Abel Gance (Parte III): O sonoro e sempre a inovação
Gance pioneered the coming of sound in France in 1930 with another ambitious epic, La Fin du monde, an imaginative film in the science fiction genre with pacifist overtones in which a conflict-ridden world narrowly escapes destruction by an oncoming comet, with Gance himself playing the lead role of a scientist who foresees the catastrophe. After the film was slashed and reedited by the producers for its 1931 release, a discouraged Gance had to settle for directing and supervising less ambitious projects for the next few years. In 1934, he attempted to bring back past glories by dubbing dialogue onto a revamped version of his silent Napoleon, adding another innovation, stereophonic sound. Within a year, his cinematic fortunes began to turn around and he directed a series of films that demonstrated once again his mastery of cinema. Although Gance’s work in the sound era spanned over three decades, his talkies, made for various French production companies, have often been dismissed as a long decline from the heights of his career in the silent era. While it is true he never again created works as ambitious as La Roue or Napoleon, it is clear, as François Truffaut pointed out, that he continued to explore characteristic themes in highly accomplished works revealing him to be as great a master of film form as he had been in the 1910s and 1920s.
The first of his major sound films, Lucréce Borgia (1935), is an astonishing drama of the political intrigues of the Borgia family in Renaissance Italy, with scenes of full-frontal female nudity that were a striking departure from the prevailing cinematic codes of the time. In his depiction of Cesare Borgia’s brutal rule, Gance created an historical film whose figures stand in striking contrast to those in Napoleon. Whereas Bonaparte and the other French Revolutionary leaders pursue power in order to realize ideals, Cesare Borgia’s ruthless drive for domination reflects no more exalted idea than the satisfaction of his own lust and self-aggrandizement. The people’s aspirations for freedom, voiced by another farsighted leader, Savonorola, are also thwarted by the dictatorship of Cesare’s father, the corrupt Pope Alexander VI. In reflecting Gance’s deeply-rooted aversion to aristocratic rule, this portrayal of the Borgias’ intrigues may represent a cinematic response to the French rightists of the 1930s who still yearned for a restoration of monarchy and aristocracy.
The following year, Gance directed one of his two greatest sound films, Un grand amour de Beethoven, a fictionalized biography of the composer (memorably portrayed by Harry Baur), in which Gance returned to his theme of creative genius and his conviction that artists are forever misunderstood by their contemporaries. By far his most technically innovative film since Napoleon, Gance blended rapid montage with sound, creating striking effects new to the medium. In the scenes culminating in Beethoven’s composing the Pastoral Symphony during a stormy night, Gance conveys the sense of Beethoven’s oncoming deafness when the sound track is suddenly completely silent. Gance manifests his antipathy to aristocracy once again, contrasting Beethoven’s artistic dedication and purity of spirit amidst poverty and neglect with the unworthy dilettante nobleman, Count Gallenberg, who marries the woman the composer loves. Released in 1937 to widespread international critical acclaim, Beethoven established Gance as great a leader in the creation of sound films as he had been in silents.
Gance’s next film, a new version of J’accuse, was his other monumental artistic triumph of the sound era. Although he included some battle scene footage from the 1919 silent and based several of the protagonists on those in the earlier production, the new J’accuse was essentially a different film, a reworking with new plot elements rather than a remake. Released in 1938, the film’s hero is yet another seer, a World War I veteran who develops an invention intended to prevent war. His plans are sabotaged by an unscrupulous politician and manufacturer, part of the corrupt ruling establishment, who steals his invention and uses it not for peace but to foment war instead. In the awe-inspiring climax, Gance passionately denounces the coming Second World War, with his hero once again summoning forth the spirit of the war dead (played this time by mutilated veterans of the first conflagration) to indict the living at a time of renewed war hysteria.
In striking contrast, Gance’s two 1939 films, Louise and Le Paradis perdu, mark a nostalgic return to the pre-World War I Paris of the director’s youth. Louise, adapted from Gustave Charpentier’s opera, with Grace Moore in the lead, allowed the director to incorporate cinematic techniques during the operatic sequences, such as images of the working class singing superimposed over awakening Paris streets, or the subtle play of light and shadow when Louise’s father, gently swaying her back and forth, sings his aria. Le Paradis perdu includes both romantic lyricism and high comedy as it chronicles several generations. The story of a man whose happiness is destroyed by the First World War is especially poignant in its resemblance to Gance’s own life and career and that of his country, both soon to be affected by yet another war.
The first of his major sound films, Lucréce Borgia (1935), is an astonishing drama of the political intrigues of the Borgia family in Renaissance Italy, with scenes of full-frontal female nudity that were a striking departure from the prevailing cinematic codes of the time. In his depiction of Cesare Borgia’s brutal rule, Gance created an historical film whose figures stand in striking contrast to those in Napoleon. Whereas Bonaparte and the other French Revolutionary leaders pursue power in order to realize ideals, Cesare Borgia’s ruthless drive for domination reflects no more exalted idea than the satisfaction of his own lust and self-aggrandizement. The people’s aspirations for freedom, voiced by another farsighted leader, Savonorola, are also thwarted by the dictatorship of Cesare’s father, the corrupt Pope Alexander VI. In reflecting Gance’s deeply-rooted aversion to aristocratic rule, this portrayal of the Borgias’ intrigues may represent a cinematic response to the French rightists of the 1930s who still yearned for a restoration of monarchy and aristocracy.
The following year, Gance directed one of his two greatest sound films, Un grand amour de Beethoven, a fictionalized biography of the composer (memorably portrayed by Harry Baur), in which Gance returned to his theme of creative genius and his conviction that artists are forever misunderstood by their contemporaries. By far his most technically innovative film since Napoleon, Gance blended rapid montage with sound, creating striking effects new to the medium. In the scenes culminating in Beethoven’s composing the Pastoral Symphony during a stormy night, Gance conveys the sense of Beethoven’s oncoming deafness when the sound track is suddenly completely silent. Gance manifests his antipathy to aristocracy once again, contrasting Beethoven’s artistic dedication and purity of spirit amidst poverty and neglect with the unworthy dilettante nobleman, Count Gallenberg, who marries the woman the composer loves. Released in 1937 to widespread international critical acclaim, Beethoven established Gance as great a leader in the creation of sound films as he had been in silents.
Gance’s next film, a new version of J’accuse, was his other monumental artistic triumph of the sound era. Although he included some battle scene footage from the 1919 silent and based several of the protagonists on those in the earlier production, the new J’accuse was essentially a different film, a reworking with new plot elements rather than a remake. Released in 1938, the film’s hero is yet another seer, a World War I veteran who develops an invention intended to prevent war. His plans are sabotaged by an unscrupulous politician and manufacturer, part of the corrupt ruling establishment, who steals his invention and uses it not for peace but to foment war instead. In the awe-inspiring climax, Gance passionately denounces the coming Second World War, with his hero once again summoning forth the spirit of the war dead (played this time by mutilated veterans of the first conflagration) to indict the living at a time of renewed war hysteria.
In striking contrast, Gance’s two 1939 films, Louise and Le Paradis perdu, mark a nostalgic return to the pre-World War I Paris of the director’s youth. Louise, adapted from Gustave Charpentier’s opera, with Grace Moore in the lead, allowed the director to incorporate cinematic techniques during the operatic sequences, such as images of the working class singing superimposed over awakening Paris streets, or the subtle play of light and shadow when Louise’s father, gently swaying her back and forth, sings his aria. Le Paradis perdu includes both romantic lyricism and high comedy as it chronicles several generations. The story of a man whose happiness is destroyed by the First World War is especially poignant in its resemblance to Gance’s own life and career and that of his country, both soon to be affected by yet another war.
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