L'Homme aux gants blancs (1908)
Directed by Albert Capellani

Film Review

It was with L'Homme aux gants blancs that Albert Capellani set an exceptionally high standard of production shortly after being promoted to the position of artistic director of Pathé's newly created subsidiary Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres (S.C.A.G.L.) in 1908.  Capellani had by this time directed over thirty short films for Pathé over a three year period (encompassing all the genres the studio was known for) and was already considered one of the leading filmmakers of his age.  L'Homme aux gants blancs was adapted from a popular pantomime of the same title by Henri Berény, which was itself taken from a stage play by Georges Docquois.  A highly unusual blend of ironic drama, black comedy and satire, the film is a masterpiece of narrative economy, showing a level of technical and artistic sophistication that was exceedingly rare for any film of this period.

L'Homme aux gants blancs runs to just 18 minutes in length but it manages to tell a fully rounded story of some complexity without appearing rushed or uneven.  Every shot is meticulously crafted, with a precision and clarity that Capellani made his hallmark.  The director was known for pioneering techniques that helped to lay the foundation for modern cinema, and this film contains one his most startling innovations - the use of split-screen.  In the film's most striking sequence, the screen is split into three like a French tricoleur.  In the left and right panels of the shot, a hotel employee and a glove seller speak on the telephone, their spatial separation emphasised by the central panel showing a view down a busy French thoroughfare (the Avenue de l'Opéra in the affluent 9th arrondissement).  It is such an unusual composition for the time that you are instantly reminded of the fantastic triptych effect that Abel Gance would use on his epic Napoléon almost a decade later.

Capellani had a reluctance to include editing breaks within a scene, so rarely does he ever resort to using close-ups.  L'Homme aux gants blancs employs just one close-up, for the sequence in which the glove seller is seen sewing a button onto the pair of gloves that will ultimately betray their owner and lead him to be wrongly arrested for murder.  The spectator is immediately alerted to the future significance of the gloves by the length of the close-up, which makes it clear that Monsieur Rasta's fate may well depend on what becomes of them in the course of the story.

Another device that Capellani uses to great effect in this film is the presence of action at multiple depths within the frame.  Partly this is to avoid the need for cut-away shots necessitating edits (which the director was keen to avoid), but mainly because it makes the shots more interesting, with action progressing at various distances from a fixed viewpoint.  The fact that the spectator has to contend with multiple points of focus adds tension and intrigue to these shots.  It also allows Capellani to establish connections between the protagonists that anticipate how they will go on to interact with one another.  One example of this is the scene in which Rasta shows up at the restaurant to join his intended victim.  Our attention is initially drawn to a woman seated at a table with an older man (presumably her rich husband).  We then suddenly notice a car draw up in the background.  A man emerges from the car and purposefully strides towards the table next to the woman - it is of course Monsieur Rasta, the hunter alighting on his next prey.  A similar scene is played out shortly afterwards, with the more downmarket villain Jules sneakily spying on the rich woman's house, lurking in the foreground as she leaves her home from the back of the shot and says her farewell to Rasta.  The effect that Capellani creates is a sense of magnetic attraction - the characters are somehow drawn to one another across space, by a malevolent force that none of them can resist.

What is most fascinating about L'Homme aux gants blancs is that whilst it is one of Capellani's darkest films it is also one of his funniest, the humour lying in the fact that the three main characters are all piteous objects of contempt who are more deserving of howling derision than sympathy when fate deals them a nasty blow.  The society parasite who preys on lonely rich women, the married woman who enjoys the thrill of an illicit dalliance with a louche stranger, and the petty villain from the gutters who robs merely to eat - it is not the subtlest portrait of French society but, with its clear delineation of the classes, it as grimly honest as anything offered by Zola.  What each of the three characters have in common is a need to feed on others outside their social sphere, which they do with an abundance of hypocrisy and seemingly no sign of moral awareness.  The only one who isn't punished for his 'crime' is the wretch at the bottom of this social dung heap - the cur-like Monsieur Jules not only gets away with murder, he seems to revel in the realisation that another man has been arrested in his place.  It is surely only a matter of time before this wretch - the ultimate in predatory hypocrites - gains his comeuppance.

Film Synopsis

Settling into his new Parisian hotel room, Monsieur Rasta is about to embark on his next criminal enterprise.  As he dresses for the occasion he finds he needs a new pair of white gloves.  A glove seller is duly summoned to the hotel to provide him with the required accessory, and she even takes the trouble to sew on a loose button for her fastidious customer.  Now adequately attired, Monsieur Rasta leaves the hotel and drops in on an upmarket restaurant, where he slips a card to an ostentatiously wealthy young woman inviting her to join him for a secret assignation.  Later that evening, the woman collects the handsome stranger and they go back to her luxurious residence.  She seeks relief from the crushing ennui of her empty life, he intends only to rob her of an item of jewellery.  Once they have satisfied their respective cravings, Rasta bids his victim a courteous farewell and departs the scene, not knowing that he has unwittingly dropped his new white gloves in the street outside the house.

The gloves are picked up by another suspicious-looking individual who has been waiting for an opportunity to rob the house.  Monsieur Jules may not be as well-dressed and well-mannered as his predecessor but he is just as adept at thievery.  Alas, his robbery attempt is disturbed by the unexpected presence of the unfortunate young woman.  In the ensuing confusion, Jules kills his victim and flees the scene, leaving behind the incriminating gloves.  When the police arrive to examine the crime scene the gloves are soon noticed and would seem to be an important clue to the identity of the killer.  The woman who sold the gloves identifies the purchaser and Monsieur Rasta soon finds himself under arrest for theft and murder.  The presence of the valuable stolen necklace in his suitcase is irrefutable proof that he is the killer!