Detailing the impossible. Louis Feuillade made
more than 800 films covering
almost every contemporary genre: historical drama, comedy, realist drama, melodrama, religious films. However, he was most famous, or infamous, for his crime serials:
Fantômas (1913-14),
Les Vampires, Judex (1916), La Nouvelle Mission de Judex (1917),
Tih-Minh (1918) and Barrabas (1919).
Critics panned his
crime films, often savagely, because the preoccupation of French critics and film-makers in the 1910s and 20s was to elevate cinema -– and, ironically, back then the French saw their own films as lacking the artistry and sophistication of American ones, by Griffith or DeMille – to the level of art. It was years before
Feuillade's films escaped the label of aesthetic backwardness. Now,
critics have realized that what Feuillade has done is to offer us an alternative cinematic mode to Griffiths', one that continues in updated variants throughout cinema. It is predicated on a principle of uncertainty, that questions our understanding of the real. It is
as fluid and elusive a tradition
as a cat burglar,
dressed in black on a night-time rooftop.
posted by matteo
on Nov 8, 2004 -
7 comments
