The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present
Panique
When
Wed 13 Sep 2023
After working in the United States for five years during World War II, Duvivier returned to his native France to direct this dark tale of murder and mob misrule – based on Georges Simenon’s novel – mixing the sordid glamour and high stylisation of the Hollywood film noir with the grittier social concerns of French poetic realism. One of the earliest allegorical films made in the period immediately after the war about collaboration in Nazi-occupied France, it was judged a “near perfect film” by Pauline Kael. With Michel Simon and Viviane Romance.
Also screening on Wed 13 September
Program
Gangsters, Guns and Gauloises: French crime cinema, 1945–60
Quai des Orfèvres (1947) – Wed 30 Aug, 7pm
Razzia Sur la Chnouf (1955) – Wed 30 Aug, 9.05pm
Classes Tous Risques (1960) – Wed 6 Sep, 7pm
Le Trou (1960) – Wed 6 Sep, 8.55pm
Rififi (1955) – Wed 13 Sep, 7pm
Panique (1946) – Wed 13 Sep, 9.10pm
About the program
Although film noir is primarily associated with American cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, France played a key role in its development, both in its appreciation (the term was coined by French critic Nino Frank in 1946) and continuation of the genre. It is perhaps fitting that Rififi (1955), considered by many to be the ultimate French noir, was directed by Jules Dassin, an American exiled in Paris. This season provides an important link between pre-war French examples of the genre such as Julien Duvivier’s Pépé le Moko (1937) and its apotheosis in Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1960s gangster films...
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About Melbourne Cinémathèque
Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.
Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven.
