L'Atalante (1934)

Interesting facts

L'Atalante, also released as Le Chaland qui passe, is a 1934 French film written and directed by Jean Vigo, and starring Jean Dasté, Dita Parlo, and Michel Simon.

Production

While finishing work on Zero for Conduct, producer Jacques-Louis Nounez was interested in working with Vigo on a feature. Vigo suggested they work on a prison film about French anarchist Eugène Dieudonné, whom Vigo's father Miguel Almereyda had defended in a newspaper article in 1913. Vigo began working on the film with Dieudonné, who had agreed to play himself, and Julot Dupont, an expert on French prisons.

Nounez produced the film for ₣1 million and made a deal with Gaumont to provide studio sets and distribute the film. Vigo hired people he frequently collaborated with, such as cinematographer Boris Kaufman, composer Maurice Jaubert, and art director Francis Jourdain, who was an old friend of his father.

Vigo worked with established movie stars for the first time, who were hired by Gaumont but approved of by Vigo. Michel Simon had been a lead actor after appearing in the title role of Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932). Simon stated that he accepted the role for the little-known and already controversial Vigo because he sympathized with Vigo and wanted to help his troubled career.

Although scheduled to begin shooting during the summer, production did not begin until mid-November 1933. L'Atalante took four months to shoot, partially in a replica of the barge in a Gaumont studio, and partially on location. During filming, Vigo would often act out the scenes himself for the actors and insisted that they re-shoot scenes until they were perfect.

Amongst the changes that Vigo made to the original script was replacing Père Jules' pet dog with over ten alley cats supplied by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Vigo's father had been fond of such cats and Vigo's childhood homes were often overrun with stray cats. During the scenes where Père Jules plays his phonograph, the cats would become immediately fascinated by the phonograph and surround it whenever it played music.

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