BOOK 180: JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT: LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE

LITERARY STYLE: Céline's first novel is probably most remarkable for its style. Céline makes extensive use of ellipsisand hyperbole. His writing has the flow of natural speech patterns and uses the vernacular, while also employing more erudite elements. This has influenced French literature considerably. The novel enjoyed popular success and a fair amount of critical acclaim when it was published in October 1932. Albert Thibaudet, perhaps the greatest of the entre-deux-guerres critics, said that in January 1933 it was still a common topic of conversation at dinner parties in Paris.

INFLUENCE AND LEGACY: Paolo Sorrentino's 2013 film The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) opens with a quote from Journey to the End of the Night. The film concludes with a visual of the last paragraph of the book, passing under bridges, arches, and locks along the city's river.

Will Self has written that Journey to the End of the Night "is the novel, perhaps more than any other, that inspired me to write fiction".

The song "End of the Night" by The Doors references this book, as it had a great influence on the work of Jim Morrison.

Charles Bukowski makes reference to Journey in a number of his novels and short stories, and employs prose techniques borrowed from Céline. Bukowski wrote in Notes of a Dirty Old Man that "Céline was the greatest writer of 2000 years".

Céline's literary style greatly influenced Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

In Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 dystopian science fiction film Alphaville, protagonist Lemmy Caution dismisses a taxi driver's offer of route options to his destination by stating that he is on "a journey to the end of the night". The film depicts the use of poetry as a weapon against a sentient computer system.

MY VERDICT:

I can understand why this is cited as a great novel, however I did not enjoy it at all. This book probably, of all the books I’ve ever read, took me the longest to complete. The only reason I can give, is because of the disheartening subject matter that although travelling around the world to many different situations almost each one was more, or as, depressing as the last. There is no hope is this book, no humour, no let up, and because of that I found it difficult to get through. The protagonist is more unlikable the longer the story progresses and I found it hard to sympathize with him even when he was in sympathetic situations. I can see that it is well written, I believe there’s no argument on that part, but above all I want to be able to enjoy reading a book and I did not enjoy one part of this.

FILM 1612: STAGE FRIGHT

According to Alfred Hitchcock, he ran into great difficulties with leading actress Jane Wyman. Wyman was required to appear frumpy and inelegant when she goes incognito as a maid, but the actress was reluctant to appear so plain when Marlene Dietrich appeared so glamorous. The director recounted that Wyman would cry when she would see Dietrich looking glamorous on set when she herself was in her maid disguise. Hitchcock said that she could not accept the idea of her character being frumpy or dowdy. Much to the director's chagrin, Wyman would secretly put on makeup or otherwise try to improve her appearance, thus failing to maintain her character.

In "Hollywood Babble On" Marlene Dietrich is quoted as saying, "I did one film for Alfred Hitchcock. Jane Wyman was in it. I heard she'd only wanted to do it if she were billed above me, and she got her wish. Hitchcock didn't think much of her. She looks too much like a victim to play a heroine, and God knows she couldn't play a woman of mystery - that was *my* part. Miss Wyman looks like a mystery nobody has bothered to solve."

During filming, food was still strictly rationed in London. Alfred Hitchcock circumvented this problem by having steaks and roasts flown in from the United States to be prepared and cooked at some of the city's finest restaurants. He treated himself and his leading ladies Marlene Dietrich and Jane Wyman to frequent, extravagant dinners. The director told the actresses that "Ladies must be well fed."

In an extraordinary move for the normally controlling director, Alfred Hitchcock provided Marlene Dietrich an exceptional amount of creative control for the film, particularly in how she chose to light her scenes. Hitchcock knew that Dietrich had learned a great deal of the art of cinematography from Josef von Sternberg and Günther Rittau, and allowed her to work with this film's cinematographer, Wilkie Cooper, to light and set her scenes the way that she wished.

After completing this film, Alfred Hitchcock would not work in his native Britain again for over 20 years.

Famed composer Cole Porter composed "The Laziest Gal in Town" specifically for Marlene Dietrich in this film.

Marlene Dietrich's costumes were designed by (an uncredited) Christian Dior.

DIRECTOR CAMEO: Alfred Hitchcock: turning to look at Eve in her disguise as Charlotte's maid.

FILM 1476: FANNY AND ALEXANDER

TRIVIA: The part of Bishop Edvard Vergérus was written by Ingmar Bergman with Max von Sydow in mind. When the screenplay was completed, von Sydow was contacted about playing the role, which would have been his first in a Bergman film since The Touch (1971). Von Sydow was willing and, in fact, very excited about playing the role. However, Bergman was not aware of this, since von Sydow was in Los Angeles at the time, and could only be reached through his agent who, acting in what he perceived as von Sydow's interest, told Bergman and his producers that von Sydow would only play the role if he could have a percentage of the film's profits, in addition to his salary. The producers, already stretched to their financial limits, of course balked, and told the agent that, sadly, there could be no such compromise, and began looking for other actors to play the pivotal part. By the time von Sydow had learned why his beloved role had been taken from him, Jan Malmsjö had already been cast as the Bishop, and von Sydow lost his chance to star in what would later be known to be Bergman's "last film" (although he would play key roles in The Best Intentions (1992) and Private Confessions (1996), both written by Bergman). Von Sydow was furious about the incident, and, by certain accounts, still harbours a bitter grudge about it to this day.

Ingmar Bergman's first draft of the script, completed in 1979, consisted of about 1,000 handwritten pages.

At the time, the largest film ever made in Sweden (with 60 speaking parts and over 1200 extras) and the most expensive, with a budget of $6 million.

Famous Swedish song-and-dance man Jan Malmsjö, who is playing the evil bishop Vergerus, thought it was strange that director Ingmar Bergman approached him for a role very much different from anything he had done. He asked Bergman about it, who replied: "Well, I sense some hidden dark and evil streaks inside you, Jan. You have it, I have it, all of us have."

After playing Alexander, Bertil Guve decided not to pursue a career in acting. He is now a doctor of economics.

Director Ingmar Bergman suffered serious bouts of hypochondria during shooting, and imagined he had gotten both testicular and stomach cancer at the same time.

Although she is an eponymous character, Fanny isn't mentioned in the theatrical version of the film until nearly an hour into its running time. Conversely, in the television version, her name is the first word spoken.

Peter Stormare makes an uncredited appearance as one of the men helping Isak with the trunk.

FILM 1292: BIRDMAN

TRIVIA: The movie was largely shot inside Broadway's St. James Theatre - Michael Keaton and the rest of the cast had to adapt to Alejandro González Iñárritu's rigorous shooting style, which required them to perform up to 15 pages of dialogue at a time while hitting precisely choreographed marks.

There are only sixteen visible cuts in the entire film.

During the press conference in Riggan's dressing room, he says that he hasn't played Birdman since 1992. That's the same year Batman Returns (1992), the last Batman movie starring Michael Keaton, was released.

Martin Scorsese can be seen in the audience when Michael Keaton is walking to the stage in his underwear after he walks through Times Square.

According to Alejandro González Iñárritu, he had dinner with director Mike Nichols in New York two weeks before he began shooting the movie. Iñarritu told Nichols of his plan for how he was going to shoot the movie as one long take. Nichols predicted it would be a disaster because not having the ability to use cuts in editing would inhibit the opportunities for comedy. Inarritu said the meeting didn't deter him, but was instead helpful in raising his awareness level of the difficulty of what he was about to do.

The carpet visible within a number of back stage corridor scenes is the same iconic, hexagonal carpet used in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).