L'auberge rouge

This is rare indeed but not particularly special; a costume morality play from the time when that was how you told a thriller, with dread coming from more abstract notions of guilt and wrongdoing rather than on-screen action.

Two stories, one told inside the other during a dinner gathering. It tells about two men who came to an inn on the same night as a diamond merchant passing by. The merchant woos the company with his shiny diamonds, eventually securing a bed in exchange. That night desire gets the better of them.

There's a pretty harrowing scene as one of the two men walks out into the night with the diamonds, tormented by guilt. The morning after we discover a graver wrong was committed after he had left the room and he's been transmuted at the center of that narrative. Back in the dinner gathering, one among the company is fidgeting and looks worried.

Not as visually arresting as other works from the time, my guess is a commercial project that Epstein flitted to inbetween other work. The print doesn't do it much favor either.

But it points to a world where order is restored by the power of storytelling - initially in the form of a letter that gets out - and the abilities of stories to affect a viewer who responds; the culprit is finally exposed, sussed out by his reaction.

Director Jean Epstein slowly builds a mood of tension and dread in this great, rare French silent. Extensive, offbeat use of close-ups (unusual for its day), and less-broad acting than you often see in silent movies, add to the suspense of Balzac's tale of temptation and injustice, told as an after-dinner story that becomes much, much more. The film, just over an hour long, holds up well and leaves a lasting impression. It is rarely seen in the U.S., but the Harvard Film Archive has an excellent print.

This is one of Jean Epstein's stylistic showpieces: his first as sole director. It's based on a Balzac story. In it, a rich diamond merchant entertains an elegant dinner party with one of his famous stories. He tells of the early days of the Revolution, when another diamond merchant was traveling in Alsace and may have been murdered by a young man for his stones.

The movie plays with levels of story-telling. The flow of the interior tale, in which Epstein uses quicker cuts, flash lighting and Dutch angles is interrupted by the merchant pausing to take a drink of wine or eat some meat. When asked the names of some of the characters in the tale he tells, he occasionally says he doesn't remember. Gradually it becomes clear that this is no tale he is telling, but events he is recounting. Or is he simply an unusually beguiling story teller? After all, he was asked for one of his beguiling stories.... and in French, 'histoire' means story.... and history.

Epstein was the leader of the French avant-garde, and that meant strong meat and and technique that was different from the standards of the day. His set design is composed of abortive ornamentation and the camerawork also has an air of unreality about it, making it unclear where reality resides in this movie, if it exists at all. Is this the effect Epstein wished to achieve? Is it an effect worth offering in a commercial release? Critics may have one opinion or another. Each member of an audience must make his own appraisal.

It's often struck me that for all the rapid development of the cinematic medium that was taking place in the 1910s and 1920s, it's hard not to be astounded sometimes at what feels like a novelty or advanced technique, whether or not some instances were actually achieved before or not. With that said I can only commend filmmaker Jean Epstein, and perhaps more so cinematographers Raoul Aubourdier and Roger Hubert, for some shots and camerawork that definitely feel exceptional for their time. By the time eleven minutes have passed we get close-ups, low angles looking up or high angles looking down, camera movement, people moving into frame from behind the camera, and use of a first-person perspective. To these add sharp and often rapid editing, simple effects, variable focus, and use of lighting and shadow in addition to the framing of a story within a story, and that's to say nothing of detailed sets and costume design, and fine hair and makeup. Just from a standpoint of its craftsmanship one is readily impressed by what 'L'auberge rouge' has to offer, and it's easy to get swept up in the picture.

One might take issue with pacing that's a tad relaxed early on, particularly in light of the framing device, and at the start it seems to me that there are also fewer intertitles on hand (compared to other features) to relate exposition or dialogue. Then again, these concerns quite go away as the length progresses and the plot thickens. Even if they didn't, Honoré de Balzac's short tale is relatively simple, and in adapting it Epstein very suitably conveys the beats through what intertitles we do get, and especially through his firm writing and direction of scenes. Taken together with the excellent editing, cinematography, and other advantages this can claim, the movie is really all that it needs to be - and then some. It may not leave as entirely big a mark as some of Epstein's other works, but the labor that went into 'L'auberge rouge' ranges from good to outstanding, including the acting, and the narrative as it presents is roundly compelling and entertaining, not to mention dark and tragic.

There are surely other films among the director's oeuvre, the silent era, or the medium at large that one should make a higher priority, even for diehard fans of these early years of the industry. Yet this 1923 production is honestly pretty terrific across the board, and it's well worth checking out if one has the opportunity. Movies have come a long way in the past 100 years, but in no way does that diminish the value of what came before, and I rather believe 'L'auberge rouge' is a splendid example of that enduring high quality.