La cigarette

La cigarette (1919)

*** (out of 4)

Pierre (Gabriel Signoret) is an older man who works as a museum director and is also married to the much younger Denise (Andree Brabant). Before long Pierre starts to believe that she's having an affair with a famous tennis player so he's influenced by the story connected to a mummy at his museum. Pierre plans to poison one of his cigarettes and then add it to a bunch where he never knows when he will die.

This film was directed by Germaine Dulac, a French woman who worked as a critic, a poet and she also made a handful of films. I had never heard of this film until it turned up in a box set of movies directed by females and I must say that while the movie had some flaws it also had a pretty interesting idea and it made for a very entertaining movie and one that deserves to be better known than it is.

What I liked most about this film was the story itself. I thought the whole angle with the mummy and its story was interesting and I liked the story around a man wanting to kill himself but not know when. Adding one poisonous cigarette to dozens of them and then just smoking them at will was a good concept. Of course, I think the film would have been even better had they tried to bring some tension out of this scenario.

With that said, the film was extremely well-made and I like the touches that Dulac brought to it and especially how the old man story was told. Both Signoret and Brabant were very good in their roles and the film was fast-paced for its 51-minutes. Fans of silent cinema will certainly want to check this one out.

Like no few other surviving silent films, this one isn't without its wear and tear; there's extreme, very unfortunate deterioration seen throughout of the print that was ultimately digitally preserved. I'm of the mind that this only adds to the charm of such fare, however, and moreover this isn't the only commonality 'La cigarette' shares with its kin, for despite its age it looks pretty fantastic - the costume design, hair, makeup, sets, and filming locations are all gorgeous. Louis Chaix's cinematography tends toward the simpler side of what we saw in these early years of cinema, but his work is admirable nonetheless, and instances of close-ups or tightly focused shots are most welcome. The editing is more than suitable, and filmmaker Germaine Dulac had a keen eye for orchestrating shots and scenes with recognition of the very visual nature of storytelling in film. I rather believe this movie is also a fine credit to the cast, whose acting tends to be more nuanced and natural than what we often saw in contemporary titles (e.g., exaggerated facial expressions and body language in compensation for lack of sound, and ported from the stage). Even among a small assemblage Andrée Brabant and Gabriel Signoret stand out most in the chief roles, but the same goes for everyone in front of the camera. Despite the ravages of time, this feature quite has all the makings of another silent classic, including some artfully rendered intertitles.

Truly, in every aspect of its craftsmanship this is marked by obvious skill and intelligence. I'm a smidgen more divided on Jacques de Baroncelli's screenplay - not because it's bad, but just because it's highly demonstrative of the more simple and straightforward side of the silent era. This, too, is no abject fault per se, but it does mean that from a narrative standpoint 'La cigarette' is arguably less distinguished. Exemplifying the point, the thrust of the plot is repeated again and again even from earliest scenes as a facet of Pierre's work, and the whole comes off as a tad heavy-handed as a result. Still, there's just enough detail in the writing to offset that plainspokenness: smartly rendered dialogue, as related through intertitles; well-rounded scene writing that adds a degree of tension to the proceedings, and keeps us locked in; slight variables in plot development to add to the drama. There are even notable themes on hand, from love, jealousy, and suspicion, to dynamics between men and women, difficulties that come with age gaps in any social interaction, and more. There's no singular stroke of brilliance anywhere herein, but despite subjective forthright gawkiness in the melodrama and how it's accentuated from the start, there are also no substantial flaws. This is really pretty well done all around.

I don't think there's anything so special about this picture as to fully demand viewership. There's no major beat of drama - this actively declines any, in fact - and it may not even particularly stand out in a crowd among other works of the same period. Recognizing that cigarettes are viewed differently around the world, there's nevertheless also something to be said for how well the fundamental premise has aged over time (or rather, how poorly), let alone the ending. Still, the overall vibe is one of lovely warmth and pleasantness, and 'La cigarette' is more than enjoyable enough for something to watch on a quiet day. Don't necessarily go out of your way for it, but if you do have the opportunity to watch, this is a tiny slice of cinema history worth revisiting.

Germaine Dulac's earliest surviving feature -- albeit in an erratically chipped copy -- is a story about the old man Gabriel Signoret (41, albeit in a white wig) married to a young woman, Andrée Brabant. He's an archeologist working on a new display of the mummy of a young Egyptian princess whose elderly husband grew jealous and had her killed with a poisoned seedcake. Signoret grows suspicious that Mlle Brabant is carrying on with Jules Raucourt, whose twin professions are dancing and golf. Determined to kill himself, he poisons a cigarette, puts it in his case, and writes a note to be discovered after he uses it at random. Immediately people start bumming smokes off him, including the innocent missus.

I first encountered Mme. Dulac's movies in the winter of 2003-2004, when a program of them played at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Each film was preceded by a lecture by an earnest young woman. Reading from notes, at each showing she informed the audience that Dulac was a Lesbian and a woman, and that was why she was an important film maker. I preferred to look at the movies instead of being told they were important. I discovered she was a highly competent film maker whose male characters behaved stupidly, often selfishly, occasionally villainously. Viewed as a corrective to the vamp movie, it might be considered turnabout in fair play. However, she had a propensity for dragging out the big scene past my patience. In short, I found her movies tiresome.

Perhaps it is bumptious of me, but this one strikes me as more of the same. Dulac fills the screen with images of Mlle Brabant's innocence. She kisses white doves around the house's fountain. She plays with a white dog. She is vivacious and flirty, but she's fond of the old fellow, little though he deserves it. Just like all men.

This film is only watched because the woman who directed it went on to greater things. The print is terrible, with dramatic dropouts (probably beyond repair). It tells the story of a fifty something museum curator who has married a pretty young woman. She is affectionate and loving (and we would say he is a lucky man). She is also full of life and he is terribly stuffy and directs his energy toward mummies and old things. When she takes a bit of a shine to a younger man, he becomes jealous. There is nothing to it, but the old guy is so jealous that he decides to kill himself and release her from their marriage. He decides to poison some cigarettes (how is that for weird?) and slink into oblivion. I won't spoil things by revealing the ending. Watch this only if you are a bit of a film buff because of the horrible quality of the film.

This film was aired on TCM in December 2020 as part of the Women Make Film lineup, as the director is a woman. I mostly enjoyed the film, but was distracted by the amount of damage that obscured the action, and the title cards, which were extensive and long, as well as all in French. I got the general idea of the plot, but missed out on the finer details, such as what the Egyptian mummy he brings home and puts in the bedroom has to do with anything. The variety of tinting was very nice, the parts of the film that were not damaged were very fine.

The story is engrossing, what I could gather from the action, not being able to read the title cards. The older husband is very busy with his Egyptian relics, and doesn't find time to spend with his younger wife, though the scenes with them together tend to show great affection between the two. We see her wandering around the house and grounds after being rebuffed by her distracted husband, which leads her to amuse herself outside of the house. She is flirted with by a young and handsome golf pro, but it never goes any further. However, her husband does find enough time to follow her around and he sees something that he mistook as what appeared to be a clandestine meeting between his wife and the golfer. Deciding to kill himself by mixing a poisoned cigarette in his full box to make death random, we see a servant sneak a smoke, and various other people, including his wife, try to take a cigarette out of the box which he vigorously prevents. All works out in an unusual way in the end. If you can read French, I would recommend this movie, otherwise, it may be tedious for some to figure out what's going on.