Lucrecia Borgia

Episodes from the life of Lucrecia Borgia's. Spoiled and willful, she has many love affairs and tries to resist her ruthless and scheming brother César Borgia's plans to marry her off for political advantage.

Episodic and hard to follow to those not familiar with Italian geography and with the political situation of the time. Nice sets and costumes but the 16 millimeter print I saw did not show them well.

The kind of movie the French New Wave rebelled against.

Incredibly, 'Lucrèce Borgia (1935)' is my first film from Abel Gance, one of the titans of early French cinema, though this is far from his best-known work. The film is a chronicle of the House of Borgia, a reigning family that remains notorious for their corruption and sexual debasement. I've had to do some reading up, so apologies to any history buffs if I get my details wrong. There are four main characters in this sordid tale. Pope Alexander VI (Roger Karl) is incompetent and blind to the misdeeds of his family – though historians generally portray him as being far more depraved than he is depicted here. Giovanni (Maurice Escande) is the pope's elder son, and a bit of an extravagant fop. César (Gabriel Gabrio) is a lusty, bloodthirsty monster under the advisement of Niccolò Machiavelli. Sister Lucrezia (Edwige Feuillère) is a promiscuous woman whose lovers have the unfortunate habit of being quickly murdered by the jealous, scheming César. All in all, probably not the sort of people you'd invite to a friendly game of neighbourhood charades. There are some confronting scenes in here, especially compared to the 1930s films to which one is accustomed. Confrontations are seen to draw blood, and exploited women are stripped of their clothes. There is a rather graphic recreation of the Banquet of Chestnuts, which took place on October 30, 1501, at which César (and possibly Pope Alexander VI) treated his guests to the services of 50 prostitutes.

A typical Abel Gance film, very ambitious, spectacular scenery, pretentiously self-indulgent, effective indeed, but all superficial, no psychology, no character development, only visualism the whole way, and above all, no real understanding of the subject, just using the notoriousness of the reputed popular gossip to make something like sensational journalism on the screen. Cesare Borgia is made a vulgar and outrageous monster, while he definitely was not, as Macchivelli found it worth to use him as a paragon of a responsible prince, and as even Lionardo da Vinci at times found it worth while to serve him. The portrait of Lucrezia Borgia is more interesting and slightly closer to the truth, while their father, Alexander VI, again also is made a perfect monster, while he was a shrewd and complicated nature, who among other protegés had Chrstiopher Columbus, whom he helped out on his first expedition. In brief, this is vulgar sensational journalism for the masses to go to the cinema for and pay for it, all made for the vanity of Abel Gance and only for the satisfaction of visual appetite. Abel Gance was always too superficial for me, and I was never so disappointed with any film as with his horrible vulgarized treatment of Beethoven.

The intrigues and betrayals of the notorious family. A surprisingly risqué offering from legendary French director Abel Gance, featuring nudity, orgies and serving wenches getting knifed in the back. The plot is something of a challenge, and feels a little rushed at times - it could have done with another hour or so to deliver the kind of detail that's lacking.

"Lucrece Borgia" is not among Gance's finest works.The beginning looks like a relic from the silent era ,with its interminable depiction of the abominable Cesar Borgia,complete with orgies (one of Gance's recurrent features;these ones are rather tame and timid compare to the ones you can watch in "La Fin du Monde" (1930)) ,rapes and drinking sessions.Oddly Juan Borgia and Lucrece are not given that much time.The highlight ,so to speak,is nevertheless Lucrece's bath for we can see her almost completely naked ,which was exceptional in the French cinema of the thirties.Christian-Jaque's own "Lucrece Borgia" starring Martine Carol,was not an improvement on it twenty years later for that matter.

The legend has made Lucrece a scandalous hussy.Historians generally disagree ,and the ending of the film is faithful to what you find in her entry in encyclopedias: a patron who used to like music,poetry and arts.For that matter ,it's historically accurate: a pawn in her brother's and her father's games,they used her to ally themselves with dangerous enemies.

It is a relatively short movie and I wonder if the current version is complete: the scene when Cesar shows Lucrece her so called lovers' graves is totally irrelevant ,for the life she leads in the film is rather chaste (the extramarital life of course).

Gance's best talkies were still to come in 1935: "Un Grand Amour de Beethoven" "J'Accuse" (brilliant remake of the silent work) "Paradis Perdu" "Venus Aveugle" and "Le Capitaine Fracasse".