Passion

Another romantic historical film in the line of Carmen, Ernst Lubitsch adapted Memoirs d'un medicin by Alexandre Dumas and told the story of Louis XV's mistress, Madame DuBarry, bringing along his regular female star Pola Negri to lead the film. It's a story with a lot of moving parts and a lot of characters, but it has trouble managing all of that in the medium of silent film, leaving a lot to be explained in intertitles while juggling a large host of supporting characters that tend to look alike. There's a lot to admire in the film, but it has trouble reaching past the limitations of the silent medium to fully tell its story.

Jeanne Vaubernier (Negri) is a poor woman in pre-Revolutionary Paris with a job in a hat shop and a beau, Armond de Foix (Harry Liedtke). The single biggest problem in the film is probably the relationship between Jeanne and Armond. At the beginning of the film, we get a nice little scene of the two together, happily spending the afternoon until she needs to leave to deliver a hat. That plan is dashed when the Spanish ambassador, Don Diego (Magnus Stifter), nearly runs her over, destroying her hat, paying for the hat, and then becoming smitten with her and inviting her to visit him at the Spanish embassy. Presented with the opportunity to climb the unjust social ladder that was pre-Revolutionary France, Jeanne jumps at the chance, barely giving Armond much thought and dismissively leaving him behind as she goes into the embassy. There's no real sense of true love between Jeanne and Armond from the moment the ambassador shows up. I figured that Armond would simply not be very important to the narrative after she drops him, but he remains on the edges of the narrative until the final third of the film where he becomes extremely important.

Jeanne's rise in social status is driven by the Count DuBarry (Eduard von Winterstein) who meets her at the embassy and quickly becomes smitten with her as well, seeing a pretty girl that could potentially help him get out of his financial hole, preying on the weaknesses of the treasurer. When it doesn't work, though, he seems to be on the verge of casting her back out when she catches the eye of King Louis (Emil Jannings). I think you can tell how many characters are swirling around here, and it can be hard to differentiate between some of them since they all are running around in similar clothing and wigs.

Armond gets shifted to the very edges of the narrative when, at a party, he murders Don Diego and gets arrested for his crime. Sentenced to death at the same time that Jeanne is seeing her rise to power, she uses her favor with the king to grant Armond a reprieve. A little more than halfway through the film, we get an introduction to one of Armond's friends, Paillet (Alexander Eckert), a shoemaker, who must pay taxes in place of feeding his family. This look into the privation of the lower classes gets introduced really late, functioning oddly as a contrasting element against the opulent wealth of the upper classes that Jeanne is trying to join. It feels like Armond would be the ideal vehicle for that, but he spends a bunch of time in prison for a crime he definitely did commit.

Where the film really shines is in it's presentation of the spectacle of wealth in addition to some very accomplished large scale sequences like an early party and the later movements of the film after the kickoff of the French Revolution. The performances are also really good, especially with Negri at the center. Never dovetailing into the clutching of chests, there are a bevy of naturalistic performances that carry real emotional weight, especially from Negri as the world around her begins to collapse.

I get the purpose of Jeanne's torn loyalties, on the one side to her poor fiancé that she helps along in his military career as she rises in stature and on the other her need to look after herself in an unjust system, using her few resources as best she can. The problem, again, is really just that the actual connection between Jeanne and Armand isn't that well built and even feels like Jeanne doesn't really care for him all that much for long stretches. Instead of looking torn between her dual loyalties, she jumps at the chance of advancing herself, only reaching out to help Armand when he's about to be executed. She could have also taken him into her confidence early, but she's dismissive of him instead. This is an issue with the writing but also the limitations of silent films. In a sound film, we'd get dialogue scenes between the two that would be more solid building blocks than a few seconds of Jeanne sitting next to Armand on a couch. That limitation around dialogue also makes the film more opaque, especially in its overreliance on intertitles to give the story's details, most frustrating when we see the same note three times.

Still, it's a mixed bag. The performances and physical production are top rate, but the storytelling needed a new approach in the silent era that less relied on dialogue and told its story more fully through visuals. It seems obvious at this point early in Lubitsch's career, though, that his greatest successes are lighter, wittier fare.

This early effort by Lubitsch is disappointingly heavy going, lacking the famous light touch of his later films. This is full on melodrama with little sense of fun, or history, as it tells the story of Louis xv's lover. Apparently this film caused a sensation when, re-titled "Passion", it was released in the USA. It also established its star and director on the international scene. It's very hard to understand why.

Negri and Jannings are quite good in the lead roles but are given few opportunities to shine. The camerawork is stilted and there is little in the way of visual interest, despite some large crowd scenes and lavish sets and costumes. It's all rather dull.

The print I saw ran at 110 minutes, with a relentlessly heavy music score, and was badly washed out. This made it quite hard to distinguish some of the characters as their powdered wigs changed them into white blobs - and some of the overly long letters were unreadable.

Both stars - along with director Ernst Lubitsch and cameraman Theodor Sparkuhl - not surprisingly went on to successful careers in Hollywood. But although apparently the first feature film to depict the French Revolution it does takes an awfully long time getting there. When the Bastille is finally stormed DuBarry's fate seems rather abrupt, as it was toned down upon its American release by First National and a hundred years later the full gory details apparently remain largely lost.

Pola Negri in a powdered wig (plus silent screen eye shadow that makes her resemble Theda Bara) makes an appealing Royal mistress, and although as Siegfried Kracauer observed, "the story's contempt for historical facts is matched only by its disregard for their meaning", one is content for the most part to let the richness of the production and Negri's allure work their magic.

Now that i'm in depth in the silent movies era, it's clear that today we are dumb to dismiss them! I don't understand why this rich and excellent productions are not promoted while today movies are always on the top being in nothing much gripping than their ancestors! Thousand of words have been written for Coppola's Marie Antoinette and just a few for this one even if it's as sincere and moving! First of all, those old movies are not really BW but are tainted: yellow, red, blue, green. It's funny to see (and a bit tragic) that today are as much filtered while we have all the technology to give splendid colors like our phones!! Next, i'm french and while i heard the name of this Madame, i couldn't tell her story so it was very interesting to learn that she was at the top with Louis XV and down at the revolution! This period production is really lavish but for the exteriors, as a french, i can say this is not french architecture and style. The movie is a good drama, great slice of french history and it really means something that sex & power are a such an explosive couple, in the XVIII, XX or XXI.

Follows the rise and triumph of Madame DuBarry as she sleeps and teases her way from a worker in a millinery shop to King Louis XV's mistress and to Countess (at least in name). The final scenes showing her condemnation and execution during the French Revolution look like an afterthought.

A heavy historical spectacle, though the cast of thousands mainly is around for the Revolution scenes.

Pola Negri is the main bright spot and she can be quite enchanting when shy tries (mainly during the first third of the picture).

Why it was banned in France is unclear, though none of the major characters are very sympathetic.

Has little of the Lubitsch touch.