Quote:
Every country has its peculiarities (Germans like dark atmosphere, Japanese like trains and Britons like tea…), so consequently these were reflected in their old silent pictures; with the French, it’s rivers and barges. This led to a kind of subgenre in that country, the “barge films” of which there are excellent examples during the 20s.
“Une femme a passé” (A Woman Passed By) (1928) is the sort of picture this Herr Graf is talking about; this was Herr René Jayet’s first feature length film. He’s an absolutely unknown French director for this German count but his debut is a brilliant exercise of film style with impressive technical accomplishments wherein can be found many movie references from other directors. These artistic quotes transform Herr Jayet’s work in a very remarkable way.
The film tells the story of Frau Concha (Frau Suzanne Talba), a femme fatale or as the story points out, a “fille perdue”, a lost girl who has no feelings or scruples, toying with men as she pleases. These are the kind of wicked girls that usually are invited to enjoy the soirées at the Schloss. She is without mercy, respect or loyalty and Frau Suzanne Talba is just great in the role and performs it in a unique way.
Frau Concha dances in “La Féria” a dive typical of those dens of iniquity popular in France, full of smoke, alcohol and Frenchified outcasts. It’s here where Frau Concha will meet Herr Jean-Marie Grignard (Herr Camille Bardou), the owner of a barge that periodically sails up the canal of the river. The fact that’s he is a morally upright person causes Concha to despise him. But later on and due to a violent incident at the dance café (what would such places be without a fight once in a while?…). Frau Concha will need his help, accepting his offer to live on the barge with him. On the barge also works Herr Pierre (Herr Jean Gérard), adopted as a child by Herr Grignard, and Frau Gertrude (Frau Gaby Dary), the servant. Pretty soon problems will appear due to Frau Concha’s wild nature bursting out in this closed environment.
Herr Jayet depicts brilliantly the conflicts that inevitably will arise when Concha is around at any place, at the café, in the barge or later on at the Hotel Trianon. He creates a tense atmosphere, especially in the closing scenes wherein Frau Concha’s disquieting eroticism drives the men aboard crazy, The editing and use of close-ups is particularly effective here and meshes well with the natural images of the river and its surroundings. The combination of realism with an atmosphere both oppressive and erotic gives the film a strange beauty as the woman without pity passes through the lives of the other characters, leaving behind bitterness and broken hearts.
And now, if you’ll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must catch up with Frau Concha.

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	58mn 58s
Size: 	407 MiB
Video
Codec: 	
Resolution: 	640x480 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	850 Kbps
BPP: 	0.111
Audio
#1:  	2.0ch MP3 @ 96.0 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/E00D9438E5602CA/Une_femme_a_passe_(A_Woman_Passed_By,_1928).mkv
https://nitro.download/view/603F445D8D74AFD/Une_femme_a_passe_(A_Woman_Passed_By,_1928).srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

The post René Jayet – Une femme a passé AKA A Woman Passed By (1928) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Countess Laure Maresco falls in love with a player, Jacques Prémont-Solène. He loses a large sum and dreams of suicide. Laure prevents her, before learning that her lover has squandered the recipe for a charity party that she attended. His family sends the young man to America to put an end to the scandal. Twenty years later, after a fortune, he returns.

The film was reconstructed and saved in 1986 by Renée Lichtig from the original negative kept at the Cinémathèque française, a negative that had joined the collections in 1958. In 2009, with the help of the Franco-American Cultural Fund, the shades of origin have been reintroduced thanks to two elements from the collections: a vintage tinted copy and the original negative. Furthermore, this nitrate copy made it possible to reintroduce some shots and inserts that were missing in the reconstruction of 1986. In 2013, the film was digitized, and set to music by Karol Beffa on its original composition. The digitization work was entrusted to the Vectracom laboratory and the synchronization to the L’Immagine ritrovata laboratory (Bologna).

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A rather classic melodrama, Le Double amour is the third film by Jean Epstein for the firm Albatros, produced between February and April 1925. As for the second opus, L’Affiche , the scenario is signed Marie Epstein and gives full powers of expression to actress Nathalie Lissenko, star of the Russian studio in Montreuil. She interprets the Countess Maresco, at the same time mother and grieving woman, great tragic aristocratic silhouette around which gravitate Camille Bardou, Pierre Batcheff and Jean Angelo, all in tune with her collapses and lamentations. Double loveis a film about the universe of pretense, flambe, play, baccarat, elegance. The costumes and outfits are provided by the house of Drecoll and the great fashion designer Paul Poiret. The photography is particularly neat and the light of the outdoor scenes (mostly filmed in Cannes) as the editing effects can announce the next poetic works of the filmmaker, such this recurring plan of waves crashing against the cliff which structures the narration. Double lovealso allows Epstein to meet two loyal collaborators, the decorator Pierre Kéfer and the actor Nino Costantini. The remarkable decors invented by Pierre Kéfer and produced by Lazare Meerson allow daring shots, with a particularly great depth of field. Released in November 1925, the film met with critical success and the press evoked a “personal vision” and recognized a “technique accomplished” for the filmmaker. And Langlois to affirm: “It is enough to project a coil of faithful Heart and a coil of Double loveto realize the progress of Epstein. Despite his profession of faith, he knew how to assimilate the human element, to get rid of this kind of break caused by the disproportion of the vigor and the mastery of his technique and the poverty of his direction of actors. Double love is therefore not an indifferent work, and it was necessary for Epstein. “

Emilie Cauquy

Le.double.amour.1925.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-KG.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 46 min
Size: 	3.10 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	3 961 kb/s
BPP: 	0.076
Audio
#1:  	zxx 2.0ch AAC @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/123CD5963ACD99C/Le.double.amour.1925.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-KG.mkv

Language(s):French intertitles with music
Subtitles:English

The post Jean Epstein – Le double amour AKA Double Love (1925) first appeared on Cinema of the World.