"She wasn't white enough for a white audience in the U.S. and she wasn't black enough for a black audience in the U.S.; However, the French adored her - and made her a star." - Professor Michele Wallace on Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker's career could (and in fact has) fill volumes of dissertations and hours of videotape and film. Beginning as a dancer, who often appears topless - or completely in the nude, she also sings for audiences. She is considered a burlesque artist. She becomes an actress and a performer. But being African/American, her career is stalled in the U.S. It is only abroad, in the less confined arena of Europe - and in particular France (which will becomes a haven for African/American art-forms), that she becomes a success. Known for her body more than her face, Baker becomes a sensation in the theater as an all-around entertainer. It is only a matter of time before she will more to the medium of film. But an acceptable forum for bringing her stage presence to film must be found. Hence, "Zou Zou," a film which succeeds in trying to incorporate her physique, her dancing skills, her singing voice, her acting talent, her comedic ability, her charm, and perhaps most importantly, her ethnic differences, into a whole which will be represented upon the silver screen. It is Baker's first talkie.

The film "Zou Zou," directed by Marc Allagret, begins in a world of the unknown, the circus. In this case, the even more alien world of the freak show. Zou Zou, who will be played as an adult by Baker, is shown as a child. Already set up by the film to be a curiosity, a freak, the unnamed youngster playing Zou Zou is introduced by young boys in the film. They spy on her through a window. The first thing said about her on film is, "She looks strange." Zou Zou is introduced to the audience by her surrogate father, the carnival barker (Pierre LaQuey), as a curiosity.

This is where the film also introduces Jean (who will be played as an adult by Jean Gabin) as Zou Zou's surrogate brother and protector. We are told that the light/dark duo are twins. This is what makes them a curiosity. Already, albeit very subtly, Jean is shown as Zou Zou's hero. He has obviously fought with the boys who have spied on her because he has a bloody nose and he taunts the bullies in the audience who are now spying on the both of them in this public arena. Gabin will appear in following scenes in a romantic tangent to Baker but he will consistently rebuke these notions by invoking the incest taboo, even though it is shown, quite convincingly, in the story that he and Baker are indeed not really siblings. We wonder if Gabin's real problem with his feelings for Zou Zou are racial, not familial. Gabin is a charmer and a womanizer. Yet he will not allow Baker into this side of him. Throughout the film he remains illusive to her burgeoning love for him. He will remain her protector until he finds his own real love (in a very white, very blonde woman), and leaves her utterly alone. The film has a sad ending.

Zou Zou is shown, as a child, to be concerned about her "otherness." She powders her face white in order to lighten it, to be more like Gabin (and the other character's in her circle). She is, of course, immediately admonished for this. Oddly, we are not made to believe Baker is African. She is referred to as half Chinese, half Indian. Soon, Baker's true adult image is evoked by a native girl (not African necessarily but certainly not white) dancing topless on a lake-side. This recalls Baker's earlier image in French entertainment. Again, a character must comment on this racial difference. Another white woman must comment, viewing this native exuberance, "They're born dancing, that's for sure." Some view this, in today's context, as a love for the exotic, the more pure, the more open. Europe is still recovering from the harsh realities of WWI. There is a inclination in French culture to admire the more relaxed attitudes of those who have not become so industrialized, so constrained - those who are still "primitive." Is this an admiration of the more pure embodiment of human existence or is it racial? Is it a combination of the two? Regardless of this debate, this love of the primitive is also surely what lead to Baker's success in France in the first place. She is seen as the primitive ingenue. By the time this film is made, however, she has been assimilated. She walks about in both the blue collar French dress and in the height of French fashion. We wonder which aspect of Baker is more alluring to the French male of the time, the native or the assimilated?

The film moves slowly towards being an image of an American film, the musical. After all, this is the most obvious arena in which to depict Baker. In the end, it will be the most common of the musical sub-genre, the backstage musical. Oddly this is based on a novel by G. Albatino (who also serves as a Artistic Director on the film - though his book is adapted by Carlo Rim). One seems sure that, the plot must be changed massively to fit Baker into it. Albatino's novel is surely only the source of all the backstage plot twists and not the racial discourse.

Baker is shown from the beginning to have musical and theatrical qualities. She mimics her surrogate father and plays the baker at a circus to entertain a youngster. She also sings and plays a musical instrument for her. Later, shown in a more realistic setting - at work, she delights in gossiping with her co-workers, with whom she fits in easily, about the theater where her brother Jean works. The gossip is also work-related for the girls at the laundry do the washing for this same theater. Baker is shown, in a wonderful use of editing by Allagret, mimicking the star of the show, the blonde and pure white Miss Barbara (Illa Meery). Allagret cuts back and forth between the two diverse images with Baker alive and full of emotion while Meery is simply going through the motions. We already know where Baker will be in the final reel. She will be the star of the stage. We are not proved wrong. Baker will become an "overnight success" and this will lead us into a succession of "Hollywood"-like production numbers. But oddly, Zou Zou will not aspire to these things until a turn of events involving Gabin force her to do so. She seems to have no aspirations of being a singer and star until her surrogate father dies and Gabin is wrongly convicted of a crime. Zou Zou becomes a performer for the money. Her disinterest in this arena is further shown when she disappears briefly, on opening night, to go to the police and prove Gabin's innocence. Somehow or other she makes it back for the finale and becomes a huge star. While she does all of this for her love for Gabin, in the end that will not matter. By the end of the film she will still be a star but she will not perform because she wants to. She performs because it is all she has left.

Baker is unique in the film - no one looks or acts like her. The film tries to spotlight her comic abilities but usually looks silly when doing so. Her charm, however, carries her through most of these early trappings. She is shown bringing a stray puppy home. Are we to assume that this is why she also "takes in" the female Claire (Yvette LeBon), and introduces her to her brother Jean? Later Baker's physique is shown off quite nicely when she visits lighting technician Jean backstage. Her body is shown both forthrightly and in shadows. Allagret spends a long time allowing the camera to soak up all of this physical beauty. Those in the audience who came to gawk at Baker's marvellous form will not be disappointed. Finally, Baker is shown in her true element, singing wonderful "pop" songs of the era. Sexy, alluring, and talented, she seems an odd mix of both Mae West and Marilyn Monroe. She seems in control and yet hopeless. She cuts much further as a tragic figure, in the end, because of this. Where Monroe was designed to be victimized it seems, Baker appears to have the ability to stand up for herself. She is airy, light, natural and real. When she finally is victimized, it seems all the more disheartening.

Finally, some discussion must be made of Allagret's Busby Berkely-like production numbers in the film's closing moments. Many of these harken to Hollywood musicals. The first of these contains an oversized set with a bed and a telephone as prominent props. The dancers often wear flowing wraps which move nicely through the air. But as often as not, this sequence seems as rudimentary as it does professional. A later sequence involving cascading water (such movement!) is more to our liking. We've never seen anything quite like these before or since. It looks dazzling, as long as one doesn't remember that this is supposedly happening on a theater stage. It's too wide and too technical to actually be happening there. Finally, Baker appears in a bird cage where she sings a song about Haiti (her supposed home?) and shows off her wide vocal range. It is also here where the film will leave her in it's sad ending. Baker will be seen alone, nearly naked, and caged. Her lost love has left her here with only the song in her heart to sustain her. She is back to being a mere curiosity. In a happier moment, when her love for Gabin is still alive, she shares a screen with numerous white men and sings a wonderfully alive "pop" song about her man. It is a high point in the film and Allagret film's Baker lovingly within it.

"Zou Zou" is an interesting film without a doubt. But without it's star, it may have disappeared into obscurity over the years. It's plot trappings, of wrongly accused lovers, backstage strife, cheating ingenues and a star who will leave the stage to save "her man" is quite ridiculous. It is only in the way the film treats Baker that we find any interest in the cinematics or the script. And it is Baker herself who sustains the film. Her charm is still alive within the frames of this picture. Watching her, we understand the attraction without question.

Note:

In French with subtitles, which sometimes do not translate all dialogue and all lyrics, and with one scene in sparse English.

Also with Palau and Madeline Guitty. Musical numbers by Van Parys-Scott and Al Romans. Photographed by Michel Kebler.

Marc Allagret directed several films in France, the U.S., England and Canada during his career.

The film was quite successful in France but, like Baker, was virtually ignored in the U.S.

Baker came to American around this time with the Ziegfeld Follies, where she sang French songs. She was not well received.

Also with Baker "The French Way (1952)," where her famous "feather dance" is edited to not show her nude; and "Princess Tam Tam (1935)."

Review written in 1996

More of Lodger's reviews indexed alphabetically! Just click your favorite letter to go there.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

HOME

In Association with:

Posters From!

Get your Movies

Please Visit