Julien Duvivier | Poil de carotte (The Red Head) aka Carrot Top / 1925 || Poil de carotte (The Red Head) aka Carrot Top / 1932

the barn, a beam, a rope

by Douglas Messerli

 

Julien Duvivier and Jacques Feyder (screenplay, based on the novel by Jules Renard), Julien Duvivier (director) Poil de carotte (The Red Head) aka Carrot Top / 1925    

Julien Duvivier (screenplay, based on the novel by Jules Renard, and director) Poil de carotte (The Red Head) aka Carrot Top / 1932

 

Based on the autobiographical fiction by Jules Renard, the great French film director Julien Duvivier released two versions of Poil de carotte (in English titled The Red Head and, more appropriately, Carrot Top), a silent film in 1925 and a sound version in 1932. Although, generally speaking, the 1932 sound film is more successful, the silent version in several respects is just as remarkable, particularly for its German Expressionist-influenced images. I discuss both below simultaneously.

 

    Let me just begin by stating my position that neither of these works is either an explicit or coded LGBTQ movie. The central figure in both works, the titular carrot-top (André Heuzé in the silent film and Robert Lynen in the 1932 film) being only of 12-years of age, is not yet old enough to have even fully dealt with his gender let alone had time to dive into issues of sexuality. In both instances, the young boy is aware enough of gender roles that he can create a fantasy of marriage to Carrot Top’s (real name François Lepic) 5- or 6-year-old female friend Mathilde; but in both the male “groom” is as decked out with more flowers than the symbolic “bride” and in the later sound version he actually wears a floral crown missing from the “bride,” costumes more clearly created by the children themselves than in the earlier version. And throughout both films, the young “redhead” boy is dressed in a kind of tunic that is closer to a dress than a pair of boy’s pants. And in the 1932 film, the boy demonstrates that he as yet no shame of nudity. These and other instances clue us in to the fact that François is still of somewhat indeterminate gender, and has not even begun to contemplate sexual matters.

      In the 1925 film, however, Mathilde’s mother strongly complains against the boy’s marriage fantasies with her child, and one must admit, even if we understand François’ innocence and motives, there is something rather perverse about his childhood fantasy.

     And there is no movie that I’ve seen before this 1925 version of the film that more clearly plays out the archetypal pattern of the marked outsider, portraying a figure of différence that resonates with every queer story ever told. As the youngest child in a family of three siblings, Carrot Top is marked out—in this case by the supposedly red color of his hair, although in the 1932 version his school master remarks that it is blond not red—for mockery, abuse, and outright hatred, particularly by his mother. And this film shares archetypal bonds with numerous such fantasies  such as Cinderella, Snow White, and Beauty and the Beast, wherein the youngest child—in the three fairytales a step daughter, but here a son born after the married couple has come to detest one another—is so maltreated that she or he must escape into the world, in Cinderella’s case, without revealing her name, in Snow White’s situation by shacking up with 7 dwarfed men, in Beauty’s tale by being locked away in the castle of the Beast, and in Carrot Top’s imagination by committing suicide, an all-too-common tragic escape sought out by young queer or “marked” children. In each situation, except for Snow White, the elder far less talented and beautiful siblings are inexplicably preferred to the younger, lovely, and precocious child, who is forced into labor at the whim of the mother. The fathers are either missing, or as in Beauty and the Beast and Poil de carotte intimidated by their wives, or, particularly in the case of Monsieur Lepic (Henry Krauss and Harry Baur), so removed from family life that he has no clue of what is happening in his own house.

      These fantasies all reveal the difficulties of the “other,” the one, as director Richard Oswald described it in his 1919 openly gay film, “different from the others.” All are unloved and unhappy children desperately seeking the love of some unknown being outside of the world in which they currently exist, the very essence of the queer love story. It should come as no surprise that these archetypical tales (along with other tales of exception and difference, even as banal as “Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer” or as complex as The Wizard of Oz) are cited as queer and gay myths and are embraced by LGBTQ individuals such as mathematic genius Alan Turing, who described the Disney version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as being one of his favorite movies.

       Like so many situations in which young boys or girls are labeled by terms that have nothing to do with their own decision, but simply describe mannerisms or physical attributes, the young hero of The Red Head loses his identity as a human being to the general phrase or characteristic, in this case being named “carrot top,” or in other instances a “fag” or a “dyke.” In all cases, their queerness is defined by something over which they have no control. And, more importantly, they seem to be hated for that singular aspect of their being. Although in the 1925 version of Duvivier’s films, we learn near the end of the film that “Carrot Top’s” real name is François, we discover that fact only in the last few frames of the 1932 movie, after the boy has attempted to hang himself and been saved by the father who now, awakened to the situation, insists he will protect and love him in the future. Even Beauty and Snow White seem to be without proper names, although obviously to be described positively for one’s appearance or behavior is far better than being mocked with ugly abstract epithets concerning it.

       Both films begin with brief scenes at the public boarding school where François Lepic spends most the year. Such schools are pretty much a source of misery for all children, heterosexual or budding homosexuals in both history and literature, and this young boy’s experience doesn’t seem much different from the others, particularly when one expresses, as François does, the truth about one’s family life. He writes in his essay, “The family is a group of people living under the same roof who cannot stand each other,” an aphorism that might have found home in Oscar Wilde’s writings.

     The prissy school teacher of the 1925 film, reading the entry over the boy’s shoulder, slaps his hands with a ruler much to the delight of the other boys, whereas in the 1932 movie, the school master at least attempts to talk to the young boy about his strange viewpoints, whereupon he is even surprised to learn that he is called “Carrot Top” at home, a personal description that has not all seemed to have been adopted at François’ school.

    The silent version also carves out a large portion of its longer viewing time to show us what François’ brother Felix (Fabien Haziza) is also doing during his year studying in the city. Felix, we learn, has been regularly attending a local cabaret where he has fallen in love with a disreputable cigar-chomping singer very much in the manner of the young son of Marcel L’Herbier’s The Man of The Sea (1920). Felix attempts to lure her to his provincial home town during his summer stay at home, the subplot spilling into the silent version’s overall story in a way that I, along with most critics, feel does not truly benefit the earlier film and which was removed by Duvivier from the second film. But, as we shall see, it does provide us with a clearer explanation of Felix’s motives and makes him even more unlikeable than in the 1932 version.

       In any event, all three children, Felix, Carrot Top, and their sister Ernestine (Renée Jean and Simone Aubry) are forced to return to the family home which seems to be to none of their pleasures. On the very same day that Monsieur Lepic is off to pick them up at the station, he encounters the new maid, Annette (Lydia Zaréna and Christiane Dor) on her way to his home, having just been hired by Madame Lepic. In both movies the role Annette is crucial in that it is she who becomes closest to François, the only being who shows him love, and as an ally, speaks to the boy’s father about what is going on in his house regarding the mother’s abuse of her son.

       Zaréna in the silent version is given a much larger role, replacing the equally loving grandfather of the 1932 film, and becoming the messenger of the boy’s possible attempt to kill himself to Monsieur Lepic. She is also permitted a far greater amount of physical and emotional expression as she demonstrates to Carrot Top the possibilities of love lying outside of his particular family circle. In both cases, the boy reacts at moments negatively out of jealousy and frustration for his own condition, but in the silent version she is allowed to stroke him on occasion and even bring momentary joys to his face, while in the later movie Dor is allowed less range as the wonderful actor Lynen, given a voice to express his pain, mostly rejects physical expressions of love fearing that the touch of a human hand might just as quickly turn into the thrashings his mother and sometimes even his father regularly inflict upon him. In public his mother often pretends love, stroking his face, while in the very next moment, when once again alone with the boy, those same strokes turn into tools of anger and violence. Dor, who accompanies him to his grandfather’s house, experiences the boy at the moment of his most terrible rage (a term he later uses to describe to his father his long silences) as they return home in a cart, observing en route evidence, again and again, of normal parental-child love, babies being hugged, young boys being carried on their father’s shoulders, parents engaging in games with their beloved children. Growing increasingly furious for what is denied him, Lynen whips the horses with a frenzy as their cart goes careening down the road in danger any moment of crashing into the surrounding meadows and trees. 

     In both films, the hateful mothers are harridans, but in the silent version Charlotte Barbier-Krauss, sporting a full-grown moustache, is by far the more horrific both in appearance and in behavior. Two scenes, in particular, give evidence of the continual abuse she heaps upon the boy who is generally forced to work in heavy labor around the house and barn while Felix and Ernestine lounge about reading and playing the piano. The 1932 film better conveys the boy’s fears as he is forced, after dark, the go out to lock in the hens. For the boy nights are all haunted with the horrors of his day- time encounters with is mother, but the yard between the dining room and the henhouse for some reason, is the gathering place of his worst fears, the images of his horrifying mother rising up from the dead space to encircle him and challenge his very existence.

      The silent film contains an encounter with his mother, however, which does not appear in the later movie, that is perhaps the most perverse. As the boy goes to bed, he suddenly finds the desperate need to visit the toilet, but locked into his room he forced to use his chamber pot which seems to have inexplicably gone missing. He finally has no choice but to defecate in a corner of his room. While he is sleeping, his mother enters, smelling the awful odor before tracking it down with disgust. She quickly leaves the room again and turns up with the missing chamber pot, slipping under his bed, events which Annette witnesses. Carrot Top, predictably, is punished the next morning for his offense.

      Far less dramatic but just as effective is the scene with his mother in both versions of Poil de carotte where Carrot Top is told it is his turn to accompany his father on a hunting trip. Overjoyed, the boy hugs his standoffish father and literally somersaults his way back into change his clothes for the trip. Annette, witnessing it all from the nearby window from where she keeps watch, she observes his mother insisting he go to town for a pitcher of cream. He begs her to let someone else fetch it, but she insists that it is his responsibility. Totally dejected, when his father comes to collect him, the boy has no choice but to say that he’s changed his mind, not daring to admit it was his mother who enforced that decision for fear of further punishment. His father, in turn, describes the boy as a wretched child who can’t make up his mind what he wants. Once again, Annette and the viewer know better, and in the second version she attempts to explain to Mr. Lepic what has happened, without him fully comprehending the significance of her comments.

      Later, when Madame Lepic’s small box of money is robbed, it is, of course, her youngest who is blamed, despite the fact that Felix has stolen it, in the 1925 work, in order to entertain his cabaret girlfriend. And in that silent film, the robberies continue, ultimately ending in a theft of a most substantial amount from the father’s hidden store in a cabinet. But even then, the mother incriminates Carrot Top, without even bothering to wonder what a 12-year-old boy might be able to do with all that money.

     The 1925 version comes to a close with a rather vaguely realized series of events surrounding Lepic’s mayoral candidacy, a local fair, and the father’s discovery of town gossip about both his sons, how the mother abuses the younger and how Felix has been seen in town cavorting with what the local gossips describe as an objectionable girl. It is Annette who finally warns him that she has learned that her son intends to commit suicide.

      All of this is far better handled, if more complexly, in the 1932 remake. In that film, François, having long battled with himself about suicide, is surprised when his father suddenly confronts his mother about yet another task she has assigned to boy to carry out and, even more astoundingly, invites him to lunch with him on the day that it is certain he will be elected mayor. He tells the boy to meet him at the main meeting room after the counting of the votes. Even then, his mother getting wind the invitation, attempts to lock him in his room. But her son escapes through a high window and makes his way into town.

      At the actual counting, Mr. Lepic has also been asked to marry a couple the moment after his election, which he proudly does. The boy is so lost in the crowd and commotion of the successful election and the wedding, that he hasn’t even the possibility of letting his father know of his arrival; and when the wedding party and Lepic’s fellow electors all gather at the café across the street, François is allowed only an instant to see his father, who tells him he’s too busy to deal with him and sends him off.

      Again, put off by his father, the boy begins to leave, but at the door of the café encounters his friendly grandfather, to whom he attempts to convey his sorrows, the old man commiserating while speaking far more fully about his own difficulties at his advanced age, suggesting his grandson simply has to get used to his sorrows. The boy attempts to explain his situation further, but at that very moment an old friend calls to the man, who turns away from Carrot Top, leaving the boy feeling rejected again, this time by the only relative to have shown him any kindness.

      Carrot Top now wanders off to find the proper way to do end his life, stopping by the pond near his grandfather’s house to consider a Mouchette-like drowning (the manner the unhappy young girl chose in Robert Bresson’s great work of cinema). There is again meets up with little Mathilde, whom he tells that he will be unable to marry her because he is now planning to kill himself. In her youthful manner she attempts to dissuade him, but seeing that he’s determined to go through with it, simply suggests that the pond is to dirty and cold a place to die.

      Since she is on her way to see her mother, who has also attended the wedding, he accompanies her back to café before determining to hang himself in the barn. The silent version, indeed, almost creates a litany of the words that come into his mind determining the place and method, repeating la grange…une pouter…une corde…, the barn…a beam…a rope, repeated over and over as if he has finally solved the solution to his suffering.

      In the 1932 film, Mathilde then enters the café, momentarily being greeted by the grandfather upon whose lap she sits for a few moments, reporting François’ intentions to him, before she joins her mother. And it is the grandfather, in what might almost be seen as a kind of rehabilitation for his inattentiveness, who fights his way through the mayoral well-wishers to convey what’s happening with Mr. Lepic.

      Running back to his estate, Lepic searches everywhere for the boy, finding him in the barn, a rope already strung from a beam and the boy’s head in its lasso as he is about to kick away an egg case and drop to his death. In the silent movie, the boy, caught up in his father’s arms, simply removes the rope from around his neck, but in the later version, Carrot Top is still unconvinced his is solution, as Lepic cries out again and again for him to remove the rope as he holds the boy in his arms. Both fall to the floor of the loft in an embrace, perhaps the first full embracement of love this boy has ever received from one of his parents.

 

     Both films end almost conspiratorially, in the second as the two share a drink near an inn where for the very first time in the film Lepic refers to Carrot Top by his real name. When François tells him of his hatred for his mother, Lepic explains that he too hates her. And that is part of the problem. The boy was simply born to late, after their earlier love, and in revenge for its absence she has taken out her anger of late-born son. With amazing precociousness, François reasserts what parental-child relationships should ideally entail, while his never has. It is a somewhat discomfortingly misogynist scene, father and son sharing their hatred of the wife and mother. And if one might believe that there are any psychological determinants in homosexuality, we certainly might suspect that as the boy grows older, he will surely find it difficult to trust or even fall in love with a woman, particularly when M. Lepic now promises to show him love for the rest of his life, promising to intervene if his mother ever again threatens him. This is already a boy who has become devoted for his life to his father. And I can easily imagine him, at a later date, ending up in Paris, like Georges ‘Jojo’ Castagnier in Duvivier’s Boulevard (1960), because his step-mother despised him, a young boy who does indeed become involved with gay men.

     Apparently, the real Carrot Top, Renard lived a relatively happy married life, devoted to his children. But then as Oscar Wilde long argued, it is always a mistake to conflate life and art.

 

Los Angeles, April 15, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2023).