24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (Short 1946)

24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (Short 1946). 18m

“Itu0026#39;s a day in the life of the Cirque Medrano clown, Beby.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eJean-Pierre Melviilleu0026#39;s first movie as director would seem to be a documentary short, showing the routine of a clown and his partner. It an odd choice for a director whose movies showed men under great stress, living by their own rough, confused and sometimes self-destructive codes of behavior. Yet it is in his actions that we see how the artist creates his art. Itu0026#39;s composed of memories of other great clowns, and the set routines of his life off the stage. Together, in the hours before their show, Beby and his partner sit at a cafe and watch life go by them, arguing over how to distill the ordinary life before them into something for their audience: something grander, something more heartfelt, something funnier.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIs this not what Melville himself tried to do in his films? With his moral gangsters and would-be-moral flics, with his fantasy images of Manhattan and failed boxers, was he not doing the same?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe movie is shot wild, except when Beby is on stage. Thereu0026#39;s an uncredited narrator, a man in a trenchcoat and hat following the movieu0026#39;s subject: the stand-in for the creator of this film, trying to understand his subject by observing his actions. He thinks he understands Beby. Does he? Is the clown simply a distorted image of the director?”