À NOUS LA LIBERTE (FREEDOM FOR US)

À NOUS LA LIBERTE (FREEDOM FOR US)

1931 83mins. Director: Renè Clair
Cast:
Henri Marchand………………………………….Emile
Raymond Cordy………………………………….Louis
Rolla France……………………………………...Jeanne
Paul Ollivier……………………………………...Jeanne’s Uncle
Jacques Shelly……………………………………Paul

Renè Clair’s À nous la Liberté got most of its initial attention in the States in 1936 when Tobis, the French studio that produced the film, sued Charlie Chaplin alleging plagiarism in his Modern Times. According to David Robinson, author of Chaplin: His Life and Art, “Both films were partly set in factories. Both got a lot of fun out of production lines and conveyor belts. Both had things to say about the dehumanization implicit in modern industrial society”
The lawsuit was an embarrassment for Clair as he had long been an admirer of Chaplin’s work. As Robinson goes on to say, both films deal with “burning issues of their day,” and “today, the similarities seem coincidental.” This seems likely as Chaplin swore that neither he nor anyone at United Artists had ever seen À nous la Liberté. In any event, Clair said that if Chaplin had copied any of his work, then he had done him a great honor and the case was settled out of court a decade later.
Perhaps the similarities were inevitable, as Chaplin and Clair shared similar views regarding the rights of the working-class. Additionally, À nous la Liberté came at a time when the cinemas of Europe and America had much in common. In 1931, the Production Code had yet to poke its snooty head in the way, and so American filmmakers could freely join their European peers experimenting with cinematic innovations.
For a film that would harbor such harsh sentiments toward the process, À nous la Liberté opens with a rather whimsical image of an assembly line. All we see are cute toys, the fruits of the labor. When the camera lifts, however, we see the harsh reality that created these toys. They were made by prisoners under harsh conditions. We will get to know two of them, the burly Louis and his meek buddy Emile (Raymond Cordy and Henri Marchand). That night, they execute a successful jailbreak.
European buddy humor wasn’t much different from its American counterpart. The jailbreak sequence is reminiscent of Laurel & Hardy’s prison spoof Pardon Us, also released in 1931. It even features the classic Laurel & Hardy staple of dropping pants and the wacky runaway from the law on a stolen bicycle right out of Another Fine Mess.
Louis changes identity, infiltrates high society, and becomes the owner of a factory. But Renè Clair blurs the line between an industrial factory and a jail, painting them both as essentially the same place. Indeed, the workers at the factory are hardly distinguishable from prisoners. Luckily, France got this film out of its system before the German occupation. This film would not have made it past the censors. Just look at the indoctrination of the schoolchildren reciting “Work means freedom.” There is more than a bit of 1984 here with reminders of Orwell’s “Freedom is slavery” line.
Today, more than Modern Times, À nous la Liberté looks like Brazil. Emile, the fugitive who ran away to a free life in the country serves as a prototype for Sam Lowry. Emile is the only character still human enough to find the time and smell the flowers and fall in love with a pretty young lady, Jeanne (Rolla France), that he watches from his new prison cell after being arrested for vagrancy.
Clair admitted that he also borrowed a lot from Chaplin. Indeed, À nous la Liberté could have worked just as well as a silent. There are many great Chaplinesque moments during the zany chase around town when Emile escapes from prison ands angers Jeanne’s uncle. Seeking shelter, Emile hides out in his old pal’s factory.
Even during its most socially-conscious moments, À nous la Liberté is a satirical comedy. Throughout his career, Renè Clair would look at serious material (including his adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None) with a comical gaze. If ever there was a funny version of the ending of Brazil, for instance, it would look very much like the chase through the phonograph factory.
It’s curious how once he rises to the rank of factory owner, Louis forgets how he started out and that he was once no different than Emile. He’s already been dehumanized by the system he adopted. Eventually, though, he does come back to his senses and offers kindness to his old friend. Together, they take some Marxian jabs at the rich when he invites Emile to his mansion.
Once back at the plant, however, it’s back to business. Employees don’t even have an identity there beyond their assigned numbers. For instance, Jeanne is number 45. It’s significant that Louis concealed his identity to become a part of the system while his workers lose their identity by becoming part of the system.
With his power, Louis arranges for Jeanne to marry Emile, but chaos ensues when disgruntled workers who learn of Louis’s past threaten him with blackmail. This leads to a grand finale in the style of the great slapstick classics from America. The ending is more bittersweet than happy and promises a new beginning in which men will supervise machines. In the 80 years since the release of this film we have seen how easily that idea can be taken to an extreme. Maybe we should have listened to the guest speaker who says, “If machine can replace the hand of man, it can’t replace his brain.”
As in Chaplin’s The Circus, the hero doesn’t get the girl in the end. Here it’s even more heartbreaking since in The Circus the trapeze girl at least married a kind man. Here she marries a wealthy business man, but Emile keeps his chin up and, like the Little Tramp, tries to remain upbeat. If the similarities between À nous la Liberté and Chaplin’s work prove anything it’s that both America and France had two satirical geniuses at work.