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THE FRENCH FILM
filled with imagination, technical devices, and ramifications of complicated scenario work, needing three screens on which to exhibit its lumbering bulk. It was tediously cumbersome and hopelessly overweighted with symbolic reference. Gance is essentially the employer of the symbolic image, with the ' Spirit of France ' perpetually at the back of his mind. Solemnly we observe the eagles in Napoleon; the rails, wheels, and signals in La Roue; the parks and terraces in La Zone de la Mort; and the lily in J' Accuse. Mention should be made of his early films, La Dixieme Symphonie and Mater Dolorosa, both outstanding at their time of realisation. He has now embarked on another stupendous theme, The End of the World; the year of presentation has not yet been calculated.
With the pre-war period of the French cinema I have little concern. It is mostly to be summed up in the characteristic productions of the Gaumont, Pathe, and Aubert companies, marked chiefly by their theatrical conception, stylised acting and the attention paid to story value. One of the most ambitious efforts was a several reel version in Pathecolor of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. The domestic comedies of Max Linder, whom I am tempted to describe as a prototype of Adolphe Menjou, may also be recalled. Similarly, I do not intend to catalogue the many films produced during the early post-war years in France by various directors, but, if occasion arises, reference may be made to the work of the late Louis Delluc {La Fete Espagnole, in collaboration with Germaine Dulac, in 1920 ; La Femme de Nulle Part and Fievre, both made in 1921); of Jacques de Baroncelli (Le Carillon de Minuit, Le Pere Goriot, Pecheur d'lslande, and Rcveil, with Isobel Elsom) ; of Severin-Mars (JLe Coeur Magnifique) ; and of Jules Duvivier (La Tr age die de Lourdes).
To these may be added Nicolas VolkofTs Kean, a film of considerable merit made in 1924; Leon Poirier's Jocelyn, Verdun, and La Croisiere Noire (an admirable interest picture) ; Marc Allegret's travel film, in conjunction with Andre Gide, Voyage au Congo; the amusing work of
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