Slacker Fest: Boudu Saved From Drowning

It’s always the film I’ve never heard of that breaks the project open

Welcome to Slacker Fest, where we document our research and analysis of mass media’s “slacker” archetype, part of our effort to broaden the genre with a slacker film of our own.  Find our master list of entries here. Previous entry: Clerks (I, II and III)

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We’re throwing it back for this one!  Hat tip to

Risa Mickenberg, Editor

for making me aware of this, the OG slacker film before the genre even existed.  It’s a relatively simple movie, yet one that has dramatically opened my mind to possibilities for what our own slacker film will be.  It’s a testament to how old movies can still contain variations and themes that feel fresh and exciting almost a century later. 

The basics

Release year:  1932

Premise:  A Parisian street tramp tries to end his life by jumping into the Seine river but is saved and taken in by a “benefactor” who sets to reform him into a model bourgeois citizen.

Auteur: Jean Renoir, the first filmmaker to be labeled an “auteur” and still one of the all-time greats.   The few other films of his I’ve seen all have a calming “day at the park” kind of leisurely feel to them.   Not exactly slacker, but nonetheless a nice antidote to work-humper brain. 

Notable characters:

• Boudu, the tramp and, for our purposes, “slacker.” 

• Eduoard Lestingois, the benefactor.  Someone who, whether he ultimately means well or not, has a penchant for performing comfortable martyrdom and self-congratulating as he does it.

• Emma, Eduoard’s wife who despises Boudu yet deep down has the hots for him. (This is revealed in a rape-turned-love scene. Yikes!)

• Chloe Anne Marie, the housemaid, Eduard’s concubine, and Boudu’s bride once he becomes fully “tamed.”

Meet the slacker:  Boudu

If we’re being picky, I’m not sure “slacker” is the most accurate term to describe Boudu (even if he doesn’t display great work ethic).  He’s more of a brute, a “force of nature” who isn’t used to living in polite society.  We can still treat him as part of the archetype–a (non-violent, mostly harmless) outsider who is unconcerned or unengaged with the rules of his society.  

My favorite trait of his, contrasted with other slacker characters, is his abrasiveness.  Your typical slacker may flake on you, but they’re funny and even pleasant to be around.  Boudu is a menace who complains about his host’s cooking, spits out their wine, and cucks his own benefactor with both his wife AND his mistress.  He’s the very picture of ungratefulness (or, you could say, self-respect in his refusal to kow-tow), annihilating society’s expectation for how the destitute are supposed to behave toward those “helping” them.

Did Renoir strike a nerve with this subversion?  Police had to be called to several screenings to quell audience riots.  That’s how you know you’ve got an innovative character archetype.  

His world: affluent, polite Paris

Boudu’s world doesn’t hump work like American-fare slacker film settings, but it does hump status through social signaling, and humps it hard.  As the Lestingois try to reform Boudu, they emphasize things like dress, a proper shave, and shining your shoes before you go out in the street.  It’s a world that, even if it doesn’t work people  to the bone, is spiritually exhausting enough to drive Boudu “back to the waters” of his old life. 

(The literal translation of the French title is “Boudu Saved from the Waters,” which I find more evocative–it makes me think of “less evolved” life forms emerging from water to land)  

Another fascinating wrinkle:  when this world pressures slackers to conform, it doesn’t bully and insult them a-la Clerks.  It takes on the soothing voice of a savior and calls it altruism to raise its own status (note how the minute Edouard saves Boudu, his friends are running to secure him an award for his valor).  This condescending, hypocritical dynamic rings true today, and I love that this film puts it on blast.

What does our slacker want and what’s in the way? (defining desire vs. opposing force)

Hard to say.  He starts the film attempting suicide after losing his dog, but minutes after he’s saved he seems happy to milk his benefactors for a comfortable life.  Yet after achieving that, he capsizes a boat at his own wedding and escapes back to life as a beggar.  This could be one of those “he wanted what he had all along” tales. 

Either way, Boudu isn’t meant to be a deep character study and Robert McKee wasn’t yet around to browbeat writers, so it’s possible Renoir didn’t give Boudu a consistent desire.  If I had to guess at one,  it’d be the freedom and comfort of not having to bend to other’s expectations, his suicide attempt a momentary lapse of grief and, ironically, ungratefulness for the the joys he enjoyed as a tramp.  

How does the film define a “slacker” in broader terms?

Someone who doesn’t care to understand or navigate the unspoken rules of social etiquette and niceties.  In extreme cases like Boudu’s, someone boorish and menacing to polite society.

While slackers in this world aren’t industrious (Boudu is a terrible bookstore worker), neither are non-slackers (seems like a great world in that sense), so “laziness” is NOT core to Boudu’s definition of a slacker.   

Could anyone other than a White dude pull off slacking in this story world?

No.  Not only are the film’s women absolutely prisoner to expectations of social etiquette, they also seem to do all of the actual work. Chloe’s always doing housework, and Emma actually tries to run the bookshop while Edouard gives away books.  This is a film from the 1930’s, and it has bigger issues anyway (read: rape-turned-desire moments).  Let’s move on.

Does the film “approve” of slacking?  Is it a broader anti-job statement? 

I don’t think it approves or disapproves.  It just shows two different worldviews clashing and going back their separate ways without overtly romanticizing or condemning either.

On the one hand, it’s hard to see it as endorsing Boudu’s way of life: he did try to kill himself, after all, and he’s not exactly an aspirational character otherwise.  It also mocks Boudu’s benefactors, but doesn’t fully caricature them into full-blown villains.  Edouard, Emma, and Chloe are highly hypocritical and self-indulgent, but you get a sense that deep down they mean well and are doing the best they can.  

My kind of film: no heroes or villains, just flawed humans.   

What does the film see as “the enemy” in broader terms?

Given the above, I’d say the folly of trying to force your way of life on others, especially through “generosity” or “manipulative charity.” This 1930’s slapstick film is an unexpected ancestor to critics of capitalist philanthropy.  

It also goofs a TON on bourgeois etiquette, so if you want to count that as its enemy, I won’t argue with you.  

Walt Wiltman’s favorite line

Matthew McConaughey’s work-humper take

“Time to step up and take the leap, amigo!  Remember, this is YOUR life.  No one else’s.  So it's high time you start livin' it the way YOU damn well please.  No more settling.  You know there’s MORE for you–romance, wealth, respect–and let me tell ya, it's all waiting just beyond that leap.

Hold up, hold up!  Boudu, what IN THE WORLD are you doin' in that river?  Mon frère, I was speaking metaphorically! The leap I'm talkin' about is paying me a few thousand bucks and, you know, learnin’ some power poses and affirmations and shit like that.  Someone get this guy a towel.”

Are there any slacker-like innovations in the technique of the film itself?

Plot / Setting

Cinematography / Camera use / Color / Mise-en-scéne 

Editing / Pacing

Sound/Music

I can’t overemphasize how exciting I find the archetype of an “aggressively ungrateful” slacker–someone who actively pokes their finger in workhumpers’ eyes.  There’s a tiny bit of that in Cheech and Chong, but Boudu took it to level 11.  

Beyond that, the film’s use of telephoto shots stuck out to me, especially given how old this movie is.  It’s not really a “slacker” technique.  The opposite, actually…it gives shots a more serious, documentary, and tragic feel.  Within a movie that’s a goofy comedy, there were certain moments (right before Boudu attempts suicide, the boating accident at the end) where Renoir seemed to want a little more gravity and  empathy.  It’s useful to note that telephoto shots are how he achieved it.

What would I want to keep for our slacker film?  What do I want to leave behind or improve?

I already wanted our slacker to be someone who society would never tolerate slacking.  After watching Boudu, I know I want her (yes, looks like it’s going to be a “her”...I’m excited to share a treatment with you soon!) to, on top, act unapologetic to the point of being borderline unlikeable.  I read about the reactions to Renoir’s film and thought:  “my version of an Oscar is riots at the premiere.”

I also think the film’s “problematic benefactor” dynamic is relevant today, not to mention a very useful way to structure the story.  A lot of slacker films forego traditional protagonist-antagonist confrontations, but I think that A) I’m too attached to that structure/chickenshit to let it go, and B) we’re primed and due for a new exploration of this type of relationship.  

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When I research for screenwriting, it’s always the unexpected movie I’ve never heard of and didn’t plan to watch that breaks the whole project open for me.  I’m very happy that Boudu cannonballed into my watch list.  

Next entry: Friday