GME Presents Fall Flashbacks - Marcel L’Herbier’s L’ARGENT

The end of the silent era (1928 and 1929) saw an apotheosis of the art and craft of the motion picture, just as the advent of sound was overtaking the film industry.  At a time when movie theaters were being wired for sound, studios produced “talkies” that were more stage-oriented.  The height of artistic achievement in late-era silent films was visually demonstrated in films emanating from France, Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union; these countries produced masterworks of sweeping camera movement and rapid-fire montage.  GME is therefore pleased to present a group of films from these major motion picture producing countries for academic study and appreciation.  From France, L’ARGENT (1928) is Marcel L’Herbier’s silent film swan song, a super-production of epic proportions which combines dizzying camerawork with Soviet-era montage techniques

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Adapted from Émile Zola’s novel of the same name, L’ARGENT is based on the 1882 collapse of Union Générale bank, which subsequently crashed the stock market and plunged France into a decade-long recession.  L’Herbier uses Zola’s tale of mid-1800s stock market speculation to comment on the 1920s greed-fueled fascination with global economies. The film foreshadowed the oncoming financial crisis and stock market crash.  The story centers on the unscrupulous Nicolas Saccard, director of the Universal Bank, who makes a bad bet, loses his societal standing and his mistress, and tries to recoup it all by backing an aviator with a daredevil plan to cross the Atlantic to exploit raw materials in the New World.

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L’Herbier is a great cinematic storyteller: his dramas are replete with compelling characters and riveting stories centering on the one hand with romance and infidelity, and on the other with financial speculation and scientific invention.  The human interactions are dwarfed by imposing sets; the moving camera pans, tracks, and roams through these volumetric spaces.  Although the camera sometimes accompanies the movement of a particular character, remarkably the camera often travels through the set in opposition to the action and unfolding drama.  Oblique camera angles distort the characters’ facial expressions and serve to heighten the impact of their emotional states, while overhead shots accentuate the frenzied action playing out at the Bourse in L’ARGENT.

Marcel L’Herbier’s films are most closely linked to the 1920’s avant garde.  After making several movies in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s that were produced by Gaumont, L’Herbier established his own production company (Cinégraphic), in order to give himself more creative independence.  For L’INHUMAINE (1924), the director showcased the most cutting-edge aspects of modernism in France (plastic arts, decorative arts, architecture, high fashion, music and cinema).  For this production, L’Herbier brought together some of the greatest artists from the time period, including painter Fernand Léger, architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, glassmaker René Lalique, fashion designer Paul Poiret, sculptor Joseph Csaky, tapestry-maker Jean Lurçat, and directors Alberto Cavalcanti and Claude Autant-Lara, all of whom contributed to the striking visual design of this noteworthy film.   FEU MATHIAS PASCAL (1926) features stylized sets designed by Alberto Cavalcanti and Lazare Meerson.  For L’ARGENT, L’Herbier once again availed himself of the talents of Meerson (assisted by André Barsacq and Jaque Catelain).  The modern interiors are Art Deco, furnished by Pierre Chareau with accompanying accessories by Jean Lurçat and the design firm Desny. The costume design is by Jacques Manuel, who created timeless dresses with ornate bodices, raising the low waist of the 1920s, lowering the skirt line well below the knee at the front, and constructing long, transformative trains at the back, all in contrast to the clothing style of the contemporaneous jazz and flapper era.

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Known for his ability to translate artistic and innovative sensibilities into commercial fare, L’Herbier designed L’ARGENT to compete with the super-productions coming out of France, the United States (THE KING OF KINGS), and Germany (METROPOLIS).  It is thus bursting with state-of-the-art techniques, a big-name international cast (including Brigitte Helm of  METROPOLIS fame), 1500 extras, and was shot by France’s highest paid cameraman at the time, Jules Krüger. L’Herbier made use of a dozen cameramen flying on pulleys and dollies, as well as an unmanned camera that descended and revolved to capture the stock exchange in full frenzy. Even as the pilot embarks on his trans-Atlantic flight, action on the stock market floor intensifies in a montage of Eisensteinian proportions.  To quote Mireille Beaulieu, who wrote the essays for the booklet that accompanies this digital publication, in L’ARGENT “movement is central and rhythmic, evolving through the progression of a given scene within the complex relationships between the camera, the actor, and the set. Discovering or rediscovering  L’ARGENT is above all a sensory experience, an immersion in a work of vibrant beauty.”

This Blu-ray edition also includes a thematically related short film made by L’Herbier in 1921, entitled PROMETHEUS BANKER.  It tells the story of a banker-seducing vampire.   Most significantly, an additional accompanying bonus feature, AUTOUR DE L’ARGENT, was made by Jean Dréville, a 22 year old film journalist, photographer, and graphic designer, who was engaged by L’Herbier to document the production of L’ARGENT.  Dréville’s admiration for Marcel L’Herbier’s work is evident.  Hiding behind support beams in the rafters of the studio hangers, he was able to capture L’Herbier’s complex cinematic techniques (lighting, cameras, and tracking shots, as well as the construction of the gargantuan sets).  He transforms the footbridges of the studio into avant-garde, stylized geometric lines and creates a short montage to the glory of technology.  In the stock market sequence, one camera is seen hanging in the air off of a rail to create a panoramic effect.  Another camera is dropped vertically from the ceiling, equipped with a special lens (the Brachyscope), which distorts the dimensions of the image. 

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With AUTOUR DE L’ARGENT, Dréville also documents the state of French film production at the time, which did not have the advanced equipment of their German and American counterparts. Dréville also documents the focused manner in which Marcel L’Herbier worked with actors – we see him intensely concentrated, mimicking the action and modifying the postures of the actors.  AUTOUR DE L’ARGENT was made in 1928, contemporaneous with the production of L’ARGENT; the bonus feature included in this Blu-ray edition is the 1971 version in which Dreville added a sound track narration.

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