Film Review
Avant-garde filmmaker Abel Gance got off to a bad start when he began
working for the fledgling film company Film d'Art in the mid-1910s,
turning out weirdly experimental shorts such as
La Folie du docteur Tube, but
he amply redeemed himself with the later films he made for the company,
many of which were significant commercial successes.
Mater dolorosa was among the most
profitable films that Gance made for Film d'Art, one of the first in a
series of psychological melodramas which established him as one of
France's leading cineastes, a decade before he unleashed on the world
his most highly regarded film,
Napoléon (1927).
Beset with a narrative that is ludicrously contrived and painfully
predictable,
Mater dolorosa
has little of the sophistication of Gance's subsequent melodramas,
notably his monumental
La Roue (1923), but the
mise-en-scène has some inspired touches and perhaps a foretaste
of the masterworks that were to come. Having been a hit in
France, the film proved to be even more successful in America, where it
was released as a slightly truncated version, under the title
The Torture of Silence.
More than anything, it is Léonce-Henri Burel's moodily
chiaroscuro cinematography that elevates the film above the norm.
Scenes of conflict and tension have a greater impact because of the way
in which these are shot, with high contrast lighting creating a
tangible mood of oppression and alienation. The scene in which
the heroine makes her final appeal to her lover is strikingly filmed as
a shadow-play, with the protagonists appearing as silhouettes in front
of a backlit window. In a later scene, when the good doctor
Berliac attempts to treat his bedridden son, he pulls back the bed
curtains and sees his wife in the arms of her lover, an eerie
superimposition effect of the kind that Gance would later use on some
of his best known films, including
J'Accuse (1919). Near the
end of the film, there is what feels like an interminably long tracking
shot past a cemetery, inter-cut with two-shots of the distressed
heroine and her husband which convey more than any amount of dialogue.
Just as she would practically ruin Gance's later film,
La dixième symphonie
(1918), Emmy Lynn pretty well wrecks
Mater
dolorosa with a performance that would look wildly over-the-top
even in the theatre. Lynn's style of acting (which involves
eye-rolling and hand-wringing to laughable excess) was not uncommon in
films of this era, but it feels out of place in a quality melodrama of
this kind, particularly when the rest of the cast appear to have signed
up to a more naturalistic approach. In his scenes with Lynn,
Firmin Gémier's performance appears positively subtle by
comparison, and far more effective in expressing his character's inner
feelings and gaining the audience's sympathies.
Mater dolorosa is marred by the
conventions of its time (contrived melodramatic plot, forced happy
ending, exaggerated acting) but Gance's visual artistry still shines
through, and whilst it pales in comparison with the director's later
films, it has its moments of brilliance. In any event, it's far
more palatable than Gance's sound remake of the film, released
in 1933.
© James Travers 2015
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Next Abel Gance film:
La Dixième symphonie (1918)
Film Synopsis
Émile Berliac is a specialist doctor in children's
diseases. Dedicated to his work, he neglects his young wife
Manon, who, unbeknown to him, has been pursuing an extramarital affair
with his brother, the writer François Rolland. When he
receives a letter from Manon insisting that they should elope together
and start a new life, François decides that he must end their
relationship. In a violent confrontation, Manon shoots her lover
with his own gun. Before he dies from his injuries,
François writes a letter claiming that he committed
suicide. A few years later, Manon learns that a bookseller has
acquired one of François's books, in which her final letter to
him has been concealed. Fearful of the scandal that will arise if
the letter is published in the newspapers, Manon submits to the
bookseller's blackmail demands. However, this does not prevent Dr
Berliac from discovering his wife's secret, and, appalled by her
infidelity, he insists that she leaves his household and never again
sees her infant son...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.