French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style (December 1974)

O48 Stylistic aberrations. French firms were still trying to woo audiences away from American and German films, and: the Impressionist movement had failed to do so. Léon Moussinac Saw the post-1926 prospects as bleak: large firms were squeezing out independent production, L'Herbier's and Dulac's production companies were absorbed by Natan's "Ciné-romans" firm, and Gance's company was dissolved and Napoléon turned over to producers for cutting. In 1927), Andre Obey asked plaintively: Que rest-t-il de tous nos réves de irAgea: S-guerre, dites, les Arnoux, les Moussinacs, et les Epsteins, Les Farnoux-Reynaud et les GaltierBoissiére? Que reste-te-1l de notre for. une foi, aqui avait cent visages--le sport, le théatre, la mus 1que et. ce cinema justement--tant de visages mais un seul corps et tressé de muscles si jeunes? Il faut le dire: nous sommes tous ruinés. On a tous eru a je ne sais quel Age de pierre, quel age d'or. La spéculation intellectuelle ne nous a pas mieux réussi que he Ber nee autres. Quant au rajeunisse ment des cadres, c'est un réve de sous-lieutenant. Les Shagtdpted. en France, sont des. célivles. I[l).a fallu qu'on s'y case tous comme on a pu. Et maintenant que l'ordre régne a Paris, o geen péniblement sa crotite sous le signe du 3%. By the end of the 1920's, the major Impressionists were in difficult financial positions. Epstein's firm, for example, went out of business in 1928, while L'llerbier held a press conference in 1929 to denounce "Ciné-Romans" for Screening his L'Argent in "une version coupée, remaniée, transformée en dehors de moi sans mon autorisation et contre