|
|
French films Drama
|
In this early short film, Georges Méliès uses his extraordinary range of talents to create a work of art which is both entertaining and, for its time, a huge technical achievement. This is Méliès’ first attempt at making a film with the narrative structure of a play and should be considered as the earliest example of the kind of plotted film we are familiar...
[More...]
|
|
L’Assassinat du duc de Guise is a film of immense historic importance. One of the first films to use the narrative form, it proved to be an immense international success for its production company, Film d’Art, and, by dint of its popularity, helped to propel cinema from its early pioneering endeavours into a respectable and commercially viable industry...
[More...]
|
|
As artistic director of the Gaumont film company, Louis Feuillade was keen to capitalise on the success of the Fantômas series of novels, written by Pierre Souvestre et Marcel Allain. These novels were a world-wide phenomenon in their day, their readership extending far beyond France, with 32 complete novels published between 1910 and Souvestre’s death on the eve of World War...
[More...]
|
|
After the huge success of the Fantômas serial between 1913 and 1914, Gaumont were more than eager to produce another serial, mainly to fend off competition from the rival French film company Pathé (which had just acquired the rights to an American serial, Les Mystères de New York). Louis Feuillade delivered a crime serial in a similar vein...
[More...]
|
|
El Dorado was one of first popular successes for the avant-garde French director Marcel L’Herbier, who went on to make some of the finest films of the silent era (most famously his 1929 masterpiece, L’Argent). Despite its comparative obscurity, El Dorado is a mesmerising work and ought to be considered as one of the best examples of early French cinema...
[More...]
|
|
Jean Renoir, one of the greatest figures in French cinema, began his film-making career with this poignant little melodrama, an obscure film which deserves wider appreciation. Renoir’s multiple talents are revealed by the fact that not only did he co-direct the film, with Albert Dieudonné, but he also co-authored the script and produced it (with money inherited from his father’s...
[More...]
|
|
Although much has been written about L'Inhumaine's status as a showcase for 1920s avant garde art, this is true primarily for only the first half of the film. In reality, L'Inhumaine could be said to be two films in one, somewhat clumsily joined at the hip. The first half is indeed something of an artistic canvas which seemingly flaunts Cubist set design for its own sake...
[More...]
|
|
Jean Renoir’s first full length film, La Fille de l’eau, is an improbable yet compelling melange of melodrama, neo-realism, farce and surrealism. Although the film oscillates from one extreme to the other, between high drama and light comedy, between naturalistic and highly stylised photography, it manages to captivate its audience with its typically Renoir-esque blend of romantic...
[More...]
|
|
Of the numerous film adaptations of Victor Hugo’s celebrated work, Henri Fescourt’s four and a half hour epic is reputed to be the finest, remaining doggedly faithful to the original novel in terms of both content and atmosphere. The film is divided into four parts: (1) L’Évasion de Jean Valjean...
[More...]
|
|
The 1925 version of Poil de carotte was Julien Duvivier’s first notable success. Although less well-known and far less regarded than his subsequent sound films of the 1930s and ’40s, this, the finest of Duvivier’s silent films, reveals a young filmmaker of immense talent and is a work of acute poetry and poignancy. The darker aspects that we see in the director's later films...
[More...]
|
|
Jean Renoir’s second full-length film is this lavish and fairly faithful adaptation of Emile Zola’s classic novel, Nana. The film’s extravagances include spacious, overly decorated sets and two magnificent set pieces – a horse race and an open air ball (complete with a stunningly choreographed cancan sequence)...
[More...]
|
|
Despite its comparative obscurity, Le Joueur d’échecs is one of the great cinematic achievements of the silent era, a sumptuous blend of historical wartime epic, romantic fantasy and farce. Its awesome scale and breathtaking cinematographic innovation (including some daring use of superposition and hand-held camerawork) call to mind another great film of this period...
[More...]
|
|
One of the most ambitious films in cinema history, Abel Gance’s epic six-hour long Napoléon is both a stunningly visual work of cinema and a poetically beautiful telling of the life of France’s most famous general. The film was originally to have been made as a six-part series about the full life of Napoléon...
[More...]
|
|
Marcel L’Herbier’s L’Argent is now universally regarded as one of the true great masterpieces of the silent era of film, although this has not always been the case. Up until the 1970s, the film was largely overlooked and it was only after its full restoration in that decade that the film was accorded its current status as a major classic...
[More...]
|
|
For many film enthusiasts, Jean Epstein’s La chute de la maison Usher represents the pinnacle of artistic achievement in European cinema of the 1920s. Epstein was already an accomplished film-maker by the time he came to make this film, having distinguished himself for his bold experimental techniques in such films as La Glace à trois faces (1927)...
[More...]
|
|
Unquestionably the best film version of the Joan of Arc story ever made. A masterpiece of visual poetry which captures not just the brutality of Joan’s betrayal and sacrifice,...
[More...]
|
|
1928 was a year of optimism in Europe. Ten years after the end of the First World War, the spirit of Franco-German reconciliation was in the air and both countries were looking forward to a future of peace and prosperity. As part of the tenth anniversary celebration of the signing of the 1918 Armistice, a series of films were commissioned...
[More...]
|
|
The last of the great super-productions of the silent era, Henri Fescourt’s Monte Cristo is easily one of cinema’s best, if not the best, adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ celebrated novel. The artistic quality and scale of the film are breathtaking: this is the silent film at its most ambitious, most perfect...
[More...]
|
|
This is Jean Cocteau’s first full-length film and his most abstract, showing a strong influence from Dali and Bunuel. His intention was to explore the inner self of a poet, to portray the torment of a soul torn between the search for artistic fulfilment and the pressures and artifices of an external reality. Despite the primitiveness of the film making...
[More...]
|
|
Prix de beauté was one of the last silent masterpieces, directed by Augusto Genina and scripted by René Clair (himself a great director). Released at a time when sound films were becoming the norm, this film was largely overlooked and has only comparatively recently received the attention it deserves. The film stars Louise Brooks in the role of the eponymous tragic femme fatale...
[More...]
|
© filmsdefrance.com 2009