Prométhée... banquier

I hadn't intended to write a review of this movie, however as I disagree with the comment left by writers_reign I thought a contrasting opinion might provide perspective to users.

L'Herbier was a great filmmaker, known today mostly for his highly glamorous and grandiose silent films L'Inhumaine (1924) and L'Argent (1928). However it is a sound film of his, the, at points dadaist dream La Nuit Fantastique (1942) which I am most strongly fond of.

Prometheus... Banker is inspired apparently by the Aeschylus play Prometheus Bound according to an intertitle. However I cannot be sure that L'Herbier even read it as Prometheus in that play is a hero who thwarts Zeus's plans for apocalypse. The Prometheus line is really a red herring, the banker in the film perhaps is playing God, speculation on the Bourse making a plaything of bricks and mortar business and flesh and blood workers? That's the closest I bring the film and the premise together.

This film shows a banker tied to his desk, he cannot leave it for fear of missing a telephone call with vital information and stock updates. His office is his prison cell and L'Herbier literally shows close ups of him with the outline prison bars silhouetted in front of the image. The film is also prescient we see lunch delivered to our banker friend at his desk, who then obliterates it like a starved dog, lest he miss out on some Bourse action, not good for the digestion for sure.

In the end he loses his tart to his male secretary because he literally refuses to leave his desk. The intertitles are pretty florid in relation to the nature of money, you feel like the pudding has been really over-egged. Nothing too spectacular going on in terms of mise en scene either. My favourite thing was a painting on the office wall, which looked quite a lot like an Uccello, though it probably won't have been.

If you watch l'Argent which is a gloriously impressionist epic length movie based upon the same themes of what money does to the soul, you will find l'Argent both more brilliant technically speaking (the camera techniques are breathtaking), of more interest in terms of character development, much more persuasive in terms of theme, and absolutely streets ahead in terms of set design. This film really is only a preparatory sketch.

Gabriel Signoret is a top speculator on the Paris Exchange, about to pull off his biggest coup. If it works, he promises to take his mistress, Eve Francis - who always wears her feathered tiara so we know she's a showgirl - on a trip around the world. She doesn't love him, however, but the clerk in his office.

It's a short by Marcel L'Herbier, which presages his better remember L'ARGENT, his late-silent masterpiece on the rapacious rich. Exceedingly simple in its workings, this short winds up looking like he was thinking about the latter movie for some time.

L'Herbier had been directing features for two years when he wrote and produced this short subject. He would continue directing into the 1950s. His greatest contribution to cinema was probably the founding of IDHEC, an institute to train film makers in all aspects of production. He died in 1979, aged 91.

Many years ago, during stormy and cold aristocratic winter nights, this Herr Graf's very rigid grandpa used to tell to his spoiled new generation of Teuton grandsons, incredible stories about Valkyries and Nibelungs. He did this in order to keep these youngsters isolated and ignorant about the common world outside (though apparently said world did exist even though this Herr Von never saw it).

But besides Teutonic stories, there was also room for ancient tales from outside Deutschland and one of these that this Herr Graf remembers pretty well was the story of the myth of Prometheus, a Herr Titan who stole fire from Zeus, a very important Herr. For this bold action, Herr Prometheus was cruelly punished by Herr Zeus, chained to a rock where an eagle was to eat his eternally replenished liver every day. Obviously, Grandpa did not spare the gory details for his grandsons and vividly described how the eagle enjoyed feasting every day on Herr Prometheus' liver. Such vivid descriptions guaranteed that his terrified grandsons would go quietly to bed, thoroughly scared.

Some years later, the great French film director Herr Marcel L'Herbier adapted the myth of Prometheus in a very interesting short film, "Prométhée… Banquier" (1921).

Given the financial crisis of today, no doubt many long haired youngsters would enjoy settling scores with those greedy bankers who cause economic havoc in the global economy but unfortunately "Prométhée… Banquier" was filmed many years before the 1929 crash so Herr L'Herbier took a different approach to the subject and made a film about the risks of being a workalcholic (a modern disease that, fortunately, is rare among German counts who prefer drinking to work).

With frenzied editing, Herr L'Herbier tells the story of the banker Herr Prévoyan who, as Prometheus, is chained to his desk and his business. He loves a sophisticated fraulein, Frau Gaby, who feels neglected and cheats on him with his secretary, Herr Toudieu. She finally makes the decision to flee from the banker because she wants to be as happy as when she was -er- poor.

"Prométhée… Banquier" reflects about morals and the economy and the perils of modern life and duty where dedication to work trumps personal relationships and leads to producing automatons.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count is having liverwurst for lunch today.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com