Our divine voyage… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 42, Day One

And so we came, by planes and boats and trains, back to the home of silent film festivals, Pordenone North of Venice and a very fine town indeed. My first time here since 2019 having been stymied by the lockdown and then by C-19 itself but not this year in spite of attempts by wild publishing horses to keep my mired in gobbledegook: get thee behind me Croydon!

 

Before the biggest of finishes we were served a reminder of the importance of this festival, breadth, rarities, new discoveries and men on horseback. Star of the Day was Pauline Frederick in The Love That Lives (1917) which had some foreshadowing of The Crowd and Stella Dallas… Pauline made me cry in 2019 with Smouldering Fires and she had me welling up again with her performance in this dramatic tragedy. She had a pair of the most penetrating eyes in Hollywood and here she looked so much younger as a put upon young mother who is preyed on by her boss and her drunken husband.

 

Her transformation by the end would have made even L Gish baulk at the physicality, she looked thirty years older yet still with enough love and grit to provide divine inspiration. Philip Carli accompanied with sensitivity and spirit.

 

Pauline Frederick

Meanwhile, in Ruritania – Part 2 of the GCM’s deep dive into mythical monarchies – there was some confusion in La reina joven (1916), a Spanish film – rare to see one of this vintage for me – as a romance between a Queen and an anti-monarchist went in ways that you might not expect. Said Anti-Royalist Rolando (Ricardo Puga) bravely rescues the young Queen Alexia (Margarita Xirgu) after her horse bolts and he throws himself around the beast’s neck to bring it to a halt… we almost saw it, but the editing was not so brave as the hero.

 

Anyway, once Alexia fails to die from the shock – the levels of distress-induced female mortality were so high at this time, someone should have investigated – things progress in resolutely non-romcom ways, as despite their romance, neither will change course. Oh, if only there was an evil Archduke to stir things up and thereby avoid criticism of legitimate political concerns about the Spanish system of government… Ace accompaniment was from Mauro Colombis who had fun with all the regal romance and that horsing about.

 

Queen Alexia takes to horse

A horse, a horse, my kingdom or a horse, yelled one British King according to Shakespeare, but Harry Carey had loads of horses, exactly when he needed them. Carey’s a handsome cowboy and it’s a treat to see the festival highlight him in his pomp after only really seeing him in talkies and with his good friend John Wayne (The Searchers, that final shot… Wayne standing at the door with his hand holding his arm like Harry used to, magnificent).

 

Carey’s a fabulous actor and has lots of physical motifs that indicate concern or casual thoughtfulness, a thumbnail stare here, a pensive thumb to the lips there… he might well have been studying Asta Nielsen. All of this plus his ability to fight and act make him a magnetic screen presence and these three simply whipped by with Stephen Horne riding along with gusto.

 

Most striking of all was the partially two-strip tinted Man to Man (1922) directed by Stuart Paton which featured some outstanding vistas and dynamic action as Steve Packard (Harry C), fights to clear his name, rescue the family ranch and win the heart of Terry Temple (Lillian Rich). To do this he must overcome the extreme disapproval of his grandfather, Old Hell-Fire Packard (Alfred Allen) and his confederate, Joe Blenham (Charles Le Moyne) who is the wrongest of wrong-uns.

 

Again, it’s striking how much of the wild western formula was in place this early with an impressive mass stampede of cattle organised by the baddies to ruin the ranch and the extended man-to-man combat of the closing sequence. Then there’s Harry who was rightly lionised by Wayne, he’s the real deal and I look forward to watching more of his gun-totin’ horseplay as the week unfolds.

 

 

The Divine Voyage (1929) with Antonio Coppola and the Octuror de France, Gala 

 

I missed this one last year at the BFI and so was especially keen to see it on the big Verdi screen and with a stunning new score from Antonio Coppola who conducted a nine-piece ensemble who translated his dynamic lines and simply gorgeous themes to accompany this magically-real story of hope and faith in spite of everything from capitalist carelessness to mutinous muscle men and the cruel sea itself. The music was packed with interest and recurring themes that are still replaying in my head and all done in the service of Julien Duvivier’s striking narrative and sumptuous visuals. The whole village turns out to wave ships off in good hope and to cheer their return, well the global Pordenone village does the same for works and music like this! Brava Antonio and the Octuror de France ensemble.

 

 

There is so much pleasing late-silent technique on show from Duvivier in this film – Renoir’s “rigorist poet” in action – with a roving camera that moves in and out of buildings, follows crews as they race to the harbour side or to confront wrong-doing. Close ups of locals cast for “face” that rival Dreyer for impact and rapid cutting that shows the influence of both Russian and German directors. The locations, Paimpol in Brittany, Louvigny sur Mer in Normandy and Ermenonville are superbly photographed and edited to create an impression of a people on the edge, battling unforgiving nature. Were you watching Michael Powell?

 

The film’s critique of blind capitalism is one of the reasons it was heavily censored at the time, and it begins with an act of desperate revolt when a mariner Kerjean (Henri Valbel) who has defaulted on his rent, attempts to assassinate unforgiving businessman Claude Ferjac (Henry Krauss), Ferjac in his chateau. Ferjac runs the town with a callous calculation and he will push the citizens to the brink before the story is through. Times is very much money and Ferjac makes it clear to the local mariners that manning the insufficiently repaired La Cordillère is of far more importance than the risk to their lives. Captain Jacques de Saint-Ermont (Jean Murat) makes their case but he knows there’s no way of changing Ferjac’s mind. The meeting between the boss and the sailors shows the hatred and fear they feel for this man and the desperate calculations they have to make for their families.

 

There’s further intrigue with Ferjac’s daughter Simone romantically attached to Captain Jacques and the two meet in the bay, separated by a fishing net, both trapped in their relationships with her father who will listen to no one be it the curate (Louis Kerly) or Jacque’s mother (Charlotte Barbier-Krauss).

 

The ship sets sail and includes the last-minute arrival of a mariner from outside the area, Mareuil played by Thomy Bourdelle who gives a stand-out muscular performance as the faithless opportunist upon whose actions so many lives will rest. Simone visits the Curate in his church and dedicates herself to repainting the frescoes and especially the painting of Maris Stella, she who is the “Star of the Sea”. Things swiftly go awry on the voyage as Mareuil decides that stealing the cargo is the way forward – another heartless capitalist? – and persuades most of the men to revolt, throwing one unfortunate who refuses into the sea to drown. His group overpowers the captain and his men, taking control just before the sea, as it was always going to do, erupts in a storm that would challenge even the finest of ships.

 

Back on land, the body of the murdered man is found and there’s a harrowing passage as his wife, Jeanne (Line Noro) is told of the news and leads a march to confront the man responsible. Ferjac is busy hosting a lavish dinner party to announce the marrying off of Simone to one of his business contacts, she cannot even hold her glass to toast the depressing nuptials and then Jeanne arrives followed by dozens of the locals who are now convinced that the ship has sunk and there’s only one man to be blamed. It’s a powerful set piece – fake elegance rudely interrupted by anguished poverty.

 

This is only the narrative entrée though and the Divine Voyage is yet to really begin… there’s a magical realism at play and faith, fate and hate will all have their roles as the full story enfolds. Duvivier maintains not only the pace but also a startling consistency of cinematic expression throughout as well as bringing out some extraordinary performances.

 

What a way to end this first day back “home”, as festival director Jay Weissberg said in quoting his predecessor, David Robinson.

Do not miss… The Divine Voyage (1929), BFI 14th August with live accompaniment

If I were an architect and had to build a monument to cinema, I would place a statue of Duvivier above the entrance. This great technician, this rigorist, was a poet. Jean Renoir, Mémoires

 

Given the widely quoted proportion of missing silent film it’s amazing how much is still extant which can surprise, uplift and thoroughly engage. This mood-altering beauty, La divine croisière en français, was all but lost at sea and was splendidly restored in 2020 by Lobster Films from a variety of sources; an abbreviated nitrate print used for Pathé Baby 9.5 mm home cinema, four different 35mm fragments and two 17.5mm diacetate Pathé Rural prints including shots that were censored. The results are on the absolutely essential Cinema of Discovery: Julien Duvivier in the 1920s set from Lobster/Flicker Alley – nine films including Au Bonheur des Dames (1930) – which was released earlier this year: the uncovering of a veritable “cinematic Atlantis” as described by Serge Bromberg, Lobster’s leader.

 

Due to wedding commitments, not mine but the next generation are in a post-pandemic rush, I can’t make the screening but I would urge everyone who can to do so, book now, stop reading and go straight to the BFI website, you will not be disappointed with film or accompaniment; this is going to be a revelatory show.

 

Suzanne Christy and Jean Murat

There is so much pleasing late-silent technique on show from Duvivier in this film – Renoir’s “rigorist poet” in action – with a roving camera that moves in and out of buildings, follows crows as they race to the harbour side or to confront wrong-doing. Close ups of locals cast for face and rapid cutting that shows the influence of both Russian and German directors, not to mention intense close-ups that rival Dreyer for impact. The locations, Paimpol in Brittany, Louvigny sur Mer in Normandy and Ermenonville, now in a national park northwest of Paris, are superbly photographed and edited to create an impression of a people on the edge, battling unforgiving nature.

 

Against this backdrop Duvivier, who wrote and directed, presents a story of faith, bravery and class conflict. The film’s critique of blind capitalism is one of the reasons it was heavily censored at the time, and it begins with an act of desperate revolt when a mariner Kerjean (Henri Valbel) who has defaulted on his rent, attempts to assassinate unforgiving businessman Claude Ferjac (Henry Krauss), Ferjac in his chateau. Ferjac runs the town with a callous calculation and he will push the citizens to the brink before the story is through.

 

Almost the opening shot...

On the run Kerjean encounters Ferjac’s daughter, Simone (Suzanne Christy) who, for a few moments he considers killing her but she is a completely different proposition to her father who connects with the locals and shows compassion. We cut to the Kerjean’s house being emptied and see that his wife has killed herself… but none of this cuts any ice with Ferjac, who threatens a child who throws a stone at his limousine… property is more important than people’s lives.

 

Times is also money and Ferjac makes it clear to the local mariners that manning the insufficiently repaired La Cordillère is of far more importance than the risk to their lives. Captain Jacques de Saint-Ermont (Jean Murat) makes their case but he knows there’s no way of changing Ferjac’s mind. The meeting between the boss and the sailors shows the hatred and fear they feel for this man and the desperate calculations they have to make for their families.

 

There’s further intrigue with Simone romantically attached to Jacques and the two meet in the bay, separated by a fishing net, both trapped in their relationships with her father who will listen to no one be it the curate (Louis Kerly) or Jacques mother (Charlotte Barbier-Krauss, who also featured in Carrot Top (1926) also on the Lobster set and Duvivier’s favourite film.)

Simone and Jacques, caught in the net

The ship sets sail and includes the last-minute arrival of a mariner from outside the area, Mareuil played by Thomy Bourdelle who gives a stand-out muscular performance as the faithless opportunist upon whose actions so many lives will rest. Simone visits the Curate in his church and dedicates herself to repainting the frescoes and especially the painting of Maris Stella, she who is the “Star of the Sea”.

 

Things swiftly go awry on the voyage as Mareuil decides that stealing the cargo is the way forward – another heartless capitalist? – and persuades most of the men to revolt, throwing one unfortunate who refuses into the sea to drown. His group overpowers the Captain and his men, taking control just before the sea, as it was always going to do, erupts in a storm that would challenge even the finest of ships.

 

Back on land, the body of the murdered man is found and there’s a harrowing passage as his wife, Jeanne (Line Noro in her first feature film of what would become a long career) is told of the news and leads a march to confront the man responsible. Ferjac is busy hosting a lavish dinner party to announce the marrying off of Simone to one of his business contacts, she cannot even hold her glass to toast the depressing nuptials and then Jeanne arrives followed by dozens of the locals who are now convinced that the ship has sunk and there’s only one man to be blamed.

 

Roughhouse Thomy Bourdelle

NO SPOILERS!

 

This is only the narrative entrée though and the Divine Voyage is yet to really begin… there’s a magical realism at play and faith, fate and hate will all have their role to play as the full story enfolds.

 

Duvivier maintains not only the pace but also a startling consistency of cinematic expression throughout as well as bringing out some extraordinary performances. Watchable on so many levels, The Divine Voyage is indeed as Serge Bromberg suggests, as glorious a discovery as you would expect from an unearthed cinematic Atlantis.

 

Do not miss it on screen if you can make it. You can book here.

 

The Duvivier box set is available from Flicker Alley and Lobster Films.

A mighty wind… La Proie du vent (1927)

Lillian Hall-Davis

I watched René Clair’s And Then There Were None over Easter, it’s the kind of film that works with a multi-generational audience and a gentle, detached take on one of Christie’s more… nihilistic works. François Truffaut may have dismissed later Clair as only making films for old ladies but André Bazin, founder of Cahiers, was more constructive in saying that Clair “…has remained in a way a film-maker of the silent cinema.” Which is very much the case for ATTWN… everything bad happens in shadowy silence with wordy Christie expressed succinctly with atmospherics.

Two decades before Clair produced his third feature film, La Proie du vent (The Prey of the Wind) which feels a bit like one of Agatha’s – a group of well-off people trapped in a large country pile with passions aflame, mystery and murder in the air – but which also presents as more modern that his later film. There’s more visual narrative content and the story is told through shots reflecting the players’ thoughts and mood with sparing use of inter-titles.

Timeless silent technique

Maybe Clair never quite got over the restrictions of having dialogue or maybe I watch too many silent films…? Either way La Proie du vent marks Clair’s growing confidence as a film-maker en route to his late silent/early-talkie purple patch.

Oh, and we get to see Lillian Hall-Davis’ shoulders… and more than that, one of the finest British actors of the period shows us a stillness and emotional flexibility that still sets her apart. She is timeless.

Charles Vanel and plane

Events begin in the sky as fearless aviator Pierre Vignal (Charles Vanel) soars through clouded skies before coming in to land. He’s due to fly East to establish a new route for commercial flights to Russia but has to postpone when a newspaper reveals trouble in the Balkans.

We switch to the prisons of Libanie where a daughter, Hélène (Sandra Milowanoff),

fights for her mother’s life whilst her husband (Jean Murat) is released by the military junta. As her fellow prisoners round on her suspecting he may have sold their secrets to save his own skin, Hélène’s mother dies; Clair simply showing her crucifix slipped from her hand. Hélène puts the cross around her own neck, future very uncertain.

From mother to daughter

A year passes and Vignal finally sets out to prepare the company’s new commercial line but before he can reach the Russian border he hits a bank of huge clouds and a merciless storm that forces him to land anywhere he can. He sees only trees until a magnificent castle is revealed below, he comes into land but at the last his plane hits a statue and he crashes.

Hours later he wakes up bandaged in bed and looks across to see a beautiful woman sitting patiently by him, the Countess Catchiez (Lillian Hall-Davis) a vision of peace and hope. They are joined by her brother-in –law, the husband from the Libanie prison. 

Blown off course by the wind and crash-landing at the Castle

He discovers that he is in Styannik Castle in Slovakia. His wounds will take some time to heal but as they are so secluded he must stay until he is healed. Vignal lets his company know he will return as soon as he is able and then relaxes into his daily routine which includes daily visits from the Countess.

One day he hears the sound of hammers on wood but is assured it’s only minor repairs…

The Countess and the Pilot

Clair explains the growing romantic interest between the pair through Vignal’s interest in his ladyship’s cigarette… as she leaves the room he stares at the ash tray and the unfinished cigarette she has left. He lifts the cigarette to his mouth to smell it, to taste it and then pops it in his mouth to savour the taste – racey stuff – before promptly dropping it. Hearing her return and unable to pick it up, he puts his own cigarette in its place and, as she lifts his light into her mouth she picks up and passes back what she thinks is his… It feels almost perverse but is well observed.

Sensual cigarettes

Vignal’s feelings for the Countess grow stronger and at the same time so do his insecurities concerning the exact nature of her relationship with her sister’s husband. He says that his wife died but we saw too much of her grief and struggle to really believe that.

Getting closer?

Clair concocts another superb sequence to illustrate Vignal’s emotional storm; convinced that the Countess is having an affair with her brother-in-law, the pilot daydreams his way into her boudoir to find her undressing – those Hall-Davis shoulders revealed! She is surprised by his appearance and a scuffle follows before her supposed lover comes into the room. A gun falls to the floor but she hands it to her brother-in-law who points it at Vignal: cuckolded in his own reverie the bitter-sweet taste of seeing his love comprehensively betrayed.

The imagined room...

Clair harks back to his surrealist past in these moments but they are pure cinema that express thought through camera, cut and counter-point and do not simply rely on performance but the choreography of imagined action flowing from desire…See... that’s what a glimpse of Lillian’s shoulders (and ankles) has done to me!

Key moments in the daydream

 Meanwhile, back to the narrative…  Vignal comes to realise that he is not alone as a house guest after a visit from a surprisingly very much alive Hélène who reveals that she is being held captive by her husband, sister and the mysterious Doctor Massaski (Jim Gérald). She says that both she and Vignal are in grave danger and must find a way to escape as soon as they can.

Jean Murat

Snapped out of his dreamy funk, Vignal switches into the man of action he usually is and thus begins a desperate game to make an escape from under the noses of their urbane captors… Everybody is hiding something though, even the Countess with the dreamy eyes and yet who can Vignal really trust? Is he recovered enough to make the right choices, what exactly is the reason for Hélène’s luxuriant captivity and why is she still alive if what she knows is so potentially damaging?

Hélène comes out of hiding...

Clair’s plot is maybe not so clever as his realization but he creates an atmosphere that involves the viewer right through until the shock of the dénouement. But I can say no more…

La Proie du vent might not be amongst the very best of Clair but it is a really enjoyable film all the same with substantial performances from the small ensemble led of course by the divine Lillian. As a lapsing Surrealist, Clair has something to say about the male instinct with his adventurer all too willing to play the lover or the rescuer of women and there’s an element of self-deception in both: which cigarette do you chose Pierre? We’re all prey to our emotional storms from time to time.

On the run

The cinematography is superb and Clair uses and array of cross-cuts, overlays and montage to reveal his characterizations and mood. But it’s his choice of action that can be the most impressive with a shot showing Hélène and her husband trying to embrace through the tiny window of her prison cell among the most moving.

The version I watched was the 2009 restoration which comes complete with a specially-written score from Ibrahim Maalouf who plays it with a quintet of himself on trumpet, Mark Turner on tenor saxophone, Larry Grenadier on double bass, Clarence Penn on drums and Frank Woeste on piano.

These are jazz songs involving the feel of Miles Davis and which run intermittently along with the narrative. It’s mournfully impressive and whilst occasionally running over the action it works well in matching the overall mood. The soundtrack CD, called simply Wind, is available for download from eMusic or as a CD fromAmazon – likeable as a stand-alone experience. I’m playing my copy as I write!

Annoyingly, the film itseld doesn’t seem to be currently available on commercially and I am indebted to my friend Sandy in Paris for showing me her copy recorded off the television. Surely time for a box set along with Un chapeau de paille d'Italie and Les Deux Timides eh Lobster?