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
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“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)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)