The True Nature of Bernadette (1972) vs. The Devil's Trap (1962)

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The True Nature of Bernadette (Gilles Carle, 1972) vs. The Devil's Trap (František Vláčil, 1962)

Vote for either 1972 or x1962 (italicization unnecessary).

The deadline for voting is 12 a.m. EST on Wednesday, April 10.

If you need access to the films, please let us know.

[karl]

At a time when the once all-powerful Catholic Church had lost its grip on Québécois, director Gilles Carle made this sardonic fable about a woman’s quest to find spiritual harmony on her own terms. It won five Canadian Film Awards — including best director, screenplay, lead actress and supporting actor — and was also very popular in France, where it screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Considered one of the best Canadian films ever made, it was named one of the Top 10 Canadian films of all time in a poll conducted by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 1984, and one of 150 essential works in Canadian cinema history in a similar poll in 2016.

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Like almost all of Carle’s films, La vraie nature de Bernadette is vivid, effervescent and sometimes unapologetically lurid. It provokes the viewer with its irreverence, its ambiguities, and its tonal shifts between farce and melancholy. Carle mixes the ridiculous with the sublime and rubs the sacred against the profane. In her passionate need to escape the banality of her middle-class existence, Bernadette displays admirable commitment and heroic stamina. At the same time, she’s a preposterous Utopian, Carle’s distinctly Québécoise spoof of 1960s and 1970s baby boomers who thought they could save their souls by pulling on cow’s udders and shovelling manure.



here: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ ... bernadette


The Devil's Trap is good too.

[rischka]

it is but...

x1972



good choice karl. it's weird but tho i don't speak french i can now distinguish the rather awful quebecois accent

[Mario Gaborovic]

x1972

[Brotherdeacon]

x1962. I admire very little of the Quebecois comedic romp, True Nature of Bernadette (1972, AKA The Birds and the Beads) whereas the František Vláčil debut of his Medieval trilogy, The Devil's Trap, is strong and mysterious throughout, shrewdly using Bohemian history of the Counter-Reformation's late Inquisition to authentically pronounce the dichotomy between hierarchic political/religious oppression and the scientific, open naturalism of wisdom and revolt--these later accused of allegiance to the Devil. Throughout we follow ideological metaphors for Czech political grievances on the one hand: and the discontented artists and populace-minded seekers of Czech liberation on the other hand. The Camera's positions and blocking not only render ingenious black and white imagery, but invite the viewer like a member-witness to this mystical battle of strengths and weaknesses; light and darkness; parched earth and ebullient springs offering symbolic growth and agricultural plenty. Vlacil here is on his way toward deeper vision and cinematic techniques which will eventually create Marketa Lazarova, one of the few 1960's works which can stand toe to toe with Tarkovski's best.

[kanafani]

Let's make this interesting! x1962

[arkheia]

x1962


Unfortunately I don’t think I was able to get much out of La vraie nature de Bernadette, as much as Micheline Lanctôt performance convincingly seems to embody that 60s mindset of fleeing society to return to our farmstead roots. A pastoral farce held together by her endearingly earnest Bernadette, whose perseverance in realizing her idyllic fantasy drives the film until her agrarian utopia becomes subsumed by her becoming mythologized as a messianic miracle worker. As both figurative and literal roadblocks impede her vision of ‘fresh clean country living’, the film’s critique of the character’s bourgeois hippie ideals are similarly subsumed. In her sainthood, she becomes radicalized to join arms with Donald Pilon’s Thomas, another kind of crusader protesting the government’s control over farmers, yet by this point the varied caricatures of local governance stooges, exploiting freeloaders, and worshipping masses have become so inextricably knotted that it all seems to fizzle out toward its ambivalent conclusion.

edit: Found this informative article on Gilles Carle and the film, in case anyone's interested.
http://takeone.athabascau.ca/index.php/ ... /1041/1028


I was more enticed by Ďáblova past, although it's not all that dissimilar in focusing on laborers struggling to escape larger institutional structures so perhaps the devil’s in the details here. The power struggles between faith and science appear as petty as jealous rivalries, replete with insidious rumors and knocked over chessboards. However Vláčil’s inventively baroque framing and propulsive camera movements send ripples across the narrative as haunting as Zdeněk Liška’s evocative chamber score.

[MatiasAlbertotti]

x1962

Most probably it's my fault, but couldn't get into a mindset were I could enjoy Gilles Carle's Bernadette, It had it's moments, but it felt too sketchy, like lacking flow on the narrative side, to the point that when it got to the last stretch that required more investment of my part, I really didn't care for what was going on. It could also be part of a cultural and generational gap.

[ofrene]

x1962

[mesnalty]

x1962

I'm intrigued by The True Nature of Bernadette. I wasn't too into the farcical first act, but as Bernadette's utopianism becomes more complicated, the film becomes more complicated too. But I still have to give it to The Devil's Trap, a beautifully-made, elemental film that makes me excited to watch more Vlacil.

[john ryan]

x1962
i'm a sucker for some inquisition shit

[Angel]

x1972

[karl]

I think those of you who see it as merely a comedy or a farce are perhaps missing the point. I went through a stretch where I watched several of M. Carle's movies in a row, not all of them successful, but all intriguing. His best films are sex comedies like Bernadette here, but rather unusual ones, and with more intelligence than is the standard of that estimable genre. This movie seems to me about the pitfalls of being too tolerant. When the two psychotic hicks show up at the farm we see the failure of the Bernadette method: because she puts up with them all the troubles come. As for the "ambivalent" ending, I believe the answer is in the title. Only in the closing scenes is the true nature of Bernadette finally revealed: not flower child nor saint, and certainly not tolerant, but - a killer!

That said, I don't mind that she loses to The Devil's Trap, which is a superb film.

[ItsUhhMee]

x1972

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Voting closed! The Devil's Trap (1962) wins!

[rischka]

so, political correctness run amok?

or, a would-be saint driven mad by the black hole of need that is our fellow humans

she was right about factory farming. lol i'm all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssd3U_zicAI

the ironic generation

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I always had a problem with the phrase political correctness. I think it's a bit of a misnomer. Didn't flip and I have this discussion with the dumbass (Damian) on the old board?

If something is truly politically correct it means that it's not correct but that for political reasons it's being presented as correct. Not calling races or sexual/gender identities slurs isn't "politically correct"—"African-American" and "n----r" are equally correct. One is just a racist term for a black person and one's polite.

Conservatives and authoritarians practice political correctness much more than progressives and liberals do, anyway. Look at climate change. Look at reporting methods surrounding ICE. Look at anything. Saw this on FB the other day: https://www.facebook.com/sybildenise/po ... 8441660343

"We said Rachel Notley, and he proceeded to say that we shouldn’t say that to him because they’re oil and gas people."

They "shouldn't say that"...

[rischka]

i TOTALLY agree with you. but let's please not do this here

(i had to look up UCP ) and yeah i know i brought it up

this is my safe space :lotus position emoji:

[karl]

so, political correctness run amok?

or, a would-be saint driven mad by the black hole of need that is our fellow humans

Well, if nothing else I thought Bernadette would spur a bit of debate round here!

[rischka]

i am not trying to stifle debate, only to avoid that terrible terrible PC debate redux. damian flashback

life is hell and i'm going to watch something fun :geek:

[karl]

Wasn't meant as an accusation. The movie is the sort I thought that would get some strong reactions pro and con, s'all.

I only vaguely recall that Damnian dude, except that there was a lot of hysteria there (like that Gaspard chap when I tore into his beloved Stroblet)....

As a final note here on Bernadette's thread, before we put her and the Devil to rest: star Micheline Lanctôt went on to direct her own films, though I've not seen one. There's one called Sonatine - like the Kitano film - on KG, and one dubbed into English that looks to be from an old VHS on Youtube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHsRs5dlLFw

[rischka]

it's kool i'm just trying to avoid political debates and old habits die hard. it's a terrible time here; you're lucky you fled years ago

[karl]

It was just a matter of time before the country elected a sociopath game show host President.