the Falma-film company, Fondane was received with honors by the Romanian Argentine community, and, with the unusual cut of his preferred suit, is said to have even become a trendsetter in local fashion. For Ocampo and the Sur staff, literary historian Rosalie Sitman notes, his visit also meant an occasion to defy the xenophobic and antisemitic agenda of Argentine nationalist circles. Centered on the tango, Fondane's film enlisted contributions from some leading figures in several national film and music industries, having Miguel Machinandiarena as producer and John Alton as editor; in starred, among others, Orestes Caviglia, Miguel Gómez Bao and Iris Marga. The manner in which Tararira approached its subject scandalized the Argentine public, and it was eventually rejected by its distributors (no copies survive, but writer Gloria Alcorta, who was present at a private screening, rated it a "masterpiece"). Fondane, who had earlier complained about the actors' resistance to his ideas, left Argentina before the film was actually finished. It was on his return trip that he met Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, with whom he and Geneviève became good friends. With the money received in Buenos Aires, the writer contemplated returning on a visit to Romania, but he abandoned all such projects later in 1936, instead making his way to France. He followed up on his publishing activity in 1937, when his selected poems, Titanic, saw print. Encouraged by the reception given to Rimbaud le voyou, he published two more essays with Denoël & Steele: La Conscience malheureuse ("The Unhappy Consciousness", 1937) and Faux traité d'esthétique ("False Treatise of Aesthetics", 1938). In 1938, he was working on a collected edition of his Ferestre spre Europa, supposed to be published in Bucharest but never actually seeing print. At around that date, Fondane was also a presenter for the Romanian edition of 20th Century Fox's international newsreel, Movietone News. In 1939, Fondane was naturalized French. This followed an independent initiative of the Société des écrivains français professional association, in recognition for his contribution to French letters. Cahiers du Sud collected the required 3,000 francs fee through a public subscription, enlisting particularly large contributions from music producer Renaud de Jouvenel (brother of Bertrand de Jouvenel) and philosopher-ethnologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Only months after this event, with the outbreak of World War II, Fondane was drafted into the French Army. During most of the "Phoney War" interval, considered too old for active service, he