He Who Must Die (Celui qui doitmourir)
(not rated), directed by Jules Dassin, plays Tuesday, August 1, at 8 p.m. at
the George Eastman House’s Dryden Theatre.
A real passion, a real Passion
Although his directorial career includes a
considerable number of memorable films, Jules Dassin remains far too little
known in his native country. After making such classics as the prison
film Brute Force (1947), the police
film The Naked City (1948), and the
crime drama Thieves’ Highway (1949),
in 1950 he fell afoul of the notorious blacklist while directing Night and the City, an important film noir, in London,
and stayed there rather than return to the hysterical anti-Communism in America.
Reversing the usual pattern by becoming a successful European filmmaker, he
later directed such well known works as Rififi, Never on
Sunday, and Topkapi.
In 1957 he co-wrote and directed one of his least known and
most remarkable motion pictures, He Who Must Die (Celui qui doitmourir),
which the George Eastman House will show in the Dryden Theatre on August 1. A
French movie (with English subtitles) with an international cast, made by a
Jewish-American Communist, He Who Must
Die is one of the most powerful interpretations of Christ’s Passion in the
history of cinema, rivaled only by the French Canadian Jesus of Montreal. In addition to its Christian content, the film
suggests something of Dassin’s leftist social and political orientation, his
sympathy for the poor and dispossessed, his commitment to the class struggle.
In Turkish-occupied Greece in the1920s, the ruling
council of a small village prevails upon the Agha,
the dissolute military governor, to allow them to stage their annual Passion Play. According to custom, the village priest
selects the actors from the populace, including the sexy widow Katerina (Melina Mercouri) as
Mary Magdalene, one of her lovers (Roger Hanin) as
Judas, and most important, Manolios (Pierre Vaneck), an illiterate, stammering shepherd, as Jesus.
Despite their actual personalities and behavior, circumstances, in the form of
a column of refugees fleeing a Turkish massacre, conspire to transform the
players into the characters they impersonate.
The refugees beg to settle near the prosperous village and
cultivate some barren ground, but fearing a loss of income and a disruption of
their delicate accommodation with their conquerors, the priest and the village
elders reject their plea. The refugees camp on a hillside above the village and
vow to stay, slowly starving, hoping and praying for some succor, divine or
human. Defying the village council, the disciples, led by Manolios,
try to help and, for a while, they succeed in rallying the townspeople,
reminding them of their Christian duty to feed the hungry and care for the
sick, until the priest and his cohorts intimidate the citizens and thwart their
good intentions.
The refugees finally choose to fight against their
oppressors and descend upon the village, where a group of armed citizens opens
fire, inciting just the sort of conflict of the proletariat against the
bourgeoisie that often energizes the work of Dassin and other leftist
filmmakers of his time and place. The picture’s plot then follows some
inevitable but entirely appropriate patterns, with a suitable Pilate to wash
his hands of blame and a Judas with a personal grudge to settle fulfilling
their roles and assisting the progress of destiny.
Except possibly for Melina Mercouri,
the cast of He Who Must Die includes
few recognizable names and faces, but some students of the cinema may remember GertFroebe, who plays a village
elder, and Jean Servais as the priest who leads the
refugees’ presence. Aside from the strong emotion and intensity of the major
players, the most engaging performance may be Carl Möhner’s
the Agha, a sly sensualist who governs more by
manipulation than violence.
Unlike most Passion films, He Who Must Die never shows the proposed play, but creates its
story of transfiguration, sacrifice, and redemption from the materials of its
world — the arid Greek landscape, the strong peasant faces, the ordinary
eloquence of common people, the facts of a troubled history, an
awareness of its contemporary political situation. The picture suggests a
wealth of meaning beyond its surface, including a heartfelt examination of
Christianity that echoes Dostoevsky’s Brothers
Karamazov as well as the New Testament. Fifty years after its release, He Who Must Die remains an extraordinary
work, a French interpretation of the Passion of Christ set in Greece,
directed by an American-Jewish Communist. As Yogi Berra might
have said, only in America.
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2006.
