Docteur Laennec

Most medical bio-pics I have seen tend to focus on the banal scientific aspects which usually don't lend themselves to engaging film or theatre. This picture focuses mostly on Dr.Laennec as an inwardly passionate but outwardly detached person. The inventor of the all-important stethoscope is followed from his early medical career to the end of his life. Since his biggest efforts were battling against a veritable plague of tuberculosis, much of the film is steeped in dusty, phlegm producing, agonising death. Don't expect a bright uplifting picture but do expect a fascinating character study of a man driven hard to find a cure to a deadly disease. I noticed that the lighting and camera work were particularly striking for a medical bio-pic and was not surprised to later find out that it was lensed by master cinematographer Claude Renoir, relative of the great Jean Renoir. Lighting in this film was very similar to his CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. One impressive scene involves a slow deliberate tracking shot into the chest area of a marble Christ figure on a large crucifix as Dr.Laennec contemplates the source of horrific lung disease.

Maurice Cloche 's precedent movie, was "Monsieur Vincent ",a movie about the life of Saint Vincent De Paul ,who spent his life helping the poor and the sick : "Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." (see Matthew 25: 34-40).

It was only natural that Cloche's next movie was devoted to another great man ,Doctor Laennec ;Pierre Blanchar who portrayed him had always a tendency to grandiloquence but here the movie did not suffer for it. His overacting made wonders in Duvivier 's 'un carnet de bal", Raymond Bernard's "le coupable" and the based-on-Russian -works such as "la dame de pique" and "crime et châtiment".

As Laennec was a religious man, the recurring picture with big crucifix are relevant ;the biopic anyway verges to hagiography but it does not overshadow the experimental ,scientific side of the story ; it's true that it's children's playing who leads to his great discovery he called the "pectoriloque" ,the stethoscope which was to become the distinguishing feature of the thespian; it was then a simple paper roll tied by a string,but it paved a reliable way to the treatment of tuberculosis .

Le film does not pass over in silence his colleagues ' opposition ;the mime show in front of the doctor himself echoes to one of the first scene showing a charlatan ,yelling on his stage ;Maurice Cloche's directing is better than his generally bad reputation ; when he learns -a thing he already knew- he is terminally-ill from a colleague ,he becomes obsessed by time left to him (I've got to hurry) : the next picture is a clock ; clocks become omnipresent on the pictures and sometimes a ticking is heard.

"Monsieur Vincent " and "Docteur Laennec " can be considered Cloche's best ;his adaptation of Alphonse Daudet's "le petit chose" is not bad either;