Film Review: La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast, 1938)

The railroad used to be an extremely popular motif in the first decades of cinema. France, where the Lumière Brothers' famous 1896 short L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat began the trend, appeared to be particularly susceptible to this fascination with steam-powered locomotion. More than four decades later, The Human Beast (known under its original French title La Bête Humaine) became one of the most commercially successful films of French cinema and in the filmography of legendary director Jean Renoir. The enduring appeal of railway imagery—from the approaching train that supposedly sent early audiences screaming from their seats to the industrial machinery that came to symbolise modernity itself—found perhaps its most sophisticated expression in this adaptation of Émile Zola's dark masterpiece.

The novel represents a somewhat loose adaptation of the eponymous 1890 work by Émile Zola, part of his sprawling Les Rougon-Macquart series. The novel, known as one of the more radical implementations of principles of the Naturalist literary movement, stands out for its extremely dark violent content and later became a popular basis for screen adaptations belonging to the psychological thriller genre. Zola's Naturalism, with its clinical dissection of hereditary taints and environmental determinism, presented a challenge for any filmmaker attempting to translate his unflinching vision to the screen. Renoir, working within the constraints of 1930s commercial cinema, necessarily softened some of the novel's more brutal passages whilst retaining its essential examination of fatalism and human passion.

The script, co-written by Renoir and Dennis Leblond, sets the plot in contemporary France, transplanting Zola's story from the 1860s to the late 1930s with remarkable seamlessness. The protagonist, played by Jean Gabin, is Jacques Lantier, a locomotive driver working on the line between Paris and Le Havre. He is afflicted by a mental condition that causes murderous rage when he becomes drunk or sexually aroused, and which he interprets as hereditary—a burden passed down through his family line. The only calming presence in Lantier's life is the locomotive "Lison", which he treats as the love of his life. This relationship between man and machine serves as one of the film's most striking metaphorical elements, suggesting both the industrial age's dehumanising effects and the possibility of finding solace in mechanical precision absent from human relationships.

Forced to spend two days around Le Havre for Lison's repair, Lantier indirectly becomes involved in murder. The chain of events begins when Robaud (played by Fernand Ledoux), deputy stationmaster at Le Havre, runs afoul of a tycoon's son and must save his position with the help of the influential local aristocrat Grandmorin (played by Jacques Berlioz), who is godfather to Robaud's much younger and attractive wife Séverine (played by Simone Simon). Robaud suspects that Grandmorin had carnal motives for his service, and Séverine admits that he has been sexually exploiting her from her early days and that he actually maintains a relationship with her. Enraged, jealous, and humiliated, Robaud decides to kill Grandmorin and forces Séverine to take part by setting up a rendezvous on the train. The killing, which also results in Robaud robbing his victim, is later attributed to a different man who had a grudge against Grandmorin, but Séverine was spotted near the scene by Lantier, who just happened to be on the same train. This chance witnessing of suspicious behaviour creates the foundation for the tragedy that unfolds.

Robaud, concerned that he might still be linked to the murder, befriends Lantier and even encourages Séverine to spend time in his company. The two of them at first think only of friendship, but the inevitable happens and they begin a torrid affair. Séverine, unhappy with her husband, tells Lantier that Robaud beats her and asks him to kill him. He tries, but at the last moment backs out, leading Séverine to seek comfort among other young men. At a dance, Lantier and Séverine meet again, and with their passion rekindled, Lantier agrees to murder her husband. The lovers go to the Robauds' apartment, but Lantier's murderous instinct suddenly turns against Séverine, killing her. Lantier then goes to his locomotive and confesses the crime to his colleague and friend Pecqueux (played by Julien Carette) before leaping to his death. This ending, whilst less extreme than Zola's original conclusion, nevertheless carries a powerful emotional weight that speaks to the inevitability of fate in the Naturalist worldview.

La Bête Humaine was made when Jean Renoir was at the top of his game, making a series of classics of French interwar cinema. Its main star, Jean Gabin, was at the zenith of his popularity, having become a global icon after a series of big hits. It was Gabin who actually started the project; as a railroad enthusiast, he wrote a script with a similar theme titled Train d'Enfer, which was to be directed by Jean Grémillon. Unhappy with Grémillon, Gabin turned to Renoir, with whom he had worked a year earlier on Grand Illusion, often considered one of the greatest films ever made. Renoir instead suggested that the railroad themes be explored through an adaptation of Zola's novel. This collaborative origin explains much about the film's particular character—the marriage of Gabin's genuine enthusiasm for railway culture with Renoir's sophisticated visual sensibility.

La Bête Humaine looks at the same time like a hopelessly outdated film and a film ahead of its time. Its modernity can be observed in its somewhat unusual structure and stylistic experiments. The beginning, which features a very explicit homage to Zola and his text, is followed by semi-documentary scenes made with the help of the French state railway company SNCF depicting everyday operations of its trains and long scenes of rail travel. Gabin, in order to be as realistic as possible, even underwent crash training for locomotive drivers. These passages possess an authenticity that grounds the more melodramatic elements of the narrative in recognisable reality.

The film also shows a rather brave treatment of sexuality, with characters, especially Pecqueux, openly discussing infidelities, children born out of wedlock, and promiscuous lifestyles. The scene in which Lantier, taken by his seizure, nearly strangles an old childhood friend Flore (played by Blanchette Brunoy) looks incredibly raw and impossible to imagine in Hollywood films at the time, burdened as they were by the Hays Code. This frankness about human desire and violence places La Bête Humaine firmly within the European art cinema tradition, where adult themes could be explored without the moralistic restrictions imposed by American studios.

The acting is, as one might expect, top notch, with Gabin bravely depicting one of the darker characters of his career—a crazed murderer plagued by inherited madness. He has decent chemistry with Simone Simon, who would later have a prominent role in the Hollywood B-classic Cat People. However, it is Fernand Ledoux who delivers the more impressive job as a husband whose murderous actions are motivated by palpable jealousy, greed, and frustration over his low social standing. The themes of class are also briefly touched upon through the character of Cabuche, a man with a checkered past wrongly accused of murder, played by Renoir himself.

Yet, when it comes to plot resolution, the film turns strangely melodramatic. Much of its flaws have to do with the music score by Joseph Kosma, which is used at the wrong places, making the film feel disjointed. The heavy-handed scoring in certain pivotal scenes undermines the naturalistic tone that Renoir otherwise carefully cultivates.

La Bête Humaine, although far from Renoir's classics, is a good film that should be recommended to fans of Jean Gabin and interwar French cinema. Yet it is a film frustratingly short of its proper potential; if made a decade later, it would have looked very much like a film noir, and this is exactly the route taken by Fritz Lang in his 1954 Hollywood remake Human Desire, starring Glenn Ford. Renoir's version remains a fascinating document of its time—caught between the poetic realism of 1930s French cinema and the darker psychological territories that postwar cinema would explore more fully.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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