A História Começou à Noite (1937)
History Is Made at Night (1937)
A Film by Frank Borzage
DVD5 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:36:57 | 3,38 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: Portuguese
Genre: Drama, Romance
A Film by Frank Borzage
DVD5 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:36:57 | 3,38 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: Portuguese
Genre: Drama, Romance
Director: Frank Borzage
The obsessive and jealous shipowner Bruce Vail does not accept the divorce his wife Irene Vail achieved in London, and he hires his driver Michael Browsky to forge adultery with Irene in Paris to make the decree null. However, she is rescued by the headwaiter Paul Dumond, who punches Michael and locks Bruce and his private eyes in a locker, and they spend a wonderful night together in the restaurant Chateau Bleu, where Paul and his best friend Chef Cesare work, and they fall in love for each other. Meanwhile, Bruce kills Michael and blackmails Irene, blaming Paul and forcing her to return with him to New York. But Paul does not give up on Irene, and moves to New York with Cesare trying to find her love.
IMDB
For director Frank Borzage, love, true love, is a transcendent force, one that defies logic and the laws of science and nature. He often juxtaposes this love with fatalistic and bleak circumstances. And while there’s something about the dissonance between the two which elicits an emotional reaction, his films walk a perilous line between contrived and elegant.
History is Made at Night might be the greatest example of this. From the opening act, Irene Vail (Jean Arthur) finds herself caught up in situations beyond her control. Her domineering husband, Bruce Vail, (Colin Clive) which she is near the process of divorcing, seeks to trap her in a legal loophole. It’s by chance, or fate, that Paul Dumond (Charles Boyer) happens to be in the next room when her husband sets off the trap and decides to liberate Irene from a shameful fate - by kidnapping her.
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
![A História Começou à Noite (1937)]()
From the onset, the relationship between Paul and Irene is built on tenuous facts and circumstances. Paul essentially kidnaps her, and somehow Irene comes around to the notion that he has her best interest in heart. And while there’s certainly some charm to Paul’s demeanor, it seems like Irene has to look over some glaring issues, such as why a headwaiter at one of the finest restaurants in town would be carrying a gun around?
Where the film excels in developing this relationship is placing it in the context of their cultural status. Both characters are second class citizens. Paul’s a French immigrant and Irene is a woman. Both face circumstances outside their control which place them in positions where both are put at a major disadvantage. And the way both react to this situation both informs them as characters and tests the resilience of their devotion to each other.
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
![A História Começou à Noite (1937)]()
Both lead performances are wonderful. Jean Arthur is able to pull off this fierce defiance against her husband while also melting in the arms of another. Her vulnerability never lessens her resilience, it only provides for a layered performance. Charles Boyer’s charm isn’t the strong, suave, variety but this intense interest and fascination with the other person. Boyer is able to make both his professional and romantic life feel like part of a whole character, not two separate roles for the Paul character.
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
![A História Começou à Noite (1937)]()
The supporting cast isn’t as resilient. Leo Carrillo as the French chef Cesare boasts one of the most intense French accents committed to film, which makes his performance a bit grating. Also, Colin Clive’s jealous rampage is a bit too intense for the film. His focused brooding and piercing glares make an already simplistic antagonist cartoonish.
The film’s final test is the last act. The turn is contingent on the actions of a single character in the film that the audience has no background on whatsoever. It falls into the realm of one of those forces outside the control of the protagonists, but it requires this character to commit an action so foolish and brazen that it might frustrate some that the film doesn’t bother to explain it.
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
![A História Começou à Noite (1937)]()
Whether or not one likes the ending of History is Made at Night, or Frank Borzage in general, is predicated on how much they buy into the grandiose, sweeping nature of the emotional movements at work in the final act. Does the final impact justify the entire film or is it a moment the film doesn’t earn? Or, more importantly, does love conquer all?
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
History Is Made at Night, which Andrew Sarris has called the most romantic title in the history of cinema (and I'm not going to argue with him) is a patchwork quilt genre bender that stands as one of Frank Borzage's supreme achievements. Its producer Walter Wanger came up with the title, which Borzage loved, and the director began work without a script, filming everything on the fly. Borzage starts the film as a noir-ish society melodrama, switches gracefully to romantic comedy (facilitated by the talents of his gifted, high-strung leading lady, Jean Arthur) and then proceeds to deepen the feelings between Arthur and her leading man Charles Boyer until they reach the highest Borzagian spiritual love. A week before they finished shooting, Wanger arrived on the set and said that the whole thing was going to end with a shipwreck, which resulted in a surprise climax of breathless suspense.
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
![A História Começou à Noite (1937)]()
This is a film where the craziness of its work conditions and the blending of styles was taken up by Borzage to stand in for the craziness and exposure of falling in love. There is no sexier or more joyous moment in all of Borzage's work than the point when Arthur's Irene, liberated from her psychotic husband (Colin Clive), blithely kicks off her shoes while she dances with Boyer's Paul, a suave headwaiter who knows the art of love as well as the art of gourmet food. The improbability of the plot serves as a sort of dizzying high, as if they were saying, "This is the movies, and we can do anything."
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
![A História Começou à Noite (1937)]()
A special word should be said for Clive, a tormented man who died shortly after filming. He gives his character's obsessive jealousy a nasty, hysterical edge, and Borzage, who knew a thing or two about such jealousy, foregrounds Clive's performance so that the threat to his lovers is both real and lurid. It's a film that sets up a fearful contrast between Clive's deep but perverted feelings and the lyrical emotions of Arthur and Boyer. Another filmmaker might have made us see that these two kinds of love are in some ways similar, but Borzage won't traffic in nuances if they happen to lead to cynicism.
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
![A História Começou à Noite (1937)]()
The unique quality of History Is Made at Night is its ability to turn on a dime, flipping from one extreme to another so that the extremes intensify each other—it's as if Borzage forced the Melodrama and the Romantic Comedy into a room and ordered them to make love. The film's seesaw effects are best exemplified by the use of an unforgettable character called Coco. Whenever Boyer wants to say something to Arthur but is too embarrassed to speak, he draws a little face on his hand, calls it "Coco," and lets Coco do the dirty work. Coco can be pretty outrageous: toward the end of the film, when the lovers are really in trouble, she pierces their desperate mood with her nonsense, and the tragic vibe lightens up into anarchic comedy. But Borzage uses this comic explosion to keep us off balance, unguarded, making us laugh so that when the lovers are reminded of their problems, we feel their pain much more deeply. Borzage uses the best things about several genres here in order to make us feel their properties more intensely, playing the audience like a piano, or a particularly inspired lover.
A História Começou à Noite (1937)
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