attacks on capital punishment, skeptical examinations of justice, and humane generalizations:
Justice Est Faite; Nous Sommes Tous des Assassins; Oeil pour Oeil; Le Passage du Rhin;
and
Le Glaive et la Balance
. These five are not as trenchant or subtle as one reel from
Fury
or
Anatomy of a Murder
, but Cayatte was a reformer and his role as a voice of protest in France should not be underestimated. His films are mundane because their messages are unequivocal; it is the actual French context that gives them bite. More interesting are his tender, brooding accounts of young love:
Les Amants de Vérone
, written by Jacques Prévert, with Anouk and Serge Reggiani blighted by odious family repression and charmed by the romance of the movie world; and La
Vie Conjugale
, with Jacques Charrier and Marie-Jose Nat fretting at the bonds of society. Cayatte always seemed a man of the 1930s, and his love stories aspire to the awful resignation of
You Only Live Once
(37, Fritz Lang) but are kept short of Lang’s vivid pessimism by the muddy constructivism of a lawyer turned filmmaker.

John Cazale
(1935–78), b. Boston, Massachusetts
People have their favorites in the Corleone family, but everyone loves Fredo. Moreover, you can feel the gravitational pull of that affection working on the story. In truth, Fredo does not play a great part in the first
Godfather
, but by the time of
The Godfather: Part II
some wisdom has seen that the climax of the family story—the way one brother executes another, for no other reason than weakness—depends on Fredo. So he is the uncle who wanted to go fishing on Lake Tahoe, and who may be smart enough to suspect the worst when the boy is suddenly taken away. We see his figure hunched in the gloom above the lake. We hear the shot. We witness Michael’s impassive satisfaction. But our hearts go tumbling into the cold lake with Fredo, and John Cazale.

The actor was dying too. Perhaps he was always dying. No one could say he ever looked well, or that his eyes believed anything but the worst. When he came to make
The Deer Hunter
, Michael Cimino did his best to shoot all of Cazale’s scenes first, and the actor was dead before the picture was finished. If you recall, his character—Stanley or “Stosh”—has a desperate tirade against the other guys for teasing him. But it is impossible to hear that scene as other than Cazale, enraged at being doomed or at not getting to see the finished film. But excited maybe to be in such a film. (And surely in the picture’s last gathering of grief, its recipient is this lost player.) In his life, Cazale made five pictures. All five were nominated for Best Picture and three won.

No, I don’t mean to claim that all five turned on Cazale, but I believe that any serious moviegoer asked to list the virtues of those films would say at some point, “And John Cazale.” And they’d be right, just as it is the example of Fredo, finally, that exposes Michael’s evil. At the very end of that great, dank masterpiece, the haunted hopeless eyes of Cazale stand up against fascism on behalf of weakness, folly, ordinariness, and failure.

He is Stan, the valued assistant who crosses over in
The Conversation
. He is Salvatore in
Dog Day Afternoon
—he got a Golden Globe nomination for that.

He was educated at Oberlin and Boston University and he became friends with Al Pacino—one might note that in his way Pacino was as light, as skimpy, and weak-looking as Cazale and Fredo. Pacino argued on his behalf and Fred Roos got Cazale cast as Fredo. Later on, as his bone cancer developed, he was the lover to Meryl Streep.

I don’t have anything else to say except that it is the lives and work of people like John Cazale that make filmgoing worthwhile. In heaven, I hope, there will be no stars, just supporting actors. And one of the great strengths of American film is such people. But it is a weakness, too, in that the code continues to insist there are more important people. There are not. So watch Cazale in
The Godfather: Part II
addicted to daiquiris and the women he can’t keep in order—he is the only hope in that terrible family.

Claude Chabrol
, b. Paris, 1930
1958:
Le Beau Serge
. 1959:
Les Cousins; A Double Tour/Web of Passion; Les Bonnes Femmes
. 1961:
Les Godelureaux
. 1962: “L’Avarice,” episode in
Les Sept Péchés Capitaux; L’Oeil du Malin; Ophelia
. 1963:
Landru
. 1964: “L’Homme qui Vendit la Tour Eiffel,” episode in
Les Plus Belles Escroqueries du Monde;
“La Muette,” episode in
Paris Vu Par …; Le Tigre Aime la Chair Fraîche
. 1965:
Marie-Chantal Contre le Docteur Kha; Le Tigre Se Parfume à la Dynamite
. 1966:
La Ligne de Démarcation; Le Scandale/The Champagne Murders
. 1967:
La Route de Corinthe
. 1968:
Les Biches; La Femme Infidèle
. 1969:
Que la Bête Meure
. 1970:
Le Boucher; La Rupture
. 1971:
Juste Avant la Nuit; La Décade Prodigieuse/Ten Days’ Wonder
. 1972:
Les Noces Rouges; Docteur Popaul
. 1974:
Nada; Une Partie de Plaisir/Love Match
. 1975:
Les Innocents aux Mains Sales/Innocents with Dirty Hands
. 1976:
Les Magiciens; Folies Bourgeoises/The Twist
. 1977:
Alice, ou la Dernière Fugue
. 1978:
Les Liens de Sang/Blood Relatives; Violette Nozière
. 1979:
Le Cheval d’Orgeuil
. 1982:
Les Fantômes du Chapelier
. 1984: an episode in
Paris Vu Par … 20 Ans Apres; The Blood of Others
(TV). 1985:
Poulet au Vinaigre
. 1986:
Inspector Lavardin
. 1987:
Le Cri de Hibou; Masques
. 1988:
Une Affaire des Femmes/Story of Women
. 1989:
Docteur M
. 1990:
Quiet Days in Clichy
. 1991:
Madame Bovary
. 1993:
Betty; The Eye of Vichy
[d]. 1994:
Enfer
. 1995:
La Cérémonie/The Ceremony
. 1996:
Cyprien Katsaris
(TV). 1997:
Rien Ne Va Plus
. 1999:
Au Coeur du Mensonge/The Color of Lies
. 2000:
Merci pour le Chocolat
. 2001:
Les Redoutables
(TV). 2003:
La Fleur du Mal
. 2004:
La Demoiselle d’Honneur
. 2006:
L’Ivresse du Pouvoir/The Comedy of Power
. 2007:
La Fille Coupée en Deux/A Girl Cut in Two; Chez Maupassant
(TV). 2009:
Bellamy
.