Reception
The film was first screened on April 7, 1933 in Paris. The premiere shocked many audience members, who hissed and booed Vigo. Other audience members, most notably Jacques Prevert, loudly clapped.
French film critics were strongly divided about the film. Some called it "simply ridiculous" and compared it to "lavatory flushing", while others praised its "fiery daring" and called Vigo "the Céline of the cinema." the film's most vocal critics included a French Catholic journal, which called it a scatological work by "an obsessed maniac." Zero for Conduct was quickly banned in France, with some believing that the French Ministry of the Interior considered it in treat of "creating disturbances and hindering the maintenance of order."
Read more about this topic: Zero For Conduct
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“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
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