L'age D'or du Film Muet (1915-1928) Pt. 13

Part 13 of a 13 part series on the history of French cinema. This episode profiles the ‘Golden age of silent film’ and the incursion of Avant-Garde and Art Deco aesthetics in feature films. During WWI, European cinema (and particularly the houses of Gaumont, Pathe and L’Eclair) endures a reversal of fortune under both the economic and stylistic pressure of the USA. Melies has sold his studio, star Max Linder is seeking fortune in the USA. French cinema is stagnant and unable to extract itself from the theatrical stylistics of the ‘film d’art’ (literary adaptations), while the U.S. are holding audiences captive with weekly deliveries of adventure and comic serials. During the Roaring Twenties, French cinema renews itself entirely through its first avant-garde movement (expressionism) and second avant-garde (surrealism). Influenced by D.W. Griffiths’ ‘Broken Blossoms’(1919), Delluc sought in his own films to convey, through editing, the motions of human psychology, and to this end developed the flashback technique in ‘La femme de nulle part’ (1922). The innovations in film technique which resulted from impressionists’ desire to evoke human subjectivity included close-ups, camera movements, rapid editing, flashbacks and subjective point-of-view shots. Marcel L’Herbier ‘El Dorado’ (1921) features ‘semi-subjective’ sequences to express a character’s psychological state. Rhythmic cutting to express a drunken or unstable state of mind, first evident in Abel Gance’s ‘La roue’ (1922) and subsequently in Jean Epstein’s ‘Coeur fidele’ (1923) was perhaps the technique most linked to the movement.” (1) Influenced by the Avant-Garde and the Art Deco style, Marcel L’Herbier directs two major projects in the 1920s: ‘L’inhumaine’ (1924), starring Brigitte Helm, for which he assembled the most brilliant artists of his time: Robert Mallet-Stevens, Fernand Leger, Paul Poiret, Darius Milhaud; and ‘L’argent’ (1929)[NLA #0678050] in which L’Herbier directs fascinating experiments with camera mobility. This episode profiles ‘Crainquebille’ (1923), directed by Jacques Feyder, a dramatic tale set in popular Paris and prefiguring ‘Poetic realism’. Also featured, Abel Gance’s early science-fiction serials ‘La folie du Docteur Tube’ (1915) [NLA #2108421], ‘La roue’ and his anti-war film ‘J’accuse’(1937). Reference: (1) Guy Austin. ‘Contemporary French cinema’. Manchester University Press, 1996. Further reading: Richard Abel. “French cinema: the first wave, 1915-1929”. Princeton University Press, 1984. N.b. Best viewed as part 2 of the series.

Credits: Director, Armand Panigel ; photography, Claude Cassard.
Interviewees include: Abel Gance, Marcel L’Herbier, Rene Clair, Jacques Feyder.