TRIO TRUMPS
Although Criterion's 3 Films By Louis Malle DVD box set contains just a fraction of the late director's work-the subversive coming-of-age movie Murmur of the Heart, the clear-eyed study of fascism Lacombe, Lucien and the sentimental children's movie Au Revoir Les Enfants-it arrives at a perfect time. Already this year, we've had to weather three shyster epics by Michael Winterbottom (Tristram Shandy), Steven Soderbergh (Bubble) and Lars Von Trier (Manderlay), each director a pretend polymath whose relentless, pseudo-eclectism has made them contemporary critics' darlings.
Malle's talent outshines theirs. He was cinema's truest Renaissance Man as proven by the three new DVDs' range from comedy to tragedy. Malle directed 23 feature films between the time of his 1958 pre-French New Wave debut to his final American-made film. His career was a gallant gallimaufry (his comedies Zazie dans le Metro, Viva Maria and the erotic fantasia The Lovers are even more worthy of DVD transfer). It may be the most eclectic directorial career in movie history, showing protean curiosity and imagination that Winterbottom, Soderbergh and Von Trier will never attain. But unlike them, Malle's output is distinguished by its quality and depth more than by its variety.
He made movies, not video ephemera.
This DVD triptych will introduce many to Malle's elegant command of both style and content. His films looked great (their diverse imagery conveying ideas and emotions) which none of today's indie-video directors can claim. And though versatility was his signature, Malle's intellectual influence can be subtly discerned: Murmur of the Heart's counterculture incest story was the true inspiration for David O. Russell's Spank the Monkey; Au Revoir Les Enfants' WWII poignancy has been widely imitated; and the ambivalent character study of Garcon Stupide might not have existed at all without the extraordinary model of Lacombe, Lucien, the cinematic equivalent of Morrissey's "The National Front Disco." For anyone interested in cinematic innovation, this Malle box set is not just a treasure; it's a re-discovery.