On this episode of the podcast, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by writer, critic and academic Hannah McGill to discuss Poetic Realism, a 1930s trend in French cinema which combined the earthy and the ethereal to often mesmerising effect.  

Whether shot in real locations or on large-scale sets, whether set in France or elsewhere around the globe, these early sound pictures are moody and melancholy. They’re fatalistic tales of immigrant labourers, train workers, tugboat captains, petty criminals, deserters, gangsters.

Directors who made films in this style included Marcel Carné, Julien Duvivier and the three Jeans - Renoir, Vigo and Grémillon.

Hannah and Pasquale discuss the socio-political backdrop, some of the major films, directors and actors as well as the trend's influence on Italian neorealism and American film noir. 

Films discussed include L'Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934), Toni (Jean Renoir, 1934), La grande illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937), La bête humaine (Jean Renoir, 1938), Le quai des brumes (Marcel Carné, 1938), Le jour se lève (Marcel Carné, 1939) and many more.