Welcome back everyone! Looks like we’ve made it to the dreaded dreary month of December. Eh, who am I kidding? The weather’s just fine over here in Los Angeles, and believe it or not, I kind of love Christmas. The lights, the melancholy, the tradition. Sorry folks, if you haven’t realized it by now, I’m a bit of a basic sucker. I can’t deny it.
So what’s on the December docket? I recently watched a few Christmas shorts by some New Wave adjacent filmmakers so I figured I’d throw ‘em up so you can watch before rewatching The Family Stone for the zillionth time. Now that’s a pretty good flick!
So here they are, two French shorts from the 1960s, Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes / Le père Noël a les yeux bleus (1966) by Jean Eustache and Janine (1962) by Maurice Pialat — two filmmakers that have had their significant influence, but are not always the first you’d think about when you think “French New Wave.” Pialat was even admittedly at odds with his contemporaries, exhibiting resentment towards their success, while he struggled to make his first feature, unable to bring it to fruition until he was forty-three. But it’s all good now, right Maurice?
The Quick Gist
Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes / Le père Noël a les yeux bleus is about a down and out young man who finds much needed confidence after donning a Santa suit.
Janine is about two men who share their thoughts on the woman of their lives, while unbeknownst to them, they’re talking about the same one.
As a bonus, I’m adding a link to Agnés Varda’s Christmas short, Christmas Carole (1966), about three penniless youths wandering the holiday streets of France.
Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes
This Jean Eustache short, made several years before his magnum opus, The Mother and the Whore, stars none other than French New Wave poster boy, Jean Pierre Leaud. Daniel (played by Leaud) is a lonely young man, desperate for a woman, and who can’t even bring himself to hang out at the cool cafe because he doesn’t have the right fit, nor the money to buy one. To fix that, he decides to save up to finally be able to purchase a nice coat for himself.
He gets a job as an on-the-street Santa Claus where he takes pictures with the passersby. With his identity hidden by the Santa suit, he finally gains the kind of confidence with women he always wished he had, letting his hand wander where no good Santa should go, unless of course it’s with the homely and dutiful Mrs. Claus. With this seasonal suit, Daniel is no longer that poor schmuck with old clothes.
Eustache does a nice job of tapping into the less than savory male psyche, filled with self doubt, uncertainty, boyish aggressiveness, lack of tact, loneliness, search for acceptance, and unforgiving self loathing. It’s a nice little precursor to his bigger work.
Anecdote: When I was 18, I applied to work at Urban Outfitters and one of their questions was: “Who is your style icon?” I wrote: Jean Pierre Leaud. I didn’t get the job.
Janine
So Maurice Pialat’s short is kind of barely a Christmas flick. It takes place during Christmas, we see some holiday flare, but that’s about it. The story itself is pretty simple. Two men sulk along the streets at night, playing pool, eating food, and discuss their woes with women.
One is a young man, hopeful at the thought that maybe he’s finally found “the one,” a prostitute he just spent some time with, and now wants to marry. Aw. The other man, older and significantly more bitter, is tired of women, including his very own estranged wife — or as he so lovingly calls her “the Queen of Whores.” Little do they know, they’re talking about the same woman, a woman they’ve projected all their fantasies and disappointments on, without ever considering she’s her own fully formed person with her own wants, desires, and needs. Classic men, am I right?
It’s a short moody black and white piece with a nice jazz soundtrack. And surprisingly both of these shorts feature a character named Janine. Are these films part of a shared universe? Maybe multiverse? Whoa… imagine the box office possibilities…
Christmas Carole
This last one, made by the epic Agnes Varda, was kind of a last minute add on. I noticed that today Google is featuring an Agnes Varda doodle on its mainpage celebrating the day (December 13, 2014) she received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Film Academy. And she just so happens to have a Christmas short as well! Well, it’s more an unfinished sequence than a completed short, but it’s still a curious little treat.
This beautiful 4k colorful restoration features a young Gérard Depardieu in his first role about three youths without a dime to their name, who navigate the Christmas decorated streets, all the while talking crap on consumerism and our money driven society. Wow, someone’s read Crimethinc. It’s an interesting little snippet!
And that about wraps up this holiday C&C. Enjoy!
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