Film History, Volume 17, pp. 352362, 2005. Copyright John Libbey Publishing ISSN: 0892-2160.

. Printed in United States of America

Memory Work: French Historical Epics, 19261927

Memory Work : French Historical Epics, 19261927

Richard Abel
emories. Rene Lichtig, the former editor and head of technical services at the Cinmathque franaise responsible for restoring so many 1920s French films from the late 1970s through the 1990s, recently spoke of her own mothers encounter with the famous actor Ivan Mosjoukine during the last years of the czars reign in Russia. When she was 17, she met him at a charity ball and got to dance with him. My mother admired Mosjoukine deeply and she wasnt the only one.1 Because the first films collected by Henri Langlois for the Paris archive had been manufactured by Albatros, the Russian migr company for which Mosjoukine starred in the 1920s, Lichtig chose his films as her initial restoration project. Kevin Brownlow, also responsible for restoring a good number of the major 1920s French films (and an important filmmaker in his own right), described his boyhood memories of collecting discarded film prints after his parents gave him a hand-cranked 9.5mm projector in the early 1950s. Among them were abridged versions of the French epics, Casanova (1927), starring Mosjoukine, and Joueur dchecs (The Chess Player, 1927), which soon provoked what would become a long love affair with the French silent cinema.2 Decades later, Brownlow restored the latter film, aided by Lenny Borger (then a Variety reviewer based in Paris) who tracked down a more complete 35mm archive print in East Berlin. Nearly 25 years ago, as I myself was researching 1920s French films, Brownlow graciously invited me to his home to view his 9.5mm prints of Joueur dchecs and Michel Strogoff (another film from 1926, that he had collected, starring Mosjoukine), as well as a striking 16mm reel of one scene from Casanova in stencil color. His enthusiasm, abetted by that of Lichtig, Borger and Marie Epstein (my fairy godmother at the Cinmathque franaise), augmented my own and greatly supported my writing what would become French Cinema: The First Wave, 19151929.3

In the context of this special issue of Film History, the year 1927 arguably marks a climactic moment in silent French cinema.4 It was then, for instance, following the opening of splendid palace cinemas such as the Imprial in Paris, that Paramount began building what quickly would become the premier Paris cinema, the Paramount-Palace. It was then, too, that the cin-club movement reached a kind of apex with the Cin-Club de France and Tribune libre organizing competing series of special screenings and lectures, Lon Moussinac and others founding Les Amis de Spartacus (the lone radical mass movement that preceded Cin-Libert in the late 1930s), Jean Mauclaire preparing to open Studio 28 (the third and last important specialized cinema in Paris), and Jean Drville editing a deluxe specialized film journal, Cingraphie. It was then that Jean Epstein and Germaine Dulac released two of their more provocative avant-garde films, respectively, La glace trois faces and Le coquille et le clergyman (The Seashell and the Clergyman). It was then that French film comedy underwent a revival, somewhat ironically through Albatros productions, most notably with Ren Clairs Un chapeau de paille dItalie (The Italian Straw Hat). And it was then that French historical epics achieved a kind of apotheosis, most famously in Abel Gances Napolon, of course, but also in the less well-known films previously noted: Michel Strogoff, Joueur dchecs and Casanova.5 At

Richard Abel is Robert Altman Collegiate Professor of Film Studies and Director of the Graduate Program in Film and Video Studies at the University of Michigan. His most recent books are The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 19001910 (California 1999) and Imagining Community in US Cinema, 19101914 (forthcoming California). He co-edited, with Rick Altman, The Sounds of Early Cinema (Indiana 2001) and served as general editor for the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (Routledge 2005). Contact: richabel@umich.edu

Memory Work: French Historical Epics, 19261927 the time, they all faced competition in Paris from big American and German imports such as The Big Parade, Metropolis and Don Juan. Recently, Michel Strogoff and Casanova were the highlights of an impressive retrospective of 1920s Mosjoukine films at the 22nd Giornate del cinema muto in Italy, and Brownlows extraordinary restoration of Joueur dchecs was released on DVD as The Chess Player both of which have provided the occasion for this essay.6 One of the most telling features of these three films (especially now, after they have undergone their own restoration) is their reconstruction of a historical past beyond the borders of France, specifically 18th and 19th century Russia.7 Other French historical epics took their subjects from the mid-18th to mid19th centuries not only in Napolon but also in Cinromans serials such as Henri Fescourts Mandrin (1924), Ren Leprinces Fanfan la tulipe (1925) and Luitz-Morats Jean Chouan (1926)8 or from 15th century France, when an initial sense of national unity was being forged not only in the two Jeanne dArc films but also in Raymond Bernards Le miracle des loups, the first to have a special premiere at the Paris Opra, on 13 November 1924.9 In one way or another, all served to address the devastation and loss that the French population experienced as a result of World War I. By resurrecting historical moments of French glory and tragedy, they contributed to the memory work required for the countrys restoration and a renewal of the French national character.10 The historical epics with Russian subjects, however, performed a different kind of memory work. They permitted the Russian migrs, who had coalesced around the Albatros company and then moved on to even larger film projects, to reconstruct the now vanished empire of the czars, indulging their nostalgia for a fetishized, mythical past in Michel Strogoff and showcasing their own talent for resurrecting spectacular decors and costumes in Casanova the latter of which made much of the Italian aristocrats exile in the court of Catherine the Great. Although no less nostalgic and spectacular, Bernards Joueur dchecs, by contrast, relied on a thoroughly French crew and cast (but also Russian migr money) to re-imagine one of many Polish revolts against the Russian empire, this one occurring in 1776, in conjunction with the story of an inventor of life-size mechanical mannequins who is called to the court of Catherine II. As Lichtigs memory of her mother suggests,

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another telling feature of at least two of these films is Ivan Mosjoukines performance. In 1925, Mosjoukine was near the height of his career in France. One of Russias most popular film actors in the 1910s, he had joined other Russian migrs who ended up in Paris to become just as successful in a variety of Albatros productions: Alexandre Volkoffs acclaimed serial, La maison du mystre (192223), his own bizarrely parodic Le brasier ardent (1923), Volkoffs prestigious biopic, Kean (1924), and Marcel LHerbiers adaptation of an eccentric Pirandello novel, Feu Mathias Pascal (1925). At the time, Gance seriously considered hiring him to play the lead role in Napoleon, but the actor either declined (deciding that only a Frenchman would be acceptable) or made excessive salary demands for the two years he would have to devote to the production.11 Instead, he signed on with his former Albatros associates for Viatcheslav Tourjanskys Michel Strogoff and Volkoffs Casanova, equally large-scale productions financed by Cinromans in conjunction with, respectively, Cin-France and Cin-Alliance. For many, Borger notes, this move into big-budget international commercialism marked the beginning of Mosjoukines artistic decline,12 and his subsequent career with Universal in Hollywood, cut short by the disastrous Surrender (1927), only seemed to confirm that judgment. Yet it seems to me just as valid to argue that Mosjoukines star turns in these two films actually mark the culmination of his career. If Michel Strogoff gave the actor a unique opportunity to explore and refine his exceptional emotional intensity (highlighted by those magnetic eyes),13 Casanova

Fig. 1. Michel Strogoff. The Magnetic Eyes of Ivan Mosjoukine. [Photos courtesy of the author unless otherwise stated.]

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Richard Abel nostalgia felt by the Russian migrs for this period may have been aligned with that felt by some French audiences for their own Second Empire. The Tartars, led by Emir Boukhara FofarKhan and supported by a traitorous Russian officer, Ivan Ogareff (Chakatouny), are threatening the Siberian cities of Omsk and Irkoutsk, the latter of which is defended by the czars brother. A loyal officer of the guard, and Siberian by birth, Strogoff is sent by the czar on a secret mission to unmask Ogareff and halt the Tartar attacks. Journeying by train, tarantass (a carriage) and flatboat, he befriends Nadia Fedoreff (Nathalie Kovanko), who also is headed for Irkoutsk to find her exiled father. When she is seized by a marauding band of Kirghiz, he accepts a second, more personal mission. He himself is captured by spies after surreptitiously entering Omsk to catch a glimpse of his mother (Jeanne Brindeau), but just as the Tartars stage a massive attack and all three are taken to Fofar-Khans encampment, where the emir blinds Strogoff with a red-hot sword in front of Nadia and his dying mother. Struggling on to Irkoutsk through mountain snows, guided by Nadia (whom he carries on his back), Strogoff finally confronts Ogareff. As his eyesight miraculously returns (tears shed for his mother have made the blinding temporary), he duels the traitor to his death and warns the city in time to repel the Tartars. Returning to St. Petersburg, Strogoff is rewarded by the czar and marries Nadia, his dearest prize, in a lavish Russian Orthodox ceremony. From one perspective, this story lays out a series of situations that allow the filmmakers to mount one setpiece after another, matching technical facility to spectacular action. The opening scenes, for instance, deploy framings that range from high-angle long shots (of a court grand ball), to close-ups (of a journalists ear, cymbals clashing), striking dolly shots (moving slowly out from the orchestra seated in a space overlooking the ballroom, more quickly in to the czar in an adjacent room after he hears a report on Tartar horsemen rampaging through distant villages), and rapid cutting of dancers, players, Tartars and victimized villagers. All of these images (and sounds) impinge on and become focalized in the figure of the czar, and propel him to send Strogoff on his mission. Among other setpieces are the elaborate staging of the battle for Omsk (shot in Latvia with thousands of soldiers and cavalry), the pursuit and capture of Strogoff through a forest at night (using mobile cameras and artificial light), the

Fig. 2. Michel Strogoff. Strogoff after being blinded by the Tartar leader.

allowed him the freedom and scope to display, sometimes with subtle irony, his own exuberant brand of comic playfulness. Presented to the trade press on 30 June 1926 at the recently opened Paris palace cinema, the Empire, Michel Strogoff was described as absolutely sensational by La Cinmatographie franaise and as a brilliant adaptation of Jules Vernes 1876 adventure novel, far better than the 1880 stage adaptation which had quickly entered the Thtre du Chtelets repertoire.14 Five months later, the film premiered for an exclusive run at the Imprial, another new palace cinema in the capital, and held the screen there for two months.15 The story is set in 1860, in the reign of czar Alexandre II (Gaidaroff), whose court was then considered in Europe the height of high style, influencing fashions in France from clothing and hairstyles to special dinner recipes.16 Hence, the

Memory Work: French Historical Epics, 19261927 hill fires (tinted red) set along the river signaling the Tartar attack on Irkoutsk, and Strogoffs duel with Ogareff through several palace halls and staircases, after the traitors accomplices have begun to set fire to the city so as to facilitate the Tartar assault. The scenes that most parallel the opening, however, are those set in the Tartar encampment (which at least one reviewer described as the films chief attraction)17, where a festival is in progress as the prisoners captured at or near Omsk are forced to confront Fofar-Khan. The festival crowds (including musicians and dancers) are reminiscent of the revelers at the court ball, and the soft pastels of stencil color, especially in high-angle long shots, accentuate the connection between locations. Perhaps most important, Strogoff is called before another ruler and experiences what now seems to be the failure of his mission. Moreover, his blinding seems to redirect and externalize the sensory attack suffered initially by the czar, creating an added shock of remembering for the spectator. Yet a somewhat different trajectory can be traced through these and other scenes, one that privileges Mosjoukines performance as Strogoff. At the time, reviewers such as J.L. Croze of Comoedia praised the actors star turn rather than this spectacular action as the films chief attraction.18 Indeed, the storys situations seem unusually tailored for Mosjoukine to display his prodigious talent. The power of his mere presence is evident in Strogoffs first scene with the czar, where he stands still, ramrod-straight and expressionless in a crisply cut, gray and white guard officers uniform. Early in the mission, when Ogareff humiliates him and takes his seat on the tarantass, he has to make that stillness seem cowardly (banking the fiery flash of his eyes) in order to protect his characters identity. His emotional turmoil erupts into delirium, however, after Strogoff fails to save Nadia from the Kirghiz boarding the flatboat, is thrown wounded into the river and then is rescued, half drowned, by a poor fisherman. Later Mosjoukine has to transform that stillness into callousness while also suggesting his inner agony when Strogoffs mother believes she recognizes him in Omsk, follows him to a caf and inadvertently forces him to deny knowing her. That agony breaks out in response to Strogoffs mothers collapse, trying to save him from the emir, and then seems closed off, as his eyes are seared shut depriving an audience of the actors most critically acclaimed asset. The characters inner turmoil now finds expression in a slowed, dead-

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ened body language of seemingly endless suffering. The miracle of Strogoffs regained eyesight, which stuns Ogareff, also restores Mosjoukines magnetic eyes, and the recovery seems to transform the actors body, turning him almost effortlessly into an action hero la Fairbanks in Strogoffs physically grueling duel with the traitor. In fact, focusing on Mosjoukines performance reveals another dimension to this trajectory. Despite the films large-scale scenes of spectacle, the threatened empire, internalized in the czars initial turmoil, finally is restored by the emotional intensity, sacrificial suffering, and physical endurance of a single individual (himself having undergone restoration). And that restoration is marked by the serene, seamless, uninterrupted wedding ceremony in which Strogoff and Nadia become the very embodiment of that empire. Casanova probably is the best known of these three films because the restored version had well publicized screenings at the UCLA Film and Television Archive (Los Angeles), 2223 June 1986, and at Lincoln Center (New York City), 11 July 1986; moreover, it opened the extensive season of French silent films at the National Film Theatre (London), in January 1987. Most of these screenings also benefited from being accompanied by a new score specially composed and conducted by Georges Delerue, because the music, Walter Goodman writes, added inestimably to the movies drive and humor.19 Much like Michel Strogoff, Casanova originally was presented to critics at the Empire, on 22 June 1927, had a two-month exclusive run at the Marivaux in Paris,

Fig. 3. Michel Strogoff. The Tartar encampment of Boukhara Fofar-Khan.

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Fig. 4. Casanova. Venice night scene, after the Carnival.

Richard Abel

from 13 September to 14 November, and then opened at other cinemas in late December 1927.20 Some reviewers were extremely critical of this Europudding of a super-production, debunking it as an overly lavish divertissement and a waste of Mosjoukines talent: the Marxist critic, Lon Moussinac, faulted it for failing to offer a critical description of social decomposition in 18th century Venice and an indictment of an era of crass sensual pleasure and foul cruelty.21 Jean Mitry was more generous (although he would be far less so years later), accepting the film on its own terms as an elaborate fresco and the filmmakers attention to surface artifice (in landscapes, set decors, costumes, faces) as perfectly appropriate for the epoch.22 Although purportedly based on Casanovas own Mmoires, Volkoff and his collaborators actually selected and reworked incidents (ignoring many others) in order to create an episodic series of adventures (one love affair and/or intrigue after another) that take the roguish hero from Venice (where the governing council has ordered his arrest), through Austria to Catherine the Greats court in St. Petersburg, and back to Venice (and Carnival), from which he has to

flee once more.23 The result is what Borger aptly calls a historical fantasia, a dream world marked by inventive heroics, witty extravagance, a surprisingly light comic touch and sly self-mockery. Nearly all of Casanovas episodes hold some kind of interest from the risqu exhibitionism of Corticelli (Rino de Liguoro) and her nude dancers or the over-the-top romantic image of Casanovas farewell kiss of the Baroness Stormont (Olga Day) to his escape from the Venice authorities by unexpectedly diving off the Rio San Travese Bridge or his rescue of Carlotta (Jenny Jugo) from an assault by her brutish husband in an Austrian inn, depicted in a relatively rapid montage of close shots. Yet unlike Michel Strogoff, this film saves its most stunning effects for the last two major episodes the spectacle of Catherines court and the Carnival in Venice. Ivan Lochakoffs set decors, often accentuated by a maquette plastique (an intricate scale model, usually representing the upper portion of the framed image), and Boris Bilinskys costumes not only recreate the Russian imperial court as a richly fabular space but also indulge in ironic exaggeration.24 Perhaps the best example comes in a high-angle long shot of the

Memory Work: French Historical Epics, 19261927 throne room (with her subjects lining the side walls) which Catherine (Suzanne Bianchetti) enters from the bottom of the frame, trailing a magnificent dark blue cloak emblazoned with the czars gold emblem. As she moves farther into the frame, the cloak stretches longer and longer behind her, supported by dozens of servants, until it covers the entire floor. Here, and in the Carnival festivities, both sets and costumes are embellished in exquisite stencil color. If, in Michel Strogoff, Mosjoukine embodied a heroic figure with a fixed identity, no matter what his disguise, in Casanova, he is never not in disguise or not playacting. Or rather, his character is a most excellent actor (much like himself), performing with relish whatever role lets him slip into a womans bed, elude a jealous husband or escape the authorities. In a witty send-up of the legendary lover, he even indulges in a bit of drag comedy for Catherine, dressing up in a wide floppy hat, corset, bustle and fan. Back in Venice, he dons a colorful Harlequin costume (also quite apt) to immerse himself in Carnival and then re-emerges in a sailor outfit, ready to set off on yet another adventure in this open-ended film whether that means (depending on one of two endings) boarding a ship about to leave the harbor or spotting one more attractive young woman with whom to dally.25 If Casanova hardly pretends to engage in a social critique of 18th century Venice or Russia, it certainly ridicules the behavior of many of the Venetians, Austrians and Russians who threaten to put an end to Casanovas escapades. In a sense, he serves as a picaresque figure, a focal point of comic satire, both an engaged and disengaged observer of the worlds he passes through, and hence a perfect stand-in for the assumed spectator. Moreover, whatever action he engages in never aims to change that world in any way; rather, his sole motivation is to exploit any situation involving an attractive woman or skillfully thwart any threat directed at him. This is not without its disturbing effects, perhaps most notably the emphatic misogyny that may be more pronounced, admittedly, for contemporary audiences. It is one thing to satirize other men as far from Casanovas equals; it is another to repeatedly figure women as supposedly valued objects of attraction, only to blithely discard them. In at least two cases, the film seems unusually cruel. The sequence of rapid montage in the Austrian inn forces a spectator to perceive Carlottas predicament from Casanovas point of view and emotionally participate in his res-

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cue effort. The subsequent sequence, by contrast, in which the pair escapes by horseback but is soon captured, culminates in a high-angle long shot, which distances a spectator from Casanovas failure as well as Carlottas further subjugation. That she returns, seemingly unscathed, during Carnival to be rescued all over again, and then happily helps him escape once more, seems small consolation. Casanovas sexual betrayal of Catherine in Russia leaving her for Bianca (Dianne Karenne) takes on a demeaning racist edge when he offers her a gift of his black boy servant, as a kind of diminutive substitute for himself. Yet the films cruelty toward Bianca, whom he follows to Venice, is even more excessive. After Casanova betrays her for Carlotta in the Carnival episode, Bianca shoots and wounds him, and is seized by the police. In a highly elliptical scene, shot in silhouette and strikingly reminiscent of the sultans mistresses fate in One Thousand and One Nights, she is guillotined which Casanova watches in anguish from a prison cell window.26 That he should then blissfully escape from prison shortly after the one woman who has threatened him dies (no one else does in the film) asks a spectator to erase her from memory (as he seems to do), a far from tongue-in-cheek warning to women in the audience, who may long have been enchanted with Casanovas consummate playacting. Largely forgotten until its restoration by Brownlow and recent release on DVD, Joueur dchecs is nearly as open-ended as Casanova yet much more

Fig. 5. Casanova. Bianca and Casanova meet again during Carnival.

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Richard Abel was even chosen as one of five to illustrate an article celebrating French poster designs later that year.29 The films interior scenes were filmed around the time that Tourjansky was shooting Michel Strogoff at the Billancourt studio (where Gance also was completing Napoleon), but at the Joinville studios, where Robert Mallet-Stevens and Jean Perrier constructed no less than 35 set decors. Some of them were quite immense, reproducing parts of St. Petersburg and Vilna in 1776: the courtyard of the Winter Palace, Catherines state rooms, and Baron de Kempelens hall of mannequins. Also as with Michel Strogoff, location shooting, particularly for the battle scenes, was done in Poland (rather than Latvia), which recently had regained its independence from Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The casting was impeccable, with Charles Dullin giving a subtle edge to the secretive, obsessive Kempelen; Pierre Blanchar perfectly embodying the fiery Polish independence fighter, Boleslas Vorowski; Edith Jeanne equally spirited as Sophie, the emblem of the independence movement (both she and Boleslas have been raised by Kempelen since childhood); and Pierre Batcheff as a romantic young officer, Serge Oblomoff, divided by loyalty to his best friend Boleslas and to his Russian garrison. Finally, the film had an unusually fine original score composed by Henri Rabaud, which Carl Davis meticulously reconstructed to accompany Brownlows restoration. Joueur dchecs tells a complicated story in which at least three narrative strands intersect: the Polish struggle for independence from Russia; Kempelens invention and demonstration of a mechanical chess player; and a romantic intrigue involving Boleslas, Sophie, Serge and even de Kempelen. Although heavily fictionalized, the first two strands do have a historical basis. In 1776, an Austrian inventor of that name did create a sensation by challenging anyone to compete with a chess-playing automaton called the Turk, and Polish insurrections against the Russian Empire repeatedly broke out in the 18th and 19th centuries.30 Throughout its first half, the film is dominated by the narrative of Polish resistance to Russian oppression, together with that of Sophie and Serges growing mutual love. Several confrontations in Vilna between Boleslas and Russian officers, especially Nicolaeff (Camille Bert), lead to a bloody insurrection that forces Sophie to deny her love for Serge and, after the Polish defeat, to tend Boleslas wounds. In the films second half, Kempelen invents his

Fig. 6. Joueur dchecs. Kempelen and his Turk chess player. Cinmagazine front cover.

tightly constructed than either of the two previous films. It was enormously successful with Paris audiences, breaking box office records during an exclusive run at the salle Marivaux, beginning on 6 January 1927, which was especially notable since Michel Strogoff was still playing at the Imperial and The Big Parade had just begun a long run at the Madeleine.27 Not only did Bernards historical epic garner laudatory reviews but it also was widely promoted, from elegant ads in major newspapers like Le Petit Parisien to an extensive series of articles in Cinmagazine (15 January 1927) and a fictionalization that filled the pages of La Petite Illustration cinmatographique (5 February 1927).28 The films poster

Memory Work: French Historical Epics, 19261927 life-size chess player within which to hide Boleslas from the Russians. Nicolaeff senses the ruse, however, and reports to Catherine (they are lovers), who has the invention forcibly brought to her court. Accused of cheating when she challenges the chess player, Catherine angrily orders it shot. In order to save Boleslas, Kempelen secretly takes his place in the mechanism, and during a celebratory masked ball, Boleslas and Sophie, now aided by Serge, succeed in leaving the palace. Meanwhile, Catherine has sent Nicolaeff to Kempelens laboratory in Vilna to steal his designs, but he inadvertently sets in motion the inventors house guards, dozens of sword-bearing mannequins, that slowly surround and dispatch him. Although the date of this story certainly supports reading it as a displacement of the late 18th century revolutions in France and what would become the United States, the film also represents the euphoric promise marking Polands newly regained independence, specifically from Russia. Perhaps most clearly evident behind the scenes in the participation of Marshal Pilsudskis government and military in the location shooting, this alignment sets Joueur dchecs in stark contrast to Michel Strogoff. No trace of nostalgia marks this imperial court; instead, its a site of deadly, deceitful maneuvering. Whatever one concludes about the films ideological position, its complicated story telling is surprisingly effective, probably because several patterns that depend on an audiences memory work seem to produce an unusually coherent narrative structure. For one thing, the films two more or less equal parts are strongly marked by parallel scenes or situations. In Part I, for instance, the Polish officers successfully fight off their counterparts, after Boleslas has killed a Russian officer who has tried to rape a Polish dancer named Wanda (Jacky Monnier); later Boleslas leads the Polish insurrection in a spectacular battle. In Part II, the confrontations become more individualized. Hiding within the chess player, Boleslas comes face to face with Catherine; then, while she has the chess player (with Kempelen inside) executed by firing squad, the mannequins entrap and execute Nicolaeff in Kempelens laboratory. In Part I, Boleslas returns at night to Kempelens mansion (after fighting off the Russians), watches Serge court Sophie in the garden, and orders him off, as an enemy. In Part II, stopped for the night at an inn on the journey to Russia, he can do nothing but watch (hidden, and still ailing, in the chess

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player) as Serge tries to renew his relationship with Sophie. Even more strikingly, chess itself becomes an apt metaphor to describe the overall trajectory of the struggle between Poles and Russians, as opposing forces or players, through the films two parts.31 If one accepts the metaphor of the chess game, the moves in Part I are large and sweeping, not only eliminating each sides pawns or minor pieces but also rendering Boleslas, a crucial piece and the supposed hero, helpless and vulnerable. By contrast, the moves in Part II are smaller but more intricate, full of clever feints and deceptions, and threaten the more powerful pieces Boleslas again, Kempelen, Nicolaeff, even Catherine herself as the game comes closer and closer to resolution. Indeed, in thinking she has swept all of her oppositions pieces from the board, Catherine actually maneuvers her own king (Nicolaeff) onto a floor of black and white squares (in Kempelens hall) and into an unexpected checkmate. Accentuating this sense of narrative coherence in Joueur dchecs is Rabauds original score, at least as restored by Davis. It is one of the few French scores surviving from the 1920s that have been recorded for releases of newly restored films (another is Marius-Andr Gailhards for LHerbiers El Dorado, 1921), making Joueur dchecs an unusually significant source for understanding pre-synchronized-sound era music.32 In a recent paper, Colin Roust analyzed four strategies that Rabaud repeatedly uses in the film to achieve the feeling of the music being in place: isomorphism, playing the psychology, leitmotifs, and ... authentic cadences.33

Fig. 7. Joueur dchecs. Kempelens mannequin house guards surround Nicolaeff.

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Fig. 8. Joueur dchecs. Sophie (Edith Jeanne) sings the Hymn of Independence and turns the defeat of the Polish insurrection into a stunningly imagined vision of victory (frame enlargement).

Richard Abel

Let me cite several pertinent examples. One motif marks the early scenes when Sophie and Serge are alone together, first appearing in association with a close-up of the portrait he is painting of her and then as, reflected in a wall mirror, he gives her a necklace, a token of his love. At the end of the failed Vilna insurrection, this motif returns when she goes to sit by the portrait, now fallen from its easel, tears the necklace from her neck, holds it in her open hand, and as the music winds down lets it fall to the floor. The Polish Hymn of Independence occurs at three crucial moments to heighten the drama. Initially it functions to unite a large group of Poles gathered in the Vorowski chateau. Introduced by Sophie playing a solo piano, the hymn shifts into an orchestra of strings that stand in for the voices of the singing Poles, only to break off at the sighting of a Russian cavalry troop passing by outside. Towards the end of the failed insurrection, as cannon fire hits the chateau (and turns the battle into an attack on her), Sophie defiantly plays the hymn at the piano again,

which shifts into a lush orchestration that inspires her stunningly imagined vision of the Polish fighters victorious.34 The hymn recurs one last time near the end when Sophie finds Boleslas during the ball to report that Catherine will let him go free (granting Kempelens dying wish), and together they reiterate the dream of Polish independence. Finally, a prominent use of isomorphism occurs when Nicolaeff breaks into the laboratory and sets the automatons in motion. Each of their slow steps is marked by brief percussive notes; every sword stroke is accompanied by an orchestral hit; and as Nicolaeff collapses in a pile of automatons, the music abruptly ends in silence.35 Yet throughout this scene, a harp/guitar motif moves to the foreground whenever a close-up of a guitar-player automatons hand is intercut. The films final shot is of this figure now lying on the floor, still playing the same motive, whose final cadence reinforces not only the implacable indifference of these mechanisms but also the tragically poignant triumph of their makers last maneuver.36

Memory Work: French Historical Epics, 19261927 Memories. More than three years ago, Janet Bergstrom invited me to participate in a symposium at UCLA on the subject of writing the history of French Cinema. The paper I wrote for that symposium included an idea for further research that I now realize can be seen as another point of origin for this essay, an idea that may well have guided, if only implicitly, others like Brownlow and Borger before me.37 However diverse the trajectories of memory work traced in these pages, historical epics such as Michel Strogoff, Casanova and Joueur dchecs arguably played an unusually significant role in establishing what would become a long, and controversial, tradition of a cinema of quality in France.

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Notes
1. The Mosjoukine Effect: Interview with Rene Lichtig, Cinmathque 22 (Spring 2003): 82. This text was excerpted from an interview filmed by Philippe dHugues, 2526 June 2001. Kevin Brownlow, The Glory that was France, Sight & Sound (Summer 1987): 205; and Brownlow, Raymond Bernards The Chess Player, Sight & Sound (Winter 199091): 2. Brownlows first essay was occasioned by an extensive First New Wave season of French silent films, organized by the late John Gillett at the National Film Theatre in London, beginning in January 1987. Earlier analyses of these three films, based on incomplete prints, can be found in Richard Abel, French Cinema: The First Wave, 19151929 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 182193. For more specific information and analysis, see Abel, French Cinema: The First Wave; Abel, French Film Theory and Criticism: A History/Anthology, 1907 1929 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); and Christophe Gauthier, La passion du cinma: cinphiles, cin-clubs et salles spcialises Paris de 1920 1929 (Paris: AFRHC, 1999). One also could argue that such an apotheosis for French historical epics has to include Carl Dreyers La passion de Jeanne dArc and Marco de Gastynes La merveilleuse vie de Jeanne dArc, both released in late 1928. For an excellent review of this DVD, see Karen Backstein, The Chess Player, Cineaste (Winter 2003): 7677. I had hoped that a North American tour of 1920s French films, Albatros Over America, organized by Glenn Myrent at the Cinmathque franaise for early 2004, would have given me the chance to view at least one of these titles again. Unfortunately, the tour was cancelled. I first made this point in French Cinema: The First Wave, 182. Although all three of these Cinromans serials, along with others, have been restored by the Cinmathque franaise and have been championed by writers such as Borger, they still have not gained the critical attention they so well deserve. 9. For an analysis of Le miracle des loups, see Abel, French Cinema: The First Wave, 175179; and Lenny Borger, Spectacular Stories, Sight & Sound (June 1992): 2122. I first broached this idea in French Cinema: The First Wave, 161162, and extended it in Frame Stories for Writing the History of French Silent Cinema, Studies in French Cinema 2.1 (2002): 9. David Robinson, Mozhukhin: The Paths of Exile, 22nd Pordenone Silent Film Festival Catalogue (La Cineteca del Friuli e Cinemazero, 2003), 40. Lenny Borger, Feu Mathias Pascal, ibid., 56. Abel, The Magnetic Eyes of Ivan Mozhukhin, Cinefocus 2 (Fall 1991): 2734. L. de Saint-Vilmer, Michel Strogoff, La Cinmatographie franaise (10 July 1926): 10; and L. D., Michel Strogoff, La Cinmatographie franaise (10 July 1926): 32. Borger still considers it the best adaptation of Vernes novel. Les nouveaux films, Cina-Cin-pour-tous 75 (5 December 1926): 7; Cinmas, Le Petit Parisien (5 January 1927): 5; and Les restaurations de la Cinmathque franaise (Paris: La Cinmathque franaise, 1986), 78. Michel Strogoff, La Petite Illustration cinmatographique 7 (7 August 1926): 4. L. D., Michel Strogoff, 32. Croze is quoted in Les interprtes du film Michel Strogoff, La Petite Illustration cinmatographique 7 (7 August 1926): 2. Walter Goodman, Casanova: Charming But Still Faithless, New York Times (20 July 1986). See Les nouveaux films, Cina-Cin-pour-tous (15 September 1927): 6; and Les restaurations de la Cinmathque franaise, 28. The term Europudding is Borgers for a collaborative European production, in this case involving Russians, French, Germans and Italians in its cast, crew and financing. The Moussinac quote comes from Borger, Casanova, 22nd Pordenone Silent Film Festival Catalogue, 58. Jean Mitry, Photo-Cin (August 1927) quoted in

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11.

12. 13. 14.

3.

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16. 17. 18.

6.

19. 20.

7. 8.

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22.

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Les restaurations de la Cinmathque franaise (1986), 28. Later Mitry dismissed the film as barely worthy of Cecil B. DeMille and described Mosjoukine as an elegant mannequin. See Mitry, Ivan Mosjoukine, Anthologie du cinma 40 (October 1969): 430. 23. Among the elided historical facts about Casanova are: his addiction to gambling, his professional spying for the state, his fawning over patrons, his readiness to bilk the unwary. Goodman, Casanova: Charming But Still Faithless. Bilinskys costumes were a major attraction at the second Exposition du cinma organized by the Cin-Club de France in the spring of 1927. Lactivit cingraphique, Cina-Cin-pour-tous (15 April 1927): 23. Lichtig speaks about the difficulty of deciding which one of several endings, given the different prints available to her, she would include in the restored version of Casanova in The Mosjoukine Effect, 89. Tourjanskys first film made in France was Les milles et une nuits (1922), an adaptation of A Thousand and One Nights. Volkoffs next film after Casanova, made in Ufas Berlin studio, with many of the same personnel (except Mosjoukine), was none other than Schhrazade (1928). See, for instance, Cinmas, Le Petit Parisien (5 January 1927): 5; Les nouveaux films, Cina-Cinpour-tous (15 January 1927): 6; and an advertisement for the film in Cina-Cin-pour-tous (15 February 1927): inside front cover. See, for instance, L. D., Le Joueur dchecs, La Cinmatographique franaise (15 January 1927): 24; Le Joueur dchecs, Filma (15 January 1927): 14; Jacques Vivien, Critique cinmatographique, Le Petit Parisien (18 January 1927): 4; and Le Joueur dchecs, La Petite Illustration cinmatographique 8 (5 February 1927): 112. V. Roger, Les affiches de cinma, La Cinmatographie franaise (21 September 1927): 4445. There is an intriguing geo-political resonance in

Richard Abel
Joueur dchecs. Coming originally from AustriaHungary, which controlled the southern sector of Poland until 1918, Kempelen serves to mediate and ultimately support the Poles against their oppressors in the Russian sector of the country. The chess-playing Turk evokes the Ottoman Empire, which had threatened eastern and southern Europe from the 16th through the 19th centuries. An obvious figure of the exotic, the Turk not only masks the real threat of the Poles to the Russians but also literally cloaks a product of western science in the mystery of the east. This resonance became apparent to me after chairing a dissertation committee for Sheila Skaffs The History of Cinema in Poland, and the Transition from Silent to Sound Film, 18961939, University of Michigan, June 2004. 31. I owe this insight to students in my undergraduate course on French Cinema (Winter 2004) at the University of Michigan. I have to admit that their obvious interest in the film surprised me. El Dorado, DVD (Paris: Gaumont Columbia Tristar, 1999). Colin Roust, Mettre la musique en place: Henri Rabauds Score for Le Joueur dchecs (3 June 2004): 12. I am grateful to Roust for letting me quote from this unpublished paper, written during a graduate independent study at the University of Michigan. Reviewing Rabauds score, Raymond Petit was especially impressed by how the music seemed to inspire Sophies dream of Polish victory. Petit, Le Joueur dchecs, par Henri Rabaud, La revue musicale 8.5 (1927): 249. Bernard himself considered this one of the best uses of music (or silence) in the film. Kevin Brownlow, Interview with Raymond Bernard (Paris 1965), on The Chess Player DVD (Image Entertainment, 2003). Petit also took special note of this audio-visual combination. Le Joueur dchecs, 249. The symposium was held at UCLA on 12 May 2001, and the paper became Frame Stories for Writing the History of French Cinema.

24.

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32. 33.

27.

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28.

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36. 37.

29. 30.