His new movie project got its humorously self-effacing title on a whim by Etaix, a mild rationalization of the sort we often say to ourselves or others when processing a disappointing outcome. It consisted of a convoluted mash-up of four short films around 15 minutes each in length that were edited together into one reputedly incoherent narrative at the producer's insistence. That imperative was only able to be followed because Pierre Etaix had cast himself and several of the same actors in each of the films, so with a considerable amount of strained effort, a plot line could be woven that somehow merged four different tales into one rambling story. Humbled by a lack of financial support from his producer that forced Etaix to scale back some of his gags, and ultimately frustrated with the results, he did his best to put it behind him, even though that original cut did win a prize at an Italian film festival, the coveted "Silver Mermaid" award, for what that's worth.
Later, after the movie had finished reaping whatever commercial rewards it was able to generate in its first theatrical go-round, Etaix asserted his own creative control in 1971, re-editing the anthology into a feature film just a little over one hour in length, so that each of the four parts were again intact as he had first conceived them. He also took the liberty to replace one of the original quartet of shorts with a new piece that served as the introduction to this new version of As Long As You've Got Your Health. The section that had been disposed of was itself recut and now survives as the standalone short Feeling Good just shy of 15 minutes long. I'm really not sure why they couldn't have just put all five shorts under the same title, since the end result would still clock in at well under 90 minutes altogether, but I suppose that's all academic at this point. For blogging purposes, I could have pushed all this back to my 1971 timeline and written it up then, but it makes more sense to me to get to it right now, since by the early Seventies, Etaix himself had taken his cinematic art in new directions that would have made a review of this film seem regressive in that context.
As Long As You've Got Your Health opens with a Sergeant Pepper-esque credit sequence, the audience murmuring in the background as we look at a proscenium draped with curtains. The four sections of the film are all fairly disparate, but a few ideas pop up regularly enough to provide at least an impression of thematic unity: the fatigue and anxiety induced by modern life; the mixed outcomes that we experience when turning to the media for some kind of relief from those pressures; the futile pursuit of leisure. The first segment, titled "Insomnia," focuses on a man having a hard time falling asleep who sits up in bed next to his slumbering wife, reading a spooky vampire book to pass the time. Visually, we alternate between images of him reading (in color, the only non-monochrome portion of the film other than the credits) and an old-fashioned depiction of the creepy story on the page. Etaix is both the insomniac and the Count Dracula wannabe, mimicking the look and feel of silent-era ghouls stalking their victims through dank, shadowy corridors. A few tricks of the light and other sight gags provoke a few laughs, but I was more impressed by the tension Etaix created, as lightweight as it was intended to be.
"The Movies" gets us out of the late night solitude of a bedroom and into the social mix of a French cinema. Etaix's character is just an ordinary guy looking for a comfortable seat with a good view of the cowboy movie on the screen, but that's a harder order to fill than you might realize as he's repeatedly positioned behind poles, beams and rails each time he relocates.
The most creative and enjoyable aspect of this piece is the odd merger that takes place midway through when he seems to enter into the world of the advertising commercials being shown between features on the movie screen. Suddenly he's visiting neighbors who behave like paid endorsers of various products, speaking directly to the camera as they pitch their wares, while an insistent drum solo pounds away the entire time. It seemed to me like a French precursor of The Groove Tube, though not nearly as crude or raunchy.
The constant drumbeats transform quickly into pounding jackhammers for part 3, the section from which As Long As You've Got Your Health derives its title. On a good home theater system with the sound turned up to a moderate level, the soundtrack takes on characteristics of a psychological assault, and the visuals only compound that impression as we see buildings shaken, bodies rattled, nerves jangled and all manner of things falling apart due to the incessant racket. Once the jackhammers stop, we're ushered into a restaurant where the endless clanking of utensils and dishes is guaranteed to get on one's nerves. Though there are of course a few laughs to be had throughout, Etaix seems more intent on provoking disturbance and aggravation in his audience through sheer sensory overload. It's intriguing and effective film art, for sure, but I can understand why it may not have generated mass revenues from an audience in search of a pleasant evening's entertainment.
Finally, we get to what I consider the most conventionally winsome segment of the film, "Into The Woods No More," Filmed in the kind of sepia tones reminiscent of an old Max Linder short, and with a mercifully bucolic sound design after the citified clamor of the preceding section, four characters spend a quarter of an hour comically interrupting each others efforts to enjoy the great outdoors. A farmer intent on repairing some fallen fence posts, a hunter seeking game and a couple looking for a nice spot to picnic all get in each others way, leading to some well-executed slapstick to close out the show.
As I mentioned earlier, Feeling Good could have easily remained in the mix if Etaix had chosen to simply expand his original lineup for As Long As You've Got Your Health. Perhaps the rustic similarities that this film shares with "Into the Woods No More" made it expendable to the director. It starts with Etaix setting up camp in a tent out in an open meadow, but after going through the requisite routine of the city slicker ill-prepared to adapt to his back-to-nature setting, he's accosted by a cop who quite surprisingly directs him into what can only be described as an internment center for society's misfits. The set-up suggests any number of heavy-handed allegories that Etaix could have indulged in, but the touch is fairly light for the most part, which makes the penultimate scene, an encounter of a "man in striped pajamas" receiving a gift of fruit from his mother that she slips through the barbed wire above the fence at once shocking and perplexing. Etaix's comedy seems on the surface at least to be of a more genteel and whimsical sort, and not nearly as politically charged in its intention as this allusion to concentration camp horrors would otherwise suggest.
As he finishes up this sketch with a fortunate escape and a cheerful skip away from the camera into the woods on the horizon, I find myself wondering just what Etaix was trying to accomplish in these peculiar little films. They're intriguing curiosities, smartly constructed and executed, especially considering the meager resources he had to work with. Perhaps they had more of an appreciative audience in France and elsewhere at this time than I'm able to imagine, but then again, they are just odd enough that I can kind of understand how they wound up in limbo and without distribution for more than a few decades. Not that they deserved it! I'm just glad I can now enter into Etaix's world at will whenever the mood strikes.
Next: The Pornographers