Cinema
Of Discovery: Julien Duvivier In The 1920s
(1925 - 1930/Flicker Alley Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
B- Sound:
B- Extras: B Films: B-
Flicker
Alley has yet again issued a priceless treasury of silent classic,
this time by the famed French Director Julien Duvivier, nine of his
films that were in awful shape or were dangerously lost forever.
Most of the films are either religious faith films or melodramas (the
latter sometimes with comedy,) but there is more here too and the
titles are as follows.
Red
Head
(1926, comedy/drama about the title child)
Revelation
(aka The
Agony of Jerusalem,
1927)
The
Wedding of Mademoiselle Beulemans
(1927, love triangle melodrama)
The
Whirlwind of Paris
(1928, melodrama includes the music world)
The
Mystery of the Eiffel Tower
(1928, satire of movie chapter serial plays)
The
Divine Voyage
(1929)
The
Miraculous Life of Therese Martin
(1929)
Mother
Hummingbird
(1930, melodrama of woman so sick of her home life, she goes to
Algeria!)
and
Ladies'
Paradise
(1930, silent version only, a remarkable tour de force about
progress, cities and the future.)
So
you have the three faith films that might not work for everyone, but
especially in a current age of usually, sadly, very phony 'faith
films' that are among the worst I have ever seen, to see a filmmaker
sincerely dealing with such subject material (like a Scorsese) is
actually refreshing and reminds us how much better such films used to
be.
The
four melodramas hold up surprisingly well and even when (and where)
they get a little long and drawn out, they also tend to be
interesting character studies at times and maturity is one of the
reason they hold up as they do.
So
that leaves us my two favorite films here: The
Mystery of the Eiffel Tower
and Ladies'
Paradise.
Tower
is a work that even the experts on the new featurettes seem to miss
the point of. Not only is it a spoof of the then-silent movie
serials that were huge at the time in the U.S., France and wherever
they were exported (and the genre was successful well into the
sound-era until TV came along, so think the mid-1950s!) and he is
also spoofing a genre that was bigger than anyone here seems to
realize: detective films!
Already,
there were many silent Sherlock Holmes films (some of which have been
thankfully restored, you can read more about them elsewhere on this
site) among other detectives and other mystery films that did or did
not have a lead detective (think early psychological thrillers,
including German Expressionist films, Hollywood silent Horror, etc.)
so with all that in mind, you can watch and suddenly see exactly how
clever Duvivier is being in sending it all up as a complete, as long
serial of its own, the kind of thing Warhol would have appreciated.
There are some remarkable scenes and sequences that make this more of
a must-see than expected and I am glad to have caught it. I will be
showing this one to a few people I know who will get it.
Ladies'
Paradise
appears to be a comedy or melodrama at first, but it is working on a
much higher level, is based on Emile Zola's novel about a fine mom
and pop clothing store being pushed to into bankruptcy by the giant
department shopping store of the title. The daughter of the family
in trouble (the wonderful Dita Parlo) makes a uncomfortable decision
to work at the new place secretly to keep bringing in money, no
matter the consequences, but she has more problems than expected.
Of
course, the building (especially for its time) is elaborate (as is
the pre-digital promo to get new customers) and is practically a
world of its own, high class and made to think that the world is all
yours, if you just buy a few items you need. Production design and
visual effects are amazing and even stunning, though some might show
their age, others do not and it was the other big surprise of this
set. The cast is amazing, the clothes something and the screenplay
well-rounded and thinks things out all the way.
The
editing and cinematography are also amazing often and when it
concluded, not only did it work as drama and maybe comment on classic
division and a moneyed world, but its uncanny grasp of the modern
(and then modernist) world and what the future may and may not mean
puts it up there with Lang's Metropolis
(1926, produced the the German UFA Studios that co-produced this
film) and Tati's PlayTime
(1967, both reviewed elsewhere on this site) as classics of a partly
unrecognized genre of films that look at the city on many levels. I
hope this new set gets all of these films re-seen and rediscovered,
but Ladies'
Paradise
alone is enough for me to recommend this whole set!
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfers can obviously show the age of the materials used, but these
were painstakingly fix, repaired, restored, reconstructed and much
more, at great time and expense, so prepare to still be amazed. In
some cases, a 35mm print or more existed, but (too) often, lost
footage was only available in smaller formats like 16mm, 17.5mm and
the Euro-only 9.5mm (aka 9,5mm) consumer format (all safety film
versus the volatile nitrate prints that were all manufactured with
gun powder and can easily catch fire or worse when they decay!) in
all kinds of conditions with all kinds of problems and issues.
This
also included making new inter-titles and reproducing tinting the way
Duvivier wanted it in many cases, even if it cuts down in the
definition and detail of the image as it always did. The way each
film was saved under these circumstances is a piece-by-piece master
course on how films can be and need to be saved, restored and
preserved. I will add that at times, the restoration looks so good,
it is excellent and above my letter grade.
In
most cases, the
menus offer '5.1' or 'Stereo' options, with the Stereo being PCM 2.0
Stereo for the new music and that always sounds best, give or take if
you like the music scores, but '5.1' is not a lossless option or even
5.1 in any case, but lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo! That's fine for
older systems, but not 5.1 of any kind. The PCM options are as good
as these scores will ever likely sound.
Extras
include another excellent, nicely illustrated booklet on the film
(44-pages this time, all on high quality paper) including informative
text and several essays
featuring introductory remarks by Christian Duvivier, son of Julien
Duvivier, notes and full credits on each film, and many rare
photographs. The discs add Image Galleries featuring stills and
promotional materials for Poil
de Carotte,
L'Agonie
de Jerusalem,
Le
Mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans,
Le
Tourbillon de Paris
and La
Vie miraculeuse de Therese Martin,
then each film has an introduction video (eight by Serge Bromberg),
an essay video, a music featurette on Divine
Voyage
and most have very comprehensive featurettes (very well-hosted by
either Chrystel Bonne or Colin Ruffin) on the restoration of each
film. All slide into a solid paperboard case.
-
Nicholas Sheffo