Film Review
Louis Feuillade had achieved considerable fame and commercial success through
his groundbreaking crime serials
Fantômas
(1913) and
Les Vampires (1915),
but he also attracted some pretty harsh criticism from rightwing commentators
for his apparent glorification of criminals. His response to this was
to deliver another serial in which the central character is a good guy -
one who is almost the exact mirror image of the sadistic crime lord Fantômas,
a champion of justice rather than an angel of destruction.
Judex
(the title derives from the Latin word for
judge) was to be Feuillade's
biggest hit and its staggering popularity on both sides of the Atlantic led
the director (somewhat against his will) to make a sequel,
La Nouvelle
Mission de Judex (1917). In 1934, Feuillade's son-in-law Maurice
Champreux directed a sound remake of the film, and then in 1963 Georges Franju
helmed a
further remake, scripted by Champreux's
own son, Jacques.
It was typical of Louis Feuillade's bravado to embark on the making of a
five-hour long adventure film in the midst of the most tumultuous event of
his lifetime, the First World War. The scarcity of resources (film
for commercial use would soon be strictly rationed in France) and galloping
inflation did not dent Feuillade's enthusiasm, and he overcame the problem
of escalating fuel prices by filming the latter episodes of the serial on
the sun-drenched Côte d'Azur. Gaumont was one of the few film
production companies in Europe that was still holding its own against the
onslaught from the burgeoning film industry in America. The studio
shot itself in the foot, however, by delaying the release of
Judex
for a few months (through fears of being labelled anti-patriotic), allowing
a similar American film (Louis J. Gasnier's
The Shielding Shadow)
to steal some of its thunder.
Feuillade's impact as a trailblazer in the early days of cinema exploitation
is so apparent that it hardly needs to be dwelt upon, but
Judex, his
most influential film, is in a league of its own. With his wide-brimmed
hat and flowing black cape, Judex (or Jacques de Tremeuse, to give him his
real name) has an iconic silhouette, which was apparently inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec's
famous portrait of the cabaret singer Aristide Bruant. Memorably portrayed
by the dashing René Cresté as a cool but resolute defender
of widows and orphans, Judex was cinema's first great action hero, and an
obvious precursor to all those superheroes that started flooding the pages
of pulp fiction and comicbooks from the 1930s onwards. By virtue of
his distinctive garb and the fact that he inhabits a subterranean lair packed
with all manner of scientific paraphernalia, assisted by a helpful sidekick
and a penchant for disguise, Judex appears to be Batman in all but name, and like his
more outlandish successors, he is driven to punish wrongdoers by an unwavering
faith in his moral superiority.
But Judex most definitely isn't Batman, or any other superhero you care to
mention. He has no special powers, nor are his moral certainties as
solid as they first appear. The purpose of the film is to convince
us that moral certainties are both illusory and dangerous, certainly no basis
for a rational and humane system of justice. Someone who believes he
has a right to dish out punishment, however well-meaning, is as morally questionable
as the villains he persecutes, and Feuillade prompts us to question whether
any one individual can have the right to sit in judgement over another. Chastisement
for wrong-doings is nothing more than retribution, a crime answering another
crime, whereas the morally superior course is to bring about atonement and
redemption through forgiveness. Judex's career as an avenging angel
is pretty well over by the time he has captured the villainous banker Favraux
and begins to inflict on him a punishment that soon eats away at his own
moral authority. Judex's realisation that he is himself a criminal
and has no right to torment others, let alone judge them, makes him the most
fascinating and ambiguous character in Feuillade's entire oeuvre. Far
from being just another adventure serial what the director delivers this
time is a cogent morality play on the limits of justice and the futility
of revenge.
Judex is also a highly enjoyable piece of entertainment, its multiple
plot strands (including extended flashbacks) easily sustaining the audience's
attention with numerous surprising twists and a colourful ensemble of characters
played by some very capable actors. René Cresté was a virtual
unknown before Feuillade gave him the role that would make him an international
star. As well as the mysterious cloaked vigilante Judex, Cresté has
to play two other characters - the bent old secretary Vallières and
the morally conflicted Jacques de Tremeuse. The ease with which he
delineates these very different individuals marks him out as a formidable
screen talent. After starring in several other Feuillade serials and
features - notably
Tih Minh (1918)
and
Vendémiaire (1918) - Cresté turned his hand to film
production in the early 1920s, but without any success. Financially
ruined and disillusioned with filmmaking, he ended up managing a cinema in
Paris not long before he died from tuberculosis in 1922 at the age of 40.
There's a sweet irony in the way the actor's tragic descent from wealth and
stardom to poverty and obscurity in the last six years of his life mirrors
the transformation of his most celebrated screen creation - from an almost
god-like avenger capable of punishing anyone he chooses to an ordinary mortal
who is so feeble he has to be rescued from certain death by a passing woman
gymnast in a swimsuit.
And then there is the film's secret weapon - Musidora, cinema's first super-vamp
and the most potent, the most lubricious femme
fatale of them all. It was the actress's iconic appearance as the catsuit-wearing
mistress of crime Irma Vep in
Les Vampires that made her an overnight
star. As the even more sly and venomous Diana Monti in
Judex she is
the villain you just cannot get enough of - an oily demonic temptress who
only has to look at a man to make him her willing slave and a pawn in her
vile nefarious exploits. In contrast to her nemesis Judex, whose powers
slowly diminish as the serial progresses, the deadly Diana becomes ever more
powerful, every setback seemingly strengthening her resolve and capacity
for evil, until she ultimately appears to be unstoppable. Musidora's
frightening sexual magnetism and naturally dark and mysterious persona work
hand-in-hand to make her cinema's fullest embodiment of the sinful siren,
and you relish every moment she is on the screen.
Judex came into being just at the time when, possibly influenced by
Gaumont's other star director Léonce Perret, Louis Feuillade was beginning
to nudge towards a more realistic, down-to-earth style of cinema. The
fantasy elements and surrealist touches of the director's previous serials
are conspicuous by their absence in
Judex, and whilst there is enough
criminal intrigue to justify the film being classified as a crime drama it
should more properly be considered a melodrama and social critique.
Perhaps if he had been less susceptible to the commercial pressures put upon
him by his boss Léon Gaumont, Feuillade may have been inclined to
make the film a more conventional feature, with a significantly shorter
runtime than the five hours that
Judex runs to in its entirety. Had
the director done this,
Judex would undoubtedly have been a film that
was better placed to answer Feuillade's detractors.
The film's most obvious flaw is that amidst all the plot digressions (which
show a slightly off-putting degree of repetition, with one botched kidnapping
followed by another, and another...) its moral points are somewhat diluted.
As a result, what might have been a powerful study in the morality
of judgement ends up as merely another feisty crowdpleaser, sensationalist
fun for the masses. Feuillade's strength as a commercial filmmaker
was also his great weakness - it prevented him from taking the kind of risks
that many of his contemporaries were routinely indulging in as they developed
the new medium of cinema. Like Georges Méliès before
him, Feuillade stuck with a formula that worked for a while and scarcely
departed from it.
You'd have thought that Feuillade's slavish adherence to static camera set-ups,
with whole scenes almost invariably filmed in mid-shot from exactly the same position,
would mean that his films are dull beyond belief, but this is definitely
not the case. The trick was in the editing, and this was how Feuillade
was able to bring pace and tension to his films. Feuillade's other talent
was getting the right kind of performances from his cast - the humourous
interludes involving Cocantin (the world's worst private detective) and the Liquorice
Kid (a blatant steal from a Charles Dickens novel) provide some welcome comic
relief and prevent the film from ever getting into a grim and maudlin groove. Despite
its daunting length,
Judex is an absolute page-turner of a film, and
once you have been hooked by its incident-packed prologue you are likely
to be gripped right through to the end, to witness the nail-biting showdown
between two of the most vividly drawn characters of the silent era - the
malfunctioning justice machine Judex and his murderous man-eating adversary
Diana Monti. The next time you watch a
Batman or
Spiderman
movie, just remember that Louis Feuillade got there first - and made a much
better job of it.
The episode titles and approximate runtimes in the most recent digitally
restored version of
Judex are as follows:
Prologue (36')
Épisode 1:
L'Ombre mystérieuse (
The Mysterious Shadow)
(26')
Épisode 2:
L'Expiation (
Atonement) (16')
Épisode 3:
La Meute fantastique (
The Fantastic Hounds)
(37')
Épisode 4:
Le Secret de la tombe (
The Secret of the Tomb)
(25')
Épisode 5:
Le Moulin tragique (
The Tragic Mill) (26')
Épisode 6:
Le Môme réglisse (
The Licorice Kid)
(22')
Épisode 7: La Femme en noir (The Woman in Black) (29')
Épisode 8:
Les Souterrains du Château-Rouge (
The Dungeons
of the Chateau Rouge) (24')
Épisode 9:
Lorsque l'enfant parut (
When the Child Appears)
(24')
Épisode 10:
Le Coeur de Jacqueline (
The Heart of Jacqueline)
(8')
Épisode 11:
L'Ondine (
The Water Sprite) (25')
Épisode 12:
Le Pardon d'amour (
The Forgiveness of Love)
(8')
Épilogue (5')
© James Travers 2016
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Louis Feuillade film:
Tih Minh (1918)
Film Synopsis
Robert Moralés, an ex-convict, has entered into a partnership with
the beautiful but treacherous adventuress Diana Monti. Having decided
that their next victim will be the wealthy banker Favraux, Monti gets herself
a position as governess to Favraux's infant grandson Jean at his country
residence Les Sablons. Here, Favraux is visited by an old man, Pierre
Kerjean, seeking reparation after being ruined by the banker and driven to
a life of crime. The old man is sent away with a flea in his ear and
is almost knocked down by the banker as he drives back to Paris. Not
long afterwards, Favraux receives a letter notifying him that unless he gives
up half of his fortune to the public assistance he will soon die.
Not one to give in to blackmail, Favraux immediately engages the services
of a private detective, Cocantin, but in vain. At the minute the deadline
expires, in the course of a party to celebrate his daughter Jacqueline's
engagement to the Marquis de la Rochefontaine, Favraux suddenly collapses
and is pronounced dead. On learning of the misery her father has brought
to others through his underhand business deals, Jacqueline Aubry gives up
her entire fortune and moves to Paris to find work as a piano teacher, leaving
her son in the care of foster parents. One day, she receives a telephone
call and is surprised to hear her father's voice. Favraux is not dead
but is in fact a prisoner of the man calling himself Judex, confined to a
cell in the latter's underground lair beneath the ruins of the Château
Rouge.
Judex has waited many years to avenge himself on the banker who caused the
death of his father and the despair of his mother. Now he intends keeping
him a prisoner for the rest of his life, his wealth distributed amongst those
who need it most. Angered that her plans to extort money from Favraux
have gone awry, Diana Monti takes her revenge against Jacqueline Aubry by
abducting her. Helped by a pack of hounds, Judex comes to Jacqueline's
rescue and warns the adventuress that she will share Favraux's fate if she
ever tries to harm his daughter again. Scorning the warning, Diana
and Moralés kidnap the young woman a second time and take her to a
disused mill. The criminals fall out when Diana attempts to murder
her prisoner, just as Judex and Kerjean appear.
As Diana flees, Kerjean recognises Moralés as his estranged son Robert
and a teary reconciliation ensues. As Jacqueline recovers in the care
of her father's former secretary Vallières, Kerjean and his son return
to the Château Rouge for the satisfaction of seeing Favraux languishing
in prison. Moralés makes up his mind to make a fresh start by
joining the Foreign Legion, but he cannot resist paying one last call on
his former accomplice. Diana Monti's power over him is too great too
resist and Moralés is drawn into her next criminal exploit.
They will rescue Favraux and demand a generous reward when his fortune is
returned to him...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.