Word: delannoy
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Miracle look artless and crude. Director Jean (Symphonic Pastorale) Delannoy can also take credit for the rare cinematic feat of evoking deep religious feeling without sugar & molasses. His constant perception of the story's human values, and Actor Fresnay's superbly sensitive playing make God Needs Men the best foreign-language film to reach the U.S. in at least a year...
However, what has been unavoidably 'lost' in the filming is greatly outbalanced by the production of Jean Delannoy, the director and adaptor. M. Dellannoy is also producer of the Cocteau films, and like them, he has furnished this one with an excellent score by George Aurie...
Symphonie Pastorale (Jean Delannoy) is a subtle, emotionally complex story about a blind orphan (Michele Morgan) and a married Swiss pastor (Pierre Blanchar) who shelters, schools and raises her from a little wild animal into a lovely young woman. The pastor is the last to realize that his fatherly affection is really only a thin disguise for a lover's jealous passion. His wife (Line Noro) is a bitter, knowing onlooker. Just to complicate things, his son (Jean Desailly) also falls in love, but quite openly, with the girl...
Action-hungry U.S. cinemagoers may get restless waiting for the climax. As a matter of fact, the picture drags on too long after its climax, frittering away the power it has built up. Despite these shortcomings, Director and Co-Adaptor Jean Delannoy has a picture that he can be proud of. Against the crisp beauty of Alpine backgrounds, caught with a sharp pictorial eye, he has also caught the sorrow and frustration of the picture's real setting-the shadowy corners of the human heart...
Though the film is directed by Jean Delannoy, it is generally agreed that the quality is Cocteau's. It is a beautifully composed picture; the photography and lighting is not tricky and weird, as might be expected, but soft and strangely caressing; the music is once again by Georges Auric and is most appropriate, the best than can be said of any film score...