Set in Paris, "Boudu" is about what happens when an uncouth tramp attempts to drown himself in the Seine, only to be pulled out by an affluent bookseller. The 1986 Hollywood movie "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" uses the same storyline: the lives of a rich couple are turned upside down when a bum tries to drown himself in their swimming pool. I found "Down and Out" very entertaining, but I think "Boudu" is much more resonant.
In the French film, when the bookseller first catches sight of the unkempt, shabbily-dressed Boudu, he proclaims, "Just look at that one! He's wonderful! I've never seen such a perfect tramp." And I must say, neither have I. Boudu is portrayed by Michel Simon in what I consider to be one of the great performances in movie history. Simon had a long and distinguished acting career, but he was a character actor rather than a leading man, and he is remembered today primarily for his work in "Boudu Saved From Drowning" and "L'Atalante."
My first viewing of "Boudu Saved From Drowning" was on the big screen at a museum, and I recall that the quality of the print was only so-so—not surprising, considering the movie was released way back in 1932. Thus, I was thrilled to find that on the Criterion Collection DVD, the picture is very good and the sound is fairly good. Also, the DVD comes with a few bonus materials which, although they have a total running time of only about an hour, enhanced my experience of the feature film.
Despite the clunkiness of filmmaking equipment in 1932, Renoir did a lot of location shooting for "Boudu," and I think this gives the movie much of its flavor. The DVD provides a fascinating English-language extra, an interactive map that discusses some of the locations used, including the Bois de Boulogne, the Pont des Arts, and the country setting Chennevières-sur-Marne. This bonus material ties in well with the printed essay by scholar Christopher Faulkner which is packaged with the DVD and explains how the film's "narrative geography" is critical to its meaning.
Another English-language extra on the DVD is the 12-minute interview with Jean-Pierre Gorin. For many years, Gorin taught at the University of California at San Diego, but he also made some films and is perhaps best-known for his collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard on "Tout va bien" ("Everything's All Right"), a 1972 movie starring Yves Montand and Jane Fonda. Gorin's remarks about "Boudu" on the DVD are rather like what you would hope to get in a good university seminar, and I found them quite valuable. I believe he is saying that he sees the film as being about the interplay between human instincts and social convention.
A second intellectually stimulating extra on the DVD is the 31-minute discussion of "Boudu" made for the educational French television series "Aller au cinéma" by Eric Rohmer and Jean Douchet. Rohmer is best known as a filmmaker, notably for "My Night at Maud's" and "Claire's Knee," while Douchet was a longtime staff writer at "Cahier du Cinéma" magazine and author of the book "The French New Wave." I especially enjoyed the first half of their discussion, in which "Boudu" is described as being about the conflict between the worlds of Apollo and Dionysus.
The DVD also contains two additional French-language bonus materials. One is a three-minute introduction to the film by Renoir, where the filmmaker praises Michel Simon as "not only a tramp among tramps, but he was all the tramps in the world." The other is a six-minute excerpt from a 1967 TV program featuring Renoir and Simon talking informally about their experience in working together on "Boudu," including how 1932 audiences were shocked by the behavior of the title character. I found both these extras worth watching.
Below I've listed all the details for the "Boudu Saved From Drowning" DVD.
DVD Details:
Release Date: August 23, 2005
Full-Screen (1.33:1), Black-and-White
Feature Film Run Time: 1 Hour 24 Minutes
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
French Monaural
English Subtitles
Archival Jean Renoir Introduction (3 min.)
Renoir and Michel Simon Discuss Working on "Boudu" (6 min.)
Interview With Filmmaker and Teacher Jean-Pierre Gorin (12 min.)
Discussion of "Boudu" by a Filmmaker and a Critic (31 min.)
Interactive Map of "Boudu" Locations (8 brief segments)
4-Page Printed Essay by Scholar Christopher Faulkner
