Film's first detective film - 1911 - Le trust, ou les batailles de l’argent - The Trust, or The Battles for Money - Louis Feuillade

Too often, there are works of art that fade into obscurity which deserve far greater recognition. Several months ago, when Film: Ab Initio began exploring ‘Film’s Forgotten Decade’ (i.e. the period between The Great Train Robbery and The Birth of a Nation), we speculated that there would be a good number of films that may deserve greater attention, whether for their high quality or achieving a particular milestone.

                As we near the end of this Forgotten Decade, it is clear that there are a good number of films that are at least the equal of any ‘canonised’ film (when we reach the end of 1913, we will return to this topic in a lot more detail).  Le trust, ou les batailles de l’argent is a film with several milestones: it is the the first detective film, the first thriller, the first corporate espionage film, perhaps even the first film noir.

It is also an outstanding film that sees Feuillade experimenting with this new cinematic genre that will lead to his classics, Fantomas, Les Vampires and Judex. Given the lengthy running times of these three seminal works (Les Vampires, for example, is six and a half hours long); Le trust, ou les batailles de l’argent, which is only twenty five minutes long, serves as an insightful introduction into Feuillade’s oeuvre.

The film is also notable for its introduction of the actor René Navarre, who plays detective Julien Kieffer and will go on to play Fantomas. His arrival on screen (see image above) heralds the creation of the modern conception of a male movie star. Although we have seen Max Linder dominate the camera with his charismatic on screen presence, his comedic creations serve as a blueprint for the like of Chaplin and Keaton. In Navarre’s suave exterior, immaculate dress sense and dramatic acting range, we can see the precedent for the like of James Cagney, James Stewart, Cary Grant and many others.

Interestingly, the first detective film’s detective is a corrupt, scheming villain who uses underhand tactics to undermine his client’s chief competitor. His subtle dastardliness allows the film to employ several of its key plot devices without descending into melodrama. For example, when he walks into a room with his hat, a cigarette and an exorbitant amount of swagger (see image below), there is no suggestion that his character is about to place a toxic gas in a vase that will render his victim unconscious.

Le trust, ou les batailles de l’argent has a most unusual plot. The film involves the detective Julien Kieffer helping the industrialist Jacob Berwick spy on his rival Darbois in order to steal Darbois’ discovery of a formula to manufacture artificial rubber. This is the earliest example of a film that is based around corporate espionage; surprisingly, the film transcends its plot and proves to be compelling viewing.              

This is because Feuillade employs a number of devices that one would expect to find in detective fiction (it is worth remembering that Sherlock Holmes was created in 1887 and that the Golden Age of Detective Fiction is still a decade away). There is cross-dressing, mistaken identity, double-crossing, kidnapping and even invisible ink. All of these are conventions  that we anticipate when we encounter a ‘detective film’, but it worth noting how novel such ideas would have seemed to contemporary audiences; the plot is constructed in a fluid manner that allows the film to captivate the modern audience as well.

The film lacks a moral centre, and is all the more interesting for undertaking such a bold decision. Although Darbois and his secretary are the victims of Kieffer’s plotting; the film’s opening shot of Darbois, with his bulging eyes and expensive surroundings (see image below) ensure the audience do not identify either him or his secretary as the protagonists of this film. In fact, the setting reminds us one of the great early cinematic villains, The Wheat King in D.W. Griffith’s Corner of Wheat.

This reference leads us to our first comparison of this decade’s two great directors. Thus far, we have seen that Griffith has an intuitive grasp of iconic visual scenes. Whether it is the rolling barrel in The Adventures of Dollie, the corm smothering the Wheat King in Corner in Wheat or the repeated image of the Confederate flag in The House with Closed Shutters, Griffith has proved himself capable of conjuring some of early silent cinema’s most iconic images.

 And if there is a weakness in Le trust, ou les batailles de l’argent, it would be that it is slightly over-reliant on telegrams and letters to move the plot forwars. However, this device is manipulated to give the film its key twist, which may not have been possible without the repeated use of letters and telegrams.

Feuillade though, is also capable of creating iconic scenes and images. In this film alone, the sending of a telegram and particularly the moment where Berwick and his men don their black masks to hide their identity from Bremond (see image below). Griffith has continued the Lumiere Brothers’ exploration of realism, whereas Feuillade has continued Méliès’ exploration of the fantastical.

Returning to the earlier point, although Griffith has proven himself to be a master of creating iconic scenes and images, I would argue that Feuillade has a stronger grasp of plotting and storytelling. Both Le trust, ou les batailles de l’argent and The Fairy of the Surf have a cumulative effect that few films manage from any era.  

Availability: Unfortunately, the increasing length of films means that it is less and less likely that any films will be available on Youtube. To compound this bad news, the only place that the film can be found is on the Gaumont Treasures DVD, which retails at $79.99. 

I will keep my eyes glued to Youtube - as soon as this film is uploaded I will embed it on this blog post. 

Film's first postmodern film - 1910 - Les Débuts de Max au Cinématographe - Max Linder's Debut As a Cinematograph Artist - Max Linder & Louis J. Gasnier

Much has been made of the recent ‘discovery’ of a supposed time-traveller in the footage of the premiere of Chaplin's 1928 film the Circus. While the theory was swiftly debunked, it was undeniably exciting to see the internet abuzz with discussion about a silent film.

  It is a great shame that this temporary mainstream interest in the silent era will not extend itself for a longer period, because the silent era achieved some remarkable time-bending feats. For example, Max Linder’s Les Débuts de Max au Cinématographe can stake a claim to be the first postmodern film. Now although postmodernism is one of those slippery terms which Harold Bloom would describe as over-determined in figuration and under-determined in meaning, my understanding of postmodernism in this context is the following:

 

 Postmodernism is characterised by irony, appropriation and self-reference. In particular, the movement has uncovered the presence of source ideas, information and influences. It has therefore challenged the idea of ‘originality’. It has also made artworks resistant to straightforward assumptions about the place of the author and the interpreter.

 

Les Débuts de Max au Cinématographe is a film about the process of film-making. The film opens with a scene we might expect to see in Charlie Kaufmann’s Adaptation or even the television show Entourage, with Linder’s character visiting Charles Pathé.

 Charles Pathé was one of the most powerful film moguls of the early silent era, and there is little doubt that any aspiring film maker in 1910 would have had to undertake a similar approach to getting his/her film made. The acute self-referential nature of this scene bears the hallmarks of a seminal postmodern work, yet it pre-dates this school of thought by around half a century! Examples of artists pre-empting major critical movements in such a manner deserve as much attention as mistaken time-travellers.

After Linder’s character has given the incredibly busy Pathé his recommendation letter and meets a few other industry men, he begins rehearsing a scene with another actor/director. It is only later on that we learn that Linder and his friend are rehearsing a scene that will be used in Linder’s film within a film towards the end of the movie. However, Linder’s desire to constantly remind the audience that they are watching a film that is about the process of making a film ‘breaks’ the fourth wall, which is another characteristic of a typical postmodern work:

 

The acceptance of the transparency of the fourth wall is part of the suspension of disbelief between a fictional work and an audience, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as if they were observing real events. Although the critic Vincent Canby described it in 1987 as "that invisible screen that forever separates the audience from the stage," postmodern art forms frequently either do away with it entirely, or make use of various framing devices to manipulate it in order to emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of the production, according to the artistic desires of the work's creator.

 

This self-awareness of form and subject matter is highlighted again before the ‘scene’ in the studio begins; Linder and the two female characters have a brief conversation where they appear amiable towards one another, before Linder’s character walks away from the camera and then returns ‘in character’. Linder’s constant inventiveness and playfulness illuminates this magnificent film and allows it to be both intellectually stimulating and extremely funny.

The latter point is crucial to emphasise as the film is perhaps the funniest Linder film the Film: Ab Initio list has observed to date. It manages to incorporate Linder’s earlier slapstick humour with an intellectual curiosity that deepens the humour of certain scenes. For example, when Linder is slapped by one of the female characters in the studio scene, the humour is amplified by the audience’s remembrance of Linder practising this slap with a male actor/director in an earlier scene.

The sophistication and dexterity of humour that Linder offers us in this film is worthy of any of the great comics of any era and fuels my belief  Linder’s marginal reputation is unworthy of his considerable talents.

The final irony of the film’s postmodern nature is the fact that Les Débuts de Max au Cinématographe is the first Max Linder film on the Film: Ab Initio list where he is given a direction credit...

 

 

Film's first fairytale - 1909 - La fée des grèves (The Fairy of the Surf) - Louis Feuillade

There are certain films that only make a notable impression on their audience after the film has concluded. They do not radiate brilliance throughout as many of the great films do, but their appreciation greatly increases when they considered in their entirety: Louis Feuillade’s The Fairy of the Surf is one of these films.

The film disguises itself as what we would today call a costume drama, but the film invites far more complex readings than its genre may suggest.

Before discussing the various readings the film invites, Feuillade’s developing directorial skills should be discussed. In The Fairy of the Surf, Feuillade pulls of a feat that no film has managed to do so thus far, achieve a smooth transition between a ‘natural’ exterior and an interior.

Although films shot in cities have successfully managed such transitions, films which have been partly shot outside of a city have either failed in portraying the transition, or more often than not, avoided it all together (see The Tempest (1908) and Stenka Razin (1908)). As Prince Sigismond walks the fairy up the stairs of his castle and they enter a large hall (see image above), the shift between the two locations is seamless. We may take for granted what we now considered to be a routine and mundane switch, but it is early directors such as Feuillade who enabled later directors to perform such movement with ease.

The film also contains a sublime shot (see image above), which should be categorised as what Kurosawa termed as ‘pure cinema’. As the Prince and his friend capture the fairy from the river, their boat heads back towards the shore; as their boat shits direction, the entire frame is engulfed by a blaze of light. It is a shot of terrifying beauty that recalls one J.M.V’s dazzling portrayals of sunlight. As Picasso once said, "Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; others transform a yellow spot into the sun." Even in his earliest films, Feuillade hints at the flair and control that he will exhibit in his later films.

The colouring of the costumes is done particularly well (see image above). In certain films from this era, colouring can be overdone and diminish a particular film’s visual qualities. Here, however, the colouring of clothing is subtle and enhances certain scenes, such as when the various couples make their way to the wedding, and the colouring of the ladies’ dresses highlights the grandiosity of the occasion (see image below).

The film also manages scenes with large groups of people in a more convincing manner than has been attempted in previous films (this improvement undoubtedly owes a debt to the constant technological innovations of film as well). Each individual’s body is decipherable, as is their movement. Feuillade’s decision to employ the technique of slow motion as each couple leaves the wedding after the fairy and the prince leaves highlights his ability in regards to orchestrating the movement of a group of people (see image below).  

The plot of the film is simple; Prince Sigismond and his friend capture a fairy from the river next to his castle, and the Prince convinces her to marry him. After they marry, she faints as she realises that she cannot live away from the river and collapses (see image below). She begs her new husband to allow her to return to her home. As he begs her to stay, he finally gives up and decides to go with her. The final scene involves them sitting on an underwater throne together.

At a basic level, we have a simple love story. But rather than the fairy forsaking her world for her prince, the opposite happens. Given the combination of the love story with sparing use of visual trickery, The Fairy of the Surf is clearly a loose forerunner for films such as Avatar. However, the film’s aforementioned completeness and retrospective satisfaction lends itself to any number of fairy tales.

Another reading of the film is that it is an allegory for the battle between reality and the imagination. The Prince represents reality and the fairy represents the imagination.  As the Prince captures the fairy and marries her, it appears that reality is harnessing and taking control of the imagination. Yet as the imagination has a violent reaction against reality and realises that it cannot exist on this plain so must return to her river of imagination, reality secedes its attempt to control the imagination and enters the world of the imagination. It is on this plain that the two are able to happily coexist (see image below); the allegory serves as an excellent lesson for any artist, and may also function as Feuillade’s mission statement for what will be an extremely successful decade for him.

The first romantic comedy - 1909 - Le baromètre de la fidélité (The Fidelity barometer) - Georges Monca

1909 was a pivotal year in film history. Film was moving away from the trick film as well as witnessing directors attempt to tackle more complex themes and genres such as tragedy. In Le baromètre de la fidélité, we have the great comic of this era attempting to expand on the slapstick humour he perfected in films such as Début d'un patineur, thus allowing him to take advantage of film’s rapidly increasing length.

This would involve engaging in a different type of humour than that found in his earlier slapstick films. The humour in his earlier films is immediate and obvious, whereas in Le baromètre de la fidélité the film’s comedy simmers for the majority of the film before coming to a highly amusing end.

Film historians rightly comment on the technical innovations that various early silent films employ. But the narrative techniques that film develops during this period are often overlooked; for example, in Le baromètre de la fidélité, Linder opens the film with detailed exposition, giving the scenario that the film focuses on greater weight.

In this opening scene, we see Linder and his wife happily canoeing down a river in wedded bliss. When we meet them in the next scene, they are clearly bored and frustrated with one another. As the two scenes are juxtaposed with one another, the frustration they experience in the later scene becomes both heightened and comic. If Linder had made this film a few years earlier, he may not have been able to employ this useful device.

The opening scene is also shot in an exotic, open location that is deliberately contrasted with the claustrophobic exterior of their living room in the next scene for another reason as well. The exotic location of the opening scene will have impressed contemporary audiences and added another layer of interest for them. Whereas Melies continued to work within the confines of the trick film genre, Linder was a more pragmatic operator who was happy to absorb and explore techniques and subject matters that were outside the confines of slapstick humour. It is therefore unsurprising that he would become film’s biggest star by the turn of the century.

Once the film moves from its exotic location to Linder’s living room, the film centres on a fidelity barometer. I have googled this unusual term and cannot find any precedent for it in an article online. (Can any French readers tell us if this device had been employed by a French writer before Linder?) The Linder’s are given a long tube filled with clear liquid and told that their fidelity is proven as long as the liquid stays clear.

It is clear that the setup will result in disaster, but it is the way that the film goes about delivering its climax that is both satisfying and amusing. Yet again, Linder’s physical movements are impeccable in these final movements, every gesture is so considered as he manages to deliver his inimitable performance without ever over-exaggerating or playing down a particular comic moment. Linder succeeds where so many other actors fail in silent film: communicating with his audience without them ever wishing he was able to utter a single word.

Although we would struggle to find a fidelity barometer in a modern day romantic comedy, the entire structure of Le baromètre de la fidélité is genre specific to the romantic comedy, with several considerable exceptions. As with film of the same year Princess Nicotine, the humour is dark and sassy. Its brand of humour makes it a forerunner for the screwball comedies of the thirties and forties. The film oozes with a level of charm and cheekiness that you will rarely find in a modern romantic comedy; for example, the lack of moralising makes a most welcome change.

For a man who had and would continue to make his name in the slapstick genre of comedy, Linder is remarkably at ease in what can be considered as one of the first romantic comedies.

1908 - A Very Fine Lady - Louis Feuillade

Today, Louis Feuillade is primarily remembered for his pioneering work on the serial thrillers Fantomas (1913) and Les Vampires (1915). However, the scope of Feuillade’s influence was broader and deeper than is currently remembered.

In 1905, Feuillade started to sell screenplays to Gaumont, who at the time were the second largest film company in France after Pathé. He was recruited by Alice Guy, the pioneering film maker who was responsible for Gaumont’s growth during its formative years.  

Given that by 1910, two-thirds of worldwide film production was produced by French companies, this was a remarkably influential position to hold, the likes of which there is no modern equivalent of today. The likes of Abel Gance, Romeo Bosetti and Marcel L’Herbier worked at Gaumont while he was creative director at Gaumont. Feuillade was also a prolific director; before his death in 1925, he made close to 700 films.

A Very Fine Lady demonstrates Feuillade’s versatility and will surprise those who only know Feuillade through Fantomas and Les Vampires. The film is a simple comedy that owes a significant debt to the early work of Max Linder. Linder’s growing popularity meant that there was demand for more comedy films, but they needed to combine slapstick with a sense of adventure. A Very Fine Lady is as humorous as any of Linder's early films, successfully structuring its comedy around a single conceit. If the film has a weakness, it is that it tails off slightly as it reaches is its climax. But overall, it is a highly amusing film that should have the ability to win over any silent film sceptics that you know.  

A Very Fine Lady follows a beautiful young woman and traces the trouble and fuss she creates among the male population. What makes the film enjoyable is the manner in which the scenarios on display become both increasingly absurd and funny; starting with a shop keeper pouring a bucket water the wrong way (see image above) and reaching its comic peak with a man taking out another gentleman with a large plank of wood, as his sight is distracted by the pretty lady as she walks by (see image below).

We also have one of cinema’s first allusions to an earlier film. As the young lady walks past a gardener watering a public park, you are reminded of one of the Lumiere Brothers’ first films, Le Jardinier (l'Arroseur Arrosé) (1895), where a similar gag is played with a hose pipe (see image below).  

The film is also the first example that we have of the ‘male voyeur's gaze’. In her landmark 1975 essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema ,  Laura Mulvey stated that:

The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man takes the argument a step further into the structure of representation, adding a further layer demanded by the ideology of the patriarchal order as it is worked out in its favorite cinematic form - illusionistic narrative film. The argument returns again to the psychoanalytic background in that woman as representation signifies castration, inducing voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to circumvent her threat. None of these interacting layers is intrinsic to film, but it is only in the film form that they can reach a perfect and beautiful contradiction, thanks to the possibility in the cinema of shifting the emphasis of the look. It is the place of the look that defines cinema, the possibility of varying it and exposing it. This is what makes cinema quite different in its voyeuristic potential from, say, strip-tease, theatre, shows, etc. Going far beyond highlighting a woman's to-be-looked-at-ness, cinema builds the way she is to be looked at into the spectacle itself.

I have always felt that Mulvey’s argument is over-exaggerated and slightly dated, but she certainly raises an interesting debate which I think is well worthwhile pursuing. And although A Very Fine Lady is a straightforward comedy, there is no denying that if we were to apply Mulvey’s reading to film, the genealogy of the ‘male voyeur's gaze’ can be traced back to this film.

For example, returning to the hosepipe scene, the sexual innuendo of the gardener’s hosepipe ushering a fountain of water as the lady walks by (see image below) could be interpreted as adding weight to Mulvey’s assertion.

Film: Ab Initio will return to her argument and the above quote in more detail, when the idea of the ‘male voyeur's gaze’ is found in later films, and it will be interesting to see how well Mulvey’s hypothesis holds (particularly in relation to the Hitchcock films, Vertigo and Rear Window, that Mulvey's argument is predominantly aimed at).

A Very Fine Lady is a fine foray into the world of film making by Feuillade, and it will be interesting to observe the genesis of his directorial skills over the next ten years or so.