Das Rad

Gance seems overwhelmed by the theme of humanity crushed by incredible suffering, and some of the symbolism may seem heavy-handed, but this film deserves to be listed among the greats for its wonderful cinematography, the strong contrasts between the first parts portrayal of trains and the second parts moving to the beautiful, impassive scenery of the high Alps.

I have always been an admirer of Gance's Napoleon, but his J'accuse turned me off. La Roue has restored my desire to see the others: La fin de monde, Beethoven, and Austerlitz.

As for the suffering, this was made in 1921 in the aftermath of WW I, which is sufficient to account for Gance's obsession with the theme.

Okay, as I am discovering, the name of Abel Gance as has reached us through a long and troubled historiography is mostly in the contours of a European DW Griffith; the broad historic scopes, the elaborate film language. But whereas Griffith's pioneering efforts were narrowed by a set of Victorian ideals about a world where good and evil are clearly defined and the prevalent Western thinking that has traditionally regarded the struggle between these two fractions in rational, linear terms as the forward struggle of human thought to achieve enlightenment from the forces of darkness - the forces of production or state morals for Griffith - Gance foresaw deeper: objects cast their shadow here, human beings have interior dimensions, and the darkness no longer threatens from outside but is recast inside the human character.

This is the film that Kurosawa fondly remembered as one of the first to impress him. So, a film that resonated within Japanese culture of the time, a culture that has increasingly sought out and adopted - long before the westerns of John Ford - Western perspectives in their traditionally abstract eye.

But the more obvious stuff before we get there, how the film must have equally well impressed the early Soviet filmmakers. There may not be crowds animating, acting out rigorous ideals - not history as in Griffith, but present action, history in the making - but there is a shift; the Shakespearian tragedy, and thus the cleansing, high-minded catharsis, now transferred to the working class, so that the new Oedipus, the new Lear or Sissyphus, the new king punished with divine madness becomes the insignificant railroad engineer - named Sisif no less - with the perennially greasy, coalblack face. It is now the lowly and disenchanted whose life agonies can be imbued, and given voice to, with the majesty of a world ruler; hence the ruled world, the kingly dominion, is reordered as the private life of organized anxieties.

So, this part of the film should bode well with a contemporary audience, who can also better acquiesce to the idea of a film that runs for 4 1/2 hours. But there is stuff that matters more, I believe.

See here. Sisif's house is situated where the tracks converge and disperse from again, so at the navel of the soul. At regular intervals fates depart from there - some of them the desperate attempts to destroy the self, others harboring omens or disaster.

But once up in the exile of the mountains, the house - now the hermitage, the temple of atonement - is where the tracks lead and stop. There is no going further, and there are some amazing shots of snowed mountain peaks captured from a moving train that you will want to see. Here, the protagonists must struggle with a karma that is not possible to extricate without the dissolution of the self that is the essence of spiritual transformation.

The poignant image that unifies vision; wheels, wheels turning fates in the incessant cycle of life-renewing destruction. The Soviets appropriated this image - as well as the rapid-fire montage pioneered here by Gance - as a representation of social mechanisms at work; but here the image is properly internal, in-sight into abstract soul.

The heartfelt denouement is about the last - and hence, first - turn of the wheel, the cosmic round of succession of an impermanent, transient universe. It's all pretty obvious at this point, which maybe derails the more powerful metaphors into a typically classical story end.

So this is probably why the film spoke with clarity to the Japanese, whose world is not linear but vivid impressions from a bird's eye. At the end, a circle of young girls and boys dance away in the shadow of the mountain; like in so many Japanese landscape paintings where idyllic everyday pleasures among the cherry-blossomed trees unfold beneath the distant horizon of Mt. Fuji.

Gance shows how the final release from the round can only begin with the acceptance of suffering. It is a Buddhist image, whereby this darkness recast inside the human character is finally understood to be no different from light.

We may encounter it in a jodo temple as the bodhisattva Kannon-Avalokitesvara, who reconciles both male and female form - and so all human disparity - in singular, unbound mercy; the name in her female form, poignantly as ever with the Japanese rendered into picture language, means 'Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World'. So, not the person who observes, but the act, the living process of the round - filled with the cries of suffering - as it comes into being and goes again.

Asides into meditation. But the film is boss as is.

Abel Gance in my mind was a pioneer of not just French cinema but cinema in general. All of his work is well worth the look and are visual and technical marvels, some of the techniques being one he pioneered. Some of his best works, 'Napoleon' being one of them, are revolutionary in not just silent film but also film of all kinds and are towering achievements. Is his work for all tastes? Not all, tending to be very long and sprawling with a lot of patience required.

Had heard so many great things about 'La Roue' (English translation being 'The Wheel') and being somebody that loved especially 'Napoleon' so much, there was no doubt in my mind about wanting to see it. Saw it during one of my film reviewing breaks from here on a lazy afternoon alone and was very impressed indeed. 'La Roue' won't be one of my favourite films any time soon and to me it is not quite one of Gance's best, with it for example not having the special factor that 'Napoleon'. It is an extremely good film though with many outstanding elements.

Can understand why 'La Roue' won't be to everybody's taste as it is slightly divisive here. Most of the time the pace to me was fine, but there were times in the slighter moments where the film dragged with some scenes going on a little longer than necessary.

Likewise with anybody feeling that there is some unnecessary repetition, with a couple of actions happening more than once and one questions why.

On the other hand, 'La Roue' looks amazing visually and technically, an achievement even. Not just for back then, but also then. The editing is not as "unlike anything seen before" quality like the innovative editing in 'Napoleon' was, but it is still very fluid and the transitioning is practically seamless throughout. The sets are also beautiful to look at. The standout visually and technically though is the magnificent cinematography, very audacious with some very interesting and beautifully composed techniques. Also with some beautifully poetic shots in the more emotional moments. The music is haunting and fits well, not over-bearing or over-dramatic or sentimentalised.

Gance's direction is near-triumphant and superbly controlled. The story is not always perfect pace-wise, but has a huge amount of poignant heart. Especially in the denouement, my heart broke into two here. Although 'La Roue' is a very long film, the longest seen since March and one of the longest ever, much of the time it doesn't feel long. The pace is controlled and deliberate but mostly is not dull, was too transfixed by the visuals and the emotion. The characters are worth caring for, especially Norma, and Severin-Mars is a revelation (searingly intense but also heartfelt) out of a cast that all play their parts beautifully. Ivy Close is touching too.

Summing up, very good and nearly great. 8/10

Roue, La (1923)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

French master Abel Gance's 260-minute epic tells the story of Sisif (Severin-Mars), a railroad worker who discovers a young girl named Norma after a horrible train wreck. Sisif takes the girl home to his young son Elie where he plans on raising them as brother and sister. Flash forward several years and Elie (Gabriel de Gravone) has started to fall in love with Norma (Ivy Close) even though he thinks she is his sister. At the same time Sisif has also fallen in love with her, which leads the two men down a road of tragedy. A lot of the epic films released after The Birth of a Nation dealt with epic themes, usually something to do with war, but that's not the case here as you would call this a film that deals in melodrama and character study. It's rather amazing that Gance would try to take this material and push it to over eight hours, which was the original running time. I was a little worried going into this version, running 260-minutes but it turned out to be a great beauty of a film. I really don't think the film ran too long and in fact, the running time goes by quite fast but the only thing I'd question is some of the stuff that we go through two or three times. This includes one character attempting suicide numerous times and I think this could have been handled in a different way. The legendary editing is the main highlight of this film as it goes in a maniac style way. There are numerous edits each second during certain scenes and I'm really not sure if it could be done better even with today's standards. Even though the editing is quite sharp and fast, it never gets in the way of the story trying to be told. Another fascinating aspect is when the main character starts to go blind. The director then turns the visuals on screen to an all white setting to where we're seeing things just like the character who is going blind. the final sequences of the film are quite beautiful and haunting and really puts everything we've seen before it into justice. I think for the most part that the performances are good but I think at times the director would have been wise to bring them down a little bit. Severin-Mars really steals the film as the love struck father who is slowly losing his mind, life and eyes due to the love his has for the girl he raised as his daughter. Close gives the weakest performance of the three but she still handles the screen quite well. La Roue is certainly a demanding film to sit through but at the end of the film I was quite happy to take the ride and this is certainly a film that every film buff should see at least once in their life.

This stunning 1923 silent film was restored by David Shepard and others in a print that runs nearly 4 hours and 30 minutes. The original film, directed by Abel Gance, was about twice that length, never released in the US except in a severely cut down print of about 2 hours.

The story, a "tragedy of modern times," is seemingly a simple one. Aman named Sisif (Séverin-Mars) rescues a baby girl in a train wreck and raises her as his own along with his son. She's known as a "rose of the rails" since the family lives in a squalid house by the railroad where Sisif is an engineer. As the years pass the girl, named Norma, grows to adulthood. Things get uneasy when Sisif realizes that he is in love with Norma (Ivy Close), and things turn to tragedy when his son Elie (Gabriel de Gravone) also loves her ... but believes she is his sister. Sisif plots to marry her off to a wealthy man to escape the impending disaster.

After Norma is unhappily married off, Sisif is injured in an accident and banished to a small mountain railway near Mont Blanc. He lives there with his son on the edge of a glacier but even in their isolation they cannot escape tragedy ... of their love of Norma.

The film is high art, operatic, Greek tragedy, and must be approached as such. The visuals are stunning. The composition and sets includes the smallest of details, and Gance uses close-ups, iris shots, fades, and rapid editing (borrowed from D.W. Griffith's masterpieces) to make this one of the most beautiful films ever made. The current version also includes tinting to enhance the emotional pitch of the film.

The performance of Séverin-Mars won't be to every taste, but his old-school acting style is similar to that of Emil Jannings. Without dialog, all he has are his body language and face. Shots are held to emphasize the emotional plight of the aging man. And you can see every thought he has in his face.

The other great performance is by Ivy Close, a British actress who also worked in European silent films. She resembles Norma Shearer and as with Séverin-Mars, her face shows every moment of joy and sadness. There's a stunning scene toward the end when she's asked to go to a village dance. She runs to powder her face and sees a gray hair, a line on her forehead. She's growing old. La Roue, the wheel of life, is turning, and Norma is growing old.

This superb restoration is accompanied by a beautiful and haunting score by Robert Israel, itself a symphonic work of great power. Séverin-Mars died soon after filming was completed in 1921. Gance did not complete and release the film until 1923. Ivy Close made a few more silent films in the late 1920s and retired from the screen.

This may be a film you only watch once in your lifetime, but you will never forget it.