Film Review
At the time it founded its subsidiary Société cinématographique
des auteurs et gens de lettres (S.C.A.G.L.) in 1908, Pathé was already
the world's largest and most successful film production company. Albert
Capellani's remit as artistic director of S.C.A.G.L. was to oversee the making
of quality adaptations of literary classics that would further enhance Pathé's
reputation as the pre-eminent leader in the new medium of mass entertainment,
cinema. Capellani was ideally suited for the role, being not only an
excellent administrator (a skill he had acquired by managing theatres for
several years before he joined Pathé) but also a talented experimental
artist, and it was with gusto and élan that he directed many of the
new subsidiary's most ambitious films, immediately setting a high standard
with
L'Homme aux gants blancs (1908).
Capellani's ambitions were wildly extravagant and in his efforts to adapt
the great works of literature as faithfully as possible he soon came up against
a seemingly insuperable constraint. To be commercially viable, a film
was limited in length to around 30 minutes (two reels), the assumption being
that audiences would not be able to comfortably sit through any single film
longer than this. It was the case that films were being made around
this time which exceeded this limit - for instance Charles Tait's Australian
bushranger film
The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), which ran to a
full hour - but these were few and far between. In his first few years
at S.C.A.G.L. Capellani was able to push the envelope a little with his three-reel
adaptations of works by Émile Zola and Victor Hugo -
L'Assommoir (1909) and
Notre-Dame de Paris (1911),
running to 40 and 36 minutes respectively. But how could he ever hope
to squeeze a novel as long and complex as Hugo's highly revered masterpiece
Les Misérables into such a ridiculously tight temporal space?
Breaking the time barrier
It was an impossible challenge, and so the solution that the ebullient, red-haired
genius came up with for his daring magnum opus was to make it as a series
of four films, each lasting around 40 minutes. (The film was originally
released in France over four consecutive weeks in 1913, from 3rd January).
In doing so, Capellani effectively paved the way for the film serials which
Pathé's nearest rival Gaumont would have great success with over the
next decade (notably those directed by Louis Feuillade -
Fantômas,
Les Vampires, etc.). In
addition, when it became apparent that audiences reacted positively to an
extended film narrative, Pathé soon woke up to the fact that longer
films were a commercial necessity. This is the point at which the feature
film as we know it today suddenly began to take off. In this light,
Capellani's
Les Misérables was probably the most significant
film to have been made in France - its contribution to the meteoric growth
in the reach and importance of cinema in the mid-1910s throughout the world
cannot be understated.
Buoyed up by the success of his second Victor Hugo adaptation, Capellani
then attempted equally ambitious film versions of Zola's
Germinal (1913) and Alexander Dumas's
Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge
(1914), both highly popular when released as single features. The director's
subsequent adaptation of another Hugo epic,
Quatre-vingt-treize (1914),
was interrupted by the outbreak of WWI, which led to Capellani's migration
to America and a no less prodigious career on the other side of the Atlantic.
By the time Capellani returned to France in the early 1920s, his career prematurely
terminated by ill-health and a series of professional setbacks, America had
take over as the preeminent force in the brave new world of cinema and the
short film had been all but totally supplanted by its meatier big brother,
the feature.
A masterpiece of innovation
Running to 12 reels (with a total run time of just over 160 minutes),
Les
Misérables was the most ambitious film project undertaken up until
this time. It vastly dwarfed an earlier American version of the same
novel directed by J. Stuart Blackton in 1909, a four-reeler that is considered
American cinema's first feature film. With its expansive narrative
- which encompasses practically all of Hugo's 1862 book whilst remaining
true to the original in almost every detail - and multitude of authentic-looking
sets, Capellani's film created an extraordinarily high benchmark not just for
subsequent prestige productions, but for cinema in general, as it raised
audience's expectations for future films by at least an order of magnitude.
Deftly scripted by the director's younger brother Paul, it still holds up
remarkably well compared with later adaptations of
Les Misérables,
including Raymond Bernard's
1933 three-part
epic to Jean-Paul Le Chanois's widely acclaimed
1958 version starring Jean
Gabin.
Capellani may not have been the first director to attempt a full adaptation
of
Les Misérables for the cinema (that honour goes to J. Stuart
Blackton), but he did direct the first film drama to reference scenes from
Hugo's monumental tome. His 1905 film
Le Chemineau, one of his
first projects after joining Pathé, recounts the famous episode in
which Jean Valjean receives alms from the Bishop of Digne, only to repay
his benefactor by purloining his silverware. Lasting just five minutes,
this early short already shows Capellani's flair for innovation - note the
moment when the camera moves from one room to an adjoining room in the bishop's
house, avoiding the need for a cut.
Les Misérables employs
the same device for the sequence that establishes a connection between the
hero Marius and the loathsome Thénardiers. Beginning with a
shot of the Thénardiers in their dismal Paris lodgings, the camera
seemingly passes through a wall and takes us into Marius's adjacent room,
establishing an important link between the characters that would not have
been as apparent had Capellani simply chosen to cut from one scene to another.
The director's aversion to editing is one of the most striking characteristics
of his early work, apparent in the length of the shots in his films and the
paucity of cuts.
The shift in location between the rooms occupied by the Thénardiers
and Marius is one of the very few instances in
Les Misérables
where the camera moves. For the most part, in keeping with the convention
of the time, the camera remains fixed for the duration of a scene, with no
edits, certainly no close-ups, within the scene. If the camera moves
at all, it is usually only in the exterior locations, where movement is required
to keep the character of interest from moving out of shot. Capellani
deserves to be credited as one of the first filmmakers to link consecutive
shots through the movement of people or objects within a frame. For
example, one shot of a character exiting the frame to the right is immediately
followed by another in which the same character is seen entering the frame
from the left, apparently from the same vantage point. This enhances
the viewer experience by reducing the distraction of a necessary edit - something
that would be improved further once directors had learned to move the camera
and began employing developing shots.
Another innovative technique that Capellani used to great effect on
Les
Misérables is the use of depth of field. In many films of
this time, virtually all of the action takes place within a fixed focal plane,
with actors moving across the field of view but rarely towards or away from
the camera. Capellani's films were pretty well unique in that the actors
appear to move in a three-dimensional space - not just across the screen
but also up and down, and backwards and forwards. Whilst most of the
action is confined to the midground, there are many scenes in which action
simultaneously takes place in the foreground and background - most notably
in the crowd scenes at which Capellani was particularly adept. The
barricade scenes and violent street skirmishes that serve as the film's arresting
climax would not have had anything like their visual impact without Capellani's
extraordinary flair for choreographing such technically demanding scenes.
Examine these sequences carefully and it is apparent that every single actor
in the frame is fully engaged in the action. There are no 'extras'
in Albert Capellani's films.
The idea of over-layering images (through superimposition and multiple exposure)
had been used as a gimmick by filmmakers since the earliest days of cinema
(most creatively by the legendary pioneer Georges Méliès),
but Capellani uses this as a marvellously conceived narrative device on three
occasions in
Les Misérables. In the scene in which Fantine
recounts to Valjean her sorry past we see an image to the right of her in
which her younger self and baby daughter are abandoned by her selfish lover.
Later, when Valjean is seen agonising over the prospect of an innocent man
being tried in his place, we see what is in his mind - a terrible miscarriage
of justice - as an inlaid shot of a courtroom scene. At the very end
of the film, as Valjean dies in the presence of his beloved Cosette and Marius,
his ghostly spirit is seen waving farewell in the background to the right
of the screen, thereby enhancing the poignancy of the moment. There
is also one notable use of flashback, for the sequence in which Fauchelevant
recalls the occasion some years before when Valjean came to his aid after
he was run over by a cart.
The miserable ones brought to life
One of the most idiosyncratic features of Capellani's cinema is its unrelenting
realism. Capellani had the advantage over many of his contemporaries
that he had begun his career as an actor and consequently had the facility
for working with actors to nurture and develop the kind of naturalistic performances
needed to achieve the authenticity he was always striving for. The
casting choices for
Les Misérables are particularly impressive,
with a literal giant of the stage - Henry Krauss - admirably chosen for the
part of the lead protagonist Jean Valjean. With his immense physical
bulk and astonishing charisma, Krauss dominates the film from start to finish
and evokes the magnificence and sublime pathos of Hugo's most famous literary
creation more than any other screen actor to take on the role.
It is a very different kind if performance to the one that Krauss had supplied
as Quasimodo on the director's earlier
Notre-Dame de Paris (1911),
which had a more stylised, expressionistic feel. Here, the actor is
far more measured and restrained, conveying Valjean's alternating moods much
more subtly and with far greater emotional impact. The character's
scenes with the dying Fantine and infant Cosette are especially memorable
for their controlled poignancy and depth of human feeling. Krauss was
no less impressive in a leading role in Capellani's later historical epic
Quatre-vingt-treize (1920), and he would continue being a major force
in silent French cinema for the next decade, in which he would be immortalised
as Monsieur Lepic in Julien Duvivier's
Poil de Carotte (1925).
Marie Ventura is no less impactful in her portrayal of the adult Cosette
in the latter half of the film. Without the benefit of close-ups, it
is truly remarkable how vigorously Ventura is able to connect with her audience,
the emotional turmoil of a nascent love affair powerfully expressed in the
subtlest of gestures and movements. One of the leading French stage
actresses of her genertion, Ventura also has the distinction of being the
first woman ever to direct a play for the Comédie Française
(Racine's
Iphigénie in 1938). The other notable name
in the cast list is Mistinguett, suitably cast as the Thénardier's
streetwise and seedily seductive daughter Éponine. It was through
her several collaborations with Albert Capellani that Mistinguett found her
feet as an actress (having already obtained considerable fame as as a singer
and dancer), excelling in the lead role in Capellani's
La Glu (1913).
Henri Étiévant makes a formidable adversary as Javert, the
over-conscientious police inspector whose single-minded pursuit of Valjean
drives the narrative through its meandering 17-year span. Étiévant
wasn't only a highly prolific actor of stage and screen, he was also an accomplished
filmmaker, with around thirty titles to his name. In contrast to some
subsequent adaptations of Hugo's novel, Étiévant's Javert is
not a conventional anti-heroic nemesis but a complex, totally believable
character who ultimately gains our sympathy as he slowly begins to realise
the injustice of the mission he is engaged on. The scenes depicting
Valjean's recurrent run-ins with Javert are the most intensely dramatic in
Capellani's film, and it is through the conflict between the two men - beautifully
played by both actors - that we start to see who they really are - opposing
souls with differing notions of justice, eternally bound to one another by
a common thread of humanity.
For a picture of true, undiluted villainy we have a ready example in the
form of the world's worst foster parent, Thénardier, played with relish
by Émile Mylo. Thénardier's unstinting villainy is of
such an egregious hue that we can only laugh at his self-serving and pretty
nasty mischief-making - this is the only sliver of comic relief that the
film affords us. And yet, despite his pantomimic Mr Evil excesses Thénardier
still comes across as a real character, a man driven by the cruel necessities
of his time to commit vile acts merely to survive in a world that, quite
frankly, doesn't give a damn about vermin like him. His atrocious behaviour
serves an important part in the drama, heightening the nobility of those
characters (Valjean, Marius, Javert) who, in the face of outrageous personal
adversity, manage to hold on to a sense of responsibility to their fellow
man. Thénardier's moral opposites do not act merely out of self-interest,
but rather out of duty for the common good, a desire to bring about a better world.
The birth of modern cinema
Albert Capellani's
Les Misérables was an outstanding achievement
for its time, not just because of its groundbreaking length, but also because
of the care and attention lavished on every aspect of its production.
The sets designed by Henri Ménessier were meticulously researched
and are striking in their period detail, although it is Capellani's liberal
use of real location exteriors (in and around Paris) that is perhaps more
impressive. As in the director's subsequent
Germinal (his greatest
film), it is in the exterior settings that the film most comes to life, particularly
in the busy crowd scenes that make up the film's dramatic climax. The
gruesome bloody reality of the 1832 popular uprising is powerfully captured
in a few memorable images, prefiguring the horrific spectacles of carnage
offered by the director's subsequent
Quatre-vingt-treize.
The 1913 version of
Les Misérables represents an essential
milestone not only in French cinema but in the development of the Seventh
Art in general. Today's multi-million dollar, action-packed blockbuster
extravaganzas are the direct descendents of this magnificent, insanely ambitious
work, a film that transformed the phenomenon of cinema in a flash, and to
an extent that would have been totally unimaginable to its director.
The fact that Albert Capellani's staggering contribution to filmmaking still
continues to be overlooked and downplayed is a tragedy - one that is perhaps
every bit as unjust as those myriad human tragedies conceived by Victor Hugo
for what is probably the greatest novel ever written.
© James Travers 2023
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Époque I - Jean Valjean
France, 1815. Unable to find work as a labourer, Jean Valjean is forced
to steal a loaf of bread for his starving mother. For this crime, he
is arrested and sentenced to five years' hard labour in Toulon. He
escapes from prison and arrives in the town of Digne, where he is offered
a meal and a place to lodge for the night by the kindly Monseigneur Myriel.
Valjean repays his benefactor's hospitality by running off with some silverware.
Captured by the police, he is set free when Myriel professes to having given
him the stolen items. For this act of generosity, Valjean becomes a
changed man.
Époque II - Fantine
Some years later, Jean Valjean has become Monsieur Madelaine, the respectable
owner of a glassware factory. He takes a benevolent interest in one
of his employees, Fantine, who sends all of the money she earns to a couple,
the Thénardiers, in return for rearing her illegitimate daughter Cosette
at their home in the country. Valjean's real identity is uncovered
by an overzealous police inspector, Javert, who recognises him as a former
prisoner from his time as a warder in Toulon. Before he is arrested,
Valjean makes a promise to the dying Fantine that he will take care of her
daughter. Escaping from prison a second time, Valjean heads off to
the country to begin his search for Cosette.
Époque III - Cosette
On arriving at the Thénardiers' modest homestead, Valjean introduces
himself as a generous benefactor. Noticing how Cosette has been neglected
by her slovenly foster parents, he willingly hands over a large sum of money
so that he can take her off the Thénardiers' hands. Pursued by Javert,
Valjean and Cosette take flight but find a safe haven within the walls of
a convent, where the former is offered work as a gardener. Untroubled
by the law, the two enjoy a peaceful existence as father and daughter for
several years.
Époque IV - Cosette et Marius
Cosette and her adopted father have settled in Paris and lead a comfortable
life on Valjean's remaining fortune, under the name Fauchelevant. Now
on the verge of womanhood, Cosette attracts the attention of a young student,
Marius Pontmercy. Not able to see eye-to-eye with his stuffy bourgeois
grandfather, Marius lives in a dingy boarding house, adjacent to a room occupied
by the Thénardiers. Through the latter's daughter Éponine
Marius is able to find where Cosette is living and pays her a visit - to
discover that his love for her is requited. Whilst Valjean has no objection
to their marriage, Marius's grandfather forbids it, and so the student storms
off to play his part in the popular uprising of June 1832.
In the midst of a bloody street battle between protesters and soldiers, Marius
receives a near-fatal gunshot wound. Javert is captured by the opposing
side and sentenced to be executed as a spy. Valjean releases him, but
the police inspector still refuses to give up on bringing him to justice.
It is Valjean's willingness to risk his own life to carry the dying Marius
to safety that leads Javert to renounce his mission and commit suicide.
To repay Valjean for saving his grandson's life, Colonel Pontmercy gives
his blessing for Marius's marriage to Cosette. Just when Cosette's
future happiness appears assured, Thénardier shows up and confronts
Marius with the awful truth of his prospective father-in-law's criminal past.
Valjean has no choice but to recount his personal history.
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.