2.5 Minutes Per Act
My thanks to the estimable Robert Fells for translating the titles and posting this version of Dumas fil's story to Youtube. People are not aware of it now, but in this period, the Danish producers were leading the world in technique and ambition. So this 13-minute version of CAMILLE is quite ambitious.
This does not mean that the modern viewer will be enchanted. Like many of the ambitious film versions of this period, it's far too brief to be more than a Cliff Notes version of the story. We get Armand and Margueritte meeting; their moving to the country; Armand's father talking her into leaving her; and her dying, with the joyfully mordant reunion, all against painted backdrops.
That's not to say the contemporary audience would have been put off by these problems. Backdrops were a normal part of the theater, and if you wanted the full story, you read the book.
This does not mean that the modern viewer will be enchanted. Like many of the ambitious film versions of this period, it's far too brief to be more than a Cliff Notes version of the story. We get Armand and Margueritte meeting; their moving to the country; Armand's father talking her into leaving her; and her dying, with the joyfully mordant reunion, all against painted backdrops.
That's not to say the contemporary audience would have been put off by these problems. Backdrops were a normal part of the theater, and if you wanted the full story, you read the book.
- boblipton
- Apr 26, 2020