L'inhumaine

Leave it to Flicker Alley to come up with a silent movie that I wasn't aware of. I may have come across Marcel L'Herbier's 1924 L'INHUMAINE (The Inhuman Woman) in some silent film reference book but I don't recall it. I knew of the director's later movie L'ARGENT (1928) but not this one. Having just watched the film, this is rather surprising as it is quite remarkable on a number of levels. Some of the futuristic design especially in the laboratory scenes recall a Soviet sci-fi film called AELITA, QUEEN OF MARS which was released 6 months earlier while Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS (1927) may have borrowed a thing or two from them later on. L'Herbier envisioned the film as being a "miscellany of modern art" and there is indeed something for everyone in an artistic sense. From an entertainment sense, it's a different matter as its appeal outside of artistic circles would be very limited (just like art films today).

The melodramatic plot tells the story of a callous opera singer (real life opera singer Georgette Leblanc who co-produced) who throws lavish parties and toys with men's affections. When one of them suddenly commits suicide, her fans and detractors clash at one of her concerts recalling THE RITE OF SPRING premiere in 1913. A jealous suitor poisons her with a deadly snake and then it's up to a former lover to bring her back to life in his state-of-the-art laboratory. That's just the basic outline. L'Herbier uses every cinematic trick he can think of from rapid montage editing to a saturation of color tints to enhance his story. The real star here is the decor, a riot of art nouveau as conceived by several leading artists of the day. The sets (especially the laboratory) and the fashions must be seen to be believed. As the plot would indicate, this is not meant to be realistic in any sense of the word which makes it ideal for the medium of silent movies.

The restoration by Flicker Alley and Lobster Films may be the finest that they have ever done regarding the overall look of a film. An original nitrate print in good condition (courtesy of the director's daughter) was the source material and the original color tints as specified by L'Herbier were utilized in the transfer to a digital medium. The two set pieces, the tumultuous concert and the lab resurrection, remain astonishing even to this day. If you carefully look at the 57 minute mark, you'll see composers Erik Satie (ill with less than a year to live) and Les Six member Darius Milhaud (who wrote the original score which is now lost) in the audience at the concert. This Blu-Ray offering comes with two brand new scores, one by percussionist Aidje Tafial, the other by the Alloy Orchestra. Both are effective but I prefer the former. If ever a silent movie was made for Blu-Ray release, it's this one and Flicker Alley & Co have done it up proud. Thank You!... For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Goerge Antheil, in his autobiography "Bad Boy of Music," claims that the concert riot scene is actual footage of his own October 4, 1923 concert at the Théâtre Champs Elysées. This event helped seal his reputation as one of the leading modernists of the day. If this is true, then actual artistic history was made because of a reaction at least partially staged for the making of this movie. Among the luminaries present -- and possibly visible -- are Eric Satie (looking like a "beneficent elderly goat") and Darius Milhaud. A few days later, Antheil announced that he was looking for a motion-picture accompaniment to his Ballet Mécanique, a call answered by Fernand Leger.

The eye in motion, usually emblematic as a subjective shot from a speeding car; this has been at the center of this first great French tradition in film. Which is to say, a fleeting glimpse, the opening-up of the point of view from its fixed, static place in history and time to encompass a new, exciting view of life hitherto impossible; a mobility on the whole in all directions of perception, with finally the visibility of soul as the utmost aim.

Two scenes here really take the breath away, both pertaining to the distinctions, and ultimately the inseparability, of reality and art, performance and life, external and internal image.

The first takes place on the stage. The theater at Champs Elysee is packed full with an audience who have gathered to satisfy their morbid curiosity at the scandalous woman - a singer - who is about to appear; so everyone in the auditorium is at the grip of paroxysm not at the prospect of the anticipated performance, the stylized image, the evocative art, but the flesh and blood woman, the reality behind - again though a reality rumored from mouth to mouth, or read from the gossip column of a newspaper. So even before she has had the chance to sing, at the mere sight of her, the place is already in chaotic uproar - everyone wildly gesticulating, booing, others clapping and cheering on - already deeply affected, but unwittingly by another image - the immoral, scandalous woman - which they have projected upon her. And then she sings, and everyone pipes down.

(a prelude to this image-within-an-image, or behind it, is the opening act of a dancing troupe; we see them dance, while on the backdrop behind them are painted figures of dancers, and when the curtain falls, it's again painted with dancers).

The other powerful scene, involves the apparition of a young man thought to have died in a horrible car accident. Moments earlier we had been in the crypt with the dead body, a wind rustled the curtains, a gramophone played presumably eerie music. So, again a performance outwitting the performer, with reality - the kind of which you read from the obituaries in a newspaper, and hence the official, public reality - revealed by art as this unreliable facsimile of hearsay and conjecture.

As with more famous American filmmakers - DW Griffith, Chaplin - it is this institutionalized, hypocritically objective 'humanity' that threatens to destroy the passionate, living individual who can barely make his own intentions known to himself; here it is the leader of some fund for the betterment of humanity who, having been turned away by the woman at a gala, scornfully turns against her.

Purely in terms of images though, you will want to see a scene where - through the use of a 'scientific' device - we are quite literally transported on the lives of people by a singing voice. We steal upon them through a screen.

This is how the filmmaker - who permits our vision to wander - was considered at the time then, as is also evident from theoretical writings of the time; a 'wizard' of science, as the intertitle informs us.

And then the final reel. It is suddenly like Frankenstein's laboratory - full of mysterious futuristic machinery, whizzing with sparks of electricity - animated by bunraku play puppeteers. Figures dressed in black rushing everywhere, rapid-fire montage of faces, pistons, levers, jolts of energy, chaotic but coordinated movement in all directions. I've said it elsewhere about the advent of sound; cinema just wasn't going to be as adventurous, as audaciously freewheeling, freeform, freejazz and ahead of itself, for the next thirty years.

Mostly everything takes place in some fanciful cubist sets, it's the first thing to note I guess, which you may want to see if you're interested in carpentry. But with such marvelous cinema on display, it's merely a footnote.

To read about the production history of this film, it's clear what an extraordinary vision Marcel L'Herbier for the project. That grandeur is unfortunately lost at least in part insofar as the very specific score the filmmaker had commissioned has not survived through the years. Through the welcome painstaking efforts of restoration, however, we're nonetheless treated to a tremendous new score that is full and flavorful on its own merits. The significant, varied tinting employed throughout the feature for various settings and moods is presented as completely as it could be, with superb results. More than that, though, the fundamental visual spectacle endures with vibrant crispness, and all the many artists that L'Herbier collaborated with to establish the look and feel of his picture did terrific work. Yes, the filming locations used are themselves fantastic, including not least the magnificent Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Yet the set design and decoration is so stupendous as to equal or exceed that real world splendor; above all, Claire's estate and the laboratory are characterized by rich detail that's transfixing. The cumulative result of combining art styles is that this rather seems far ahead of its time. If the same is any less true of the costume design, hair, or makeup, it's only because they are less prominet. Yet that's not all, as effects and tricks of the camera or editing are employed that were not only still rather novel for 1924, but especially at the climax, genuinely mesmerizing. Honestly, just from a standpoint of the visual presentation, 'L'inhumaine' can claim an outstanding, fanciful brilliance that even some modern features to follow in all the years since can't achieve.

The tale whipped up between L'Herbier, co-writer Pierre Mac Orlan, and star Georgette Leblanc is perhaps marginally more ordinary: a drama of mystery and romance, with a robust element of science fiction, as a scientist enamored with singer Claire is terribly distraught upon her rejection. Yet that plot is enjoyable and compelling in and of itself as it's teased out into an unexpected shape, and to be frank, the dazzling, striking craftsmanship that the picture otherwise boasts lends powerful whimsy and awe to the storytelling that secures our investment even more completely. The narrative couldn't actually be told without this particular set of imagery, at least not without being significantly modified and surely lessened; one can imagine possibilities of how the ideas could be expanded upon, but only if these sets were recreated from top to bottom. The scene writing that assembles the story piece by piece is wonderfully strong, vivid and engrossing, and furthermore accentuates the extent of L'Herbier's vision as every component part seems to be so tightly tied together. The man's orchestration of every shot and scene as director is sharp and smart, and he demonstrates like skill and shrewdness in his editing, not least where rapid cuts and sequencing are essential to the thrust of a story beat. Georges Specht's cinematography is notably dynamic, exercising a range of angles and techniques that even just a few years prior seemed far-flung; even lighting is utilized in very discrete, important ways. Consider all this together with sets that were so crucial to the plot on hand, exploring dimensions, perspectives, and multiple levels, and the result is a movie that's far greater than it seems from the outset, and has aged incredibly well over almost 100 years.

This has been on my list to watch for quite some time, with the blithe assumption that I'd get around to it eventually. Having finally had impetus, I'm somewhat aghast that I could have been so unknowing and nonchalant. 'L'inhumaine' carries a degree of grandiosity and far-sighted imagination that we see relatively infrequently in the silent era, and even in no few of those years following the advent of talkies. In some measure I'm quite reminded of Fritz Lang's 1927 epic 'Metropolis'; though the later feature was (amazingly) even more of a marvel, and is more famous, I recognize the same sparkling intelligence, wit, and creativity in L'Herbier's work, and the same penetrating, lofty ideations. Comparison aside, one way or another this is an absolute treat as a viewer that is as captivating, entertaining, and satisfying in 2023 as it undoubtedly was upon its premiere. I can understand how older flicks don't appeal to all modern viewers, yet save for the most stubborn of audiences, I think this pretty much earns a blanket recommendation for anyone who enjoys a good movie. Every aspect of the production is rendered with utmost expertise as each is bound up within L'Herbier's conjuration, and the sum total of the exemplary visuals and the story they tell is a journey that's well worth two hours of anyone's time. If you have the opportunity to watch 'L'inhumaine,' as far as I'm concerned this is simply not to be missed.

It is hard for film buffs today to see silent cinema as a modern art. What strikes us nowadays is the immense debt that DW Griffith owes to Victorian fiction, that FW Murnau owes to Romantic painting, that Fritz Lang (and this is true even in Metropolis) owes to ancient German myth. How strange and wonderful then, to see a silent film that owes no debt to anything or anybody, that sums up the notion of 'modernity' in a way no work of art had done before - and precious few have done ever since. Eighty years on from its catastrophic release, Marcel L'Herbier's 1924 masterpiece L'Inhumaine remains the first, perhaps the only, totally modern film.

Most famous, of course, are the sets. A Cubist and Art Deco fantasy world designed by the artist Fernand Leger. Whether it's the salon of seductive chanteuse Claire Lescot (Georgette Leblanc) - a dining table afloat on an indoor pool, servants hidden by perpetually smiling masks -or the laboratory of visionary inventor Einar Norsen (Jacque Catelain) -vast and potentially lethal electronic gadgets, assistants in black leather fetish gear - we have entered a world where the past might never have existed, where the future can only be a continuation of now.

Just as striking, though, is L'Inhumaine's 'emotional modernism'. While so much silent film acting makes us laugh at its melodramatic excess, Claire and her circle of admirers underplay their emotions as coolly as the high-fashion zombies in Last Year at Marienbad by Alain Resnais. (A fervent admirer of L'Herbier, Resnais has acknowledged the influence of L'Inhumaine on his own work, though he insists that "its ambition is more impressive than its achievement.") Leblanc and Catelain make a gorgeously impassive pair of lovers. Hieratic icons for an age whose one true god is the Image.

David Melville