Reception
The film premiered at Paris’s Madeleine Cinema on December 4, 1942 and was one of the biggest film events during the war. It was called "the grandest film of the Occupation." One of the reasons that the film was such a huge success was due to murmuring before the film was released that the film was an allegory for the current situation. Many people saw the character of the Devil as representing Hitler and the continued beating hearts of the lovers as representing France living under German rule, but not giving up hope. Carné maintained until his death that the film was not an intentional allegory for the war and that any relationship was purely unconscious.
Read more about this topic: Les Visiteurs Du Soir
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)