L'Argent 1928

L'Argent is Marcel L'Herbier's silent film of Émile Zola's 1891 novel about financial speculation, shot in 1928 and released in January 1929. L'Herbier moved the story from the Second Empire to the Paris of his own day, with telephones, aeroplanes and the trading floor of the Bourse. Two bankers fight a war of rumours: Nicolas Saccard, whose bank is close to collapse, and his cold rival Gundermann. Saccard rescues himself by financing a pioneering aviator, Jacques Hamelin, and inflating the shares of a colonial scheme, while trying to seduce Hamelin's wife, Line. It was one of the most expensive French films of the decade, at almost five million francs. It is also one of the most visually daring films of the late silent era.

Bankers at war

The film opens on the frantic floor of the stock exchange. Saccard, played by Pierre Alcover as a heavy, greedy, theatrical figure, is in trouble. His Banque Universelle is exposed and his rival Gundermann, played by Alfred Abel, the industrialist of Metropolis, is working quietly to ruin him.

Saccard's way out is Jacques Hamelin, a young aviator who is preparing a solo flight across the Atlantic and dreams of a colonial venture in French Guiana. Saccard uses Hamelin's popularity to launch a huge share issue and turns his flight into a publicity stunt. At the same time he pursues Line, Hamelin's wife, played by Marie Glory. The Baroness Sandorf, played by Brigitte Helm, a glamorous adventuress, plays her own game between the two bankers.

A film about money, made with too much of it

L'Herbier said that after ten years of filmmaking he became obsessed with one idea: to film, at any cost, a fierce denunciation of money. To make it, he had to put his company, Cinégraphic, into partnership with the larger Société des Cinéromans and sign a distribution deal with the German studio UFA. That deal brought two German stars into the cast, Brigitte Helm and Alfred Abel. The budget was set at three million francs and ended close to five.

L'Herbier had seen Abel Gance's Napoléon and wanted a film on the same scale. The sets, including the vast interior of the Bourse and Art Deco apartments designed by Lazare Meerson and André Barsacq, were built for the film.

The camera

What makes L'Argent extraordinary today is the camera. Jules Kruger, who had shot Napoléon, sends it gliding over the stock exchange floor, rising high above the crowd, swinging towards characters and away from them. During the rumours around Hamelin's flight, the trading floor becomes a sea of agitated bodies filmed from far above.

Since the film is silent, he suggests sound with images: an orchestra, dancers, an engine roaring. The editing is fast and subjective, and the film moves between documentary and melodrama.

Brigitte Helm

Helm, the robot Maria of Metropolis, is the most striking presence in the film: the Baroness Sandorf, in shimmering dresses, cold and seductive. Her scenes with Saccard in his apartment, playing games of power and desire, are among the highlights. Look out also for Antonin Artaud, the future theatre theorist, as Saccard's secretary.

Seeing it

L'Argent was a commercial disappointment, and sound arrived soon afterwards. It was long hard to see in full. Restorations have brought it back at close to three hours, and it now looks like the late flowering of the French silent avant-garde.

It is a demanding film, best seen on a big screen. For context, see the best French films of the 1920s and Renoir's earlier Zola adaptation, Nana.