Green Ray (film)

The fifth film from the series “Comedies and Proverbs”, the epigraph of which is a line from Arthur Rimbaud ’s poem “A Song from the Highest Tower”: “Ah, let the time come, / That will captivate the hearts” ( Ah! Que le temps vienne / Où les cœurs s 'éprennent ).

Delphine, secretary working in Paris, a woman of about thirty, but still very sensitive and romantic, is experiencing a break with her man. A trip with friends to Greece planned for a vacation breaks down; Dolphin herself refuses to invite her relatives to go with them to Ireland. The girlfriends convince the dreamer to look for a new friend, because she does not become younger, and time inexorably goes on. Dolphin goes with her friend Beatrice to her friends in Cherbourg . They find the guest somewhat strange, including because of her strict vegetarianism and the conviction that nature should not do the least harm without the need (do not tear flowers or break branches). She refuses to offer to ride on the sea, because she has seasickness, and even on a swing she is very motion sick. Ultimately, the owners, unable to stand it, compare it with the plant itself.

When Beatrice returns to Paris, Delphine, not wanting to stay in Normandy, where she could not meet anyone, leaves with her. Then she arrives to friends in the Alps, but there she feels uncomfortable, and on the same day, after a short walk, to the considerable surprise of her friends, she leaves.

Until the end of the vacation is still far away, and Dolphin decides to go to Biarritz , where he meets the Swedish tourist Lena, who is sunbathing topless, on the beach, and for whom meeting guys is not a problem. A new acquaintance persuades a Parisian to follow her example, but she can not overpower herself, and flees. On Dolphin Street, he hears a conversation between elderly ladies discussing Jules Verne 's book The Green Ray and the natural phenomenon described in this novel. According to the novelist’s story, a person who sees a green ray receives the gift of knowing the heart depths of both his own and others. An old man who appeared nearby explains the physical nature of this relatively rarely observed phenomenon.

At the beginning of the film, Dolphin picked up a playing card with a green shirt on the street, and having encountered this color several more times under unusual (in her opinion) circumstances, she believed that the green color would bring her luck. However, Biarritz disappointed her just like other parts of the Hexagon, and she leaves for the station to return to the capital by train. Finishing "The Idiot" , she meets her eyes with a young man, cabinetmaker Vincent, with whom she decides to enter into a conversation. Vincent is going to Saint-Jean-de-Luce , and Dolphin, unexpectedly for herself, begs for her companion.

During a conversation in a street cafe, a woman explains to her new acquaintance her ideas about love, and talks about a poor life experience. According to her, she was in love three times. Vincent answers the corresponding question that he has never really loved anyone, but hopes to fill this gap. Walking along the embankment with Vincent, Dolphin stumbles upon a shopping sign with the words "Green Ray", and decides to try to see this phenomenon. Two sit on the seashore and watch the sunset. The woman begins to sob from an overabundance of feelings ^{[K 1]} , the man consoles her, then they both watch intensely after the daylight plunging into the ocean waters, and when the solar disk disappears from sight, a green glimmer flashes on the horizon, to Vincent's surprise and stormy joy of Dolphins.

• Marie Riviere - Dolphin

In Paris:

• Amir Shemakhi - Secretary
• Sylvie Richet - Secretary
• Lisa Heredia - Manuela (also film editor)
• Basil Gervaise - retired
• Virginie Gervaise - girlfriend of the previous
• Rene Hernandez - girlfriend of the previous
• Dominic Riviere - Dominica
• Claude Julien - Claude
• Alaric Julien - Alaric
• Letizia Riviere - Bibisch
• Isabelle Riviere - Isabelle
• Beatrice Roman - Beatrice
• Rosetta - Francoise
• Marcello Pedzutto - seducer
• Irene Skoblin - Irene

In Cherbourg:

• Eric Am - Edouard
• Gerard Kere, Julie Kere, Brigitte Poulin, Gerard Leleu, Vanessa Leleu and Iuze Foot - family and friends of Francoise

In La Plana:

• Michelle Labourr - Michelle
• Polo - Polo

In Biarritz:

• Maria Kuto-Palos, Isa Bonnet, Yves Duaambour - chatting women
• Dr. Friedrich Gunter Christleine - a grandfather who talks about the nature of the phenomenon
• Paulette Christleine - wife of the previous
• Carita - Lena
• Marc Vivas - Pierrot
• Joel Comarlo - Joel
• Vincent Gauthier - Vincent

• Director - Eric Romer
• Scenario - Eric Romer with the participation of Marie Riviere
• Operator - Sophie Mentinho
• Director of the picture - Francoise Etchegaray
• Sound - Claudine Nougare
• Montage - Maria Louise Garcia (Lisa Heredia)
• Special Effects - Philip Demar
• Mixing - Dominic Anneken
• Music - Jean-Louis Valero
• Production - Margaret Menegos ( Les Films du Losange ), with the participation of the Ministry of Culture , the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications , Pierre Shotard and Gerard Lomont
• Rent - AAA Classic
• The format is 1.37: 1 (or 1.33: 1 ^[1] ); 16 mm ( 35 mm in some scenes)

Dialogues were written with the participation of the leading actor Marie Riviere, whose contribution to the development of the screen image of the heroine was specially noted in the credits. Improvisations of the actress to a large extent contributed to the success of the picture.

The tape received the Golden Lion at the 1986 Venice Film Festival , Eric Romer the FIPRESCI Award , and Marie Riviere the Pasinetti Award for Best Actress. On August 31, the day of presentation at the festival, and three days before the release of the movie theaters, the tape was shown on television on Canal + , which did not stop her from attracting more than 460,000 spectators. The preliminary television screening was unusual, but Romer said on this occasion that he was only repeating the idea used by Jean Renoir to present “Breakfast on the Grass” ^[2] .

The director described the heroine of the film as follows:

Dolphin, without knowing it, is a strong character, going to an unknown target. She is a romantic who believes in love and deeply feels the need to remain herself at all costs, in relation to all and against all. She's wonderful, Dolphin. At once, both cautious and stubborn. Touching and annoying. And before such charm, fragility and awkwardness, we are torn between feelings and laughter. Dolphin is where more and where less Marie Riviere, who gave her her gestures and even her words. That's how it is to call all the children “my doe” with tenderness. But doe, this is she, Marie-Dolphin, flexible, swift, scared. Doe in the forest waiting for his prince. "Actors," according to Marie Riviere, "speak their own language, just as a craftsman expresses himself with his hands."

- Télérama ^[2]

According to Marie Riviere, Director

... discovered the exceptional in the commonplace. I have the impression that few movie characters cause such an affinity, empathy, recognition, like Dolphin, although paralyzed by loneliness, in The Green Ray.

- Liberation ^[3]

For a long time after the release of the film, random people on the street thanked the character and the actress ^[3] .

According to composer Jean-Louis Valero , Romer ordered him only four to five minutes of music, while proposing a theme. In scenes where the heroine sees signs of fate (two playing cards and a store sign), a violin should have sounded. “He asked me to make Beethoven’s fugue from this topic, which, of course, was nothing Beethoven’s.” The composer had to strain all his fugist abilities in order to achieve a result using an atonal theme, despite the fact that the fugue is the apogee of counterpoint based on the tonal system ^[4] .

As a result, he wrote two fugues, one of which (the trio) sounds in the final scene, and the second (string quartet) - in the final credits. Romer was somewhat worried that he could not hear the result until the recording itself, since the string trio or quartet could not be played on the piano, but I had to put up with it ^[4] .

Critics consider The Green Ray one of Romer’s most sensual works. The weekly Télérama puts him in third place in his five best director films ^[2] . The Observer columnist, in a review written on the occasion of a retrospective of Romer’s films, also considers this picture to be the best of the series, and notes the grace of the plot of this serious and sad film about loneliness, but also its magical ending ^[5] .

Roger Ebert , generally positioning himself as a fan of Romer’s work, this film was rated low (by three), while making an assumption about the director’s artistic method:

In my opinion, this is how he does it. He takes a whole story — say, a love story — and takes away the beginning and the end, because they are always the same. Then he considers what is left, and selects the part that more fully reveals the character. And then makes a movie about it. He looks like a photographer who cuts out only that part of the picture that interests him. Remember the movie "Claire’s Knee", which was, in a way, really and literally about Claire’s knee? "Summer" might be called "Dolphins Sigh".

- Ebert R. Summer ^[6]

Vincent Kenby of The New York Times was about a picture of a higher opinion, but also noted that Dolphin is the archetypal "Romerovskaya" heroine, of those that are only in the movies ^[7] .

The furious hater of the whole New Wave, Jacques Lursel, in his “Dictionary of Cinema” gives the picture a destructive characterization, calling “The Green Ray” “one of the worst, if not the worst”, out of 20,000 feature films, among which he selected for his opus. The venerable critic brings together all kinds of reproaches ("literary", "rhetorical verbiage", "yes this is not a text at all", "the experience of the 1960s, now abandoned even by live documentary filmmakers") and draws the following conclusion:

The only interest from a film such as “Green Ray” is that it allows you to evaluate to what extent the movie can go down in the field of empty improvisations, narcissism and inexpressiveness.

- Lourcelles J. Dictionnaire du cinéma. T. III, p. 3

According to editor Philip Demar, Romer needed a real green ray to complete the picture, and he was categorically against special effects, not only because of the desire for authenticity, but because, like Jules Verne, he wanted to decide for himself whether it is an objective natural phenomenon, or optical illusion. He himself saw this phenomenon several times, but wanted to capture it on film. The green ray for him was a metaphor for the love of the heroine of the film: sensual illusion or eternal truth ^[8] .

It took seven months to find the beam. For this purpose, at first one operator was dispatched, and then several more. Romer has already started filming The Four Adventures of Renett and Mirabelle , and the previous picture has not yet been completed. Finally, in the winter of 1986, the Canary Islands managed to catch an elusive phenomenon in the lens. The director was not satisfied with the results, and demanded to duplicate them. Ten days later, the operators managed to repeat the success, but the best result consisted of only twenty frames ^[8] .

As a result, we still had to resort to deceleration and calibration in order to achieve images on the screen accessible to human perception ^[8] .

• Hertay A. Un image de la solitude: Le Rayon vert / Éric Rohmer: Comédies et proverbes, p. 73-86. - Liège: Editions du CÉFAL, 1998 .-- ISBN 2-87130-058-5 .
• Filmographie: Le Rayon vert (1985) // Rohmer et les Autres. - Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2007 .-- ISBN 978-2-7535-0409-7 . Openedition.org
• Lourcelles J. Dictionnaire du cinéma. T. III. - P .: Robert Laffont, 1999 .-- ISBN 978-2221091128 .
• Valero J.-L. “Pas besoin de musique” // Rohmer et les Autres. - Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2007 .-- ISBN 978-2-7535-0409-7 . Openedition.org

• Le Rayon vert (1985) Eric Rohmer (Fr.) . Ciné-ressources. Date of appeal March 15, 2016.
• Le Rayon vert (Fr.) . Ciné-club de Caen. Date of appeal March 15, 2016.
• Notre top 5 des films d'Eric Rohmer: “Le Rayon vert” (3e) (French) . Telema (11/18/2013). Date of appeal March 15, 2016.
• Romney J. The Green Ray review - Rohmer's slender but serious classic . The Observer (4.01.2015). Date of appeal March 15, 2016.
• Bradshaw P. Le Rayon Vert review - beautifully gentle 80s Rohmer . The Guardian (01/01/2015). Date of appeal March 15, 2016.
• Summer . Roger Ebert (10.24.1986). Date of appeal March 15, 2016.
• Canby V. Summer . The New York Times (08.29.1986). Date of appeal March 15, 2016.
• Le Rayon vert de Eric Rohmer. Venise (vidéo) (French) . Ina.fr (08/31/1986). Date of appeal March 15, 2016.
• Venise: “Le Rayon vert” (vidéo) (French) . Ina.fr (09/10/1986). Date of appeal March 15, 2016.