I saw 'La Belle Nivernaise' in October 2005 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Sacile, Italy. Having seen many silent films from many nations, I'm accustomed to the difficulties of reading intertitles in a foreign language. I'm also acquainted with the more disorienting experience of viewing a silent film which possesses translated titles rather than the originals ... for example, screening a print of a Hollywood-made silent film with its original English-language titles removed and Italian titles (with inaccurate translations) spliced in. The Sacile festival screened a print of 'La Belle Nivernaise' which had been restored by Cineteca del Comune di Bologna from two different sources ... so some of the intertitles were the original French ones, and others were Spanish translations. I found this deeply distracting, since I had to keep shifting mental gears between different languages. Je non puedo parlez Españçaise, oui?
Worse luck, I strongly dislike films with irrelevant or deliberately misleading titles. Movie-goers in 1923 were probably meant to assume that 'La Belle Nivernaise' is the film's heroine: in fact, that's the name of the barge owned by the Louveau family in this movie. The film makes an attempt to depict the river Seine (with its canals) as a character in this story in its own right, much as the Mississippi is a character in 'Huckleberry Finn'. Unfortunately, this dead-earnest movie hasn't one-twentieth of the power of Mark Twain's novel. Still worse, the entire movie seems to be edited to the dead-slow pace of the river.
IMDb's synopsis of this film is accurate. The exterior photography is quite beautiful, and the very impressive editing features several imaginative match cuts. The actors, all unknown to me, give believable performances within the slow-paced and depressing mise-en-scene of humble peasants. Unfortunately, all of this movie's considerable merits are in the service of a gloomy and depressing story.
SPOILERS COMING: Eventually the adopted boy Victor weds his beloved Clara, and it's implied that they live happily ever after: Monsieur Louveau even gives them their own barge, christened 'La Nouvelle Nivernaise'! The ending is meant to be romantic and hopeful, but I found it somewhat distasteful. Victor, after all, was raised under the same roof as Clara, more or less as step-siblings, so the ending felt to me as if he was marrying his sister. Those crazy French...
Apparently this film was a commercial and artistic flop at the time of its original release, and I don't much wonder. According to the programme notes at Sacile, even this film's director Jean Epstein regretted the movie's dead-slow pace when he attended a public screening. I'll rate this treacle-slow tragedy just 3 points out of 10, for its technical proficiency. If you want to watch an exciting movie about bargemen, see 'Young Adam'.
Worse luck, I strongly dislike films with irrelevant or deliberately misleading titles. Movie-goers in 1923 were probably meant to assume that 'La Belle Nivernaise' is the film's heroine: in fact, that's the name of the barge owned by the Louveau family in this movie. The film makes an attempt to depict the river Seine (with its canals) as a character in this story in its own right, much as the Mississippi is a character in 'Huckleberry Finn'. Unfortunately, this dead-earnest movie hasn't one-twentieth of the power of Mark Twain's novel. Still worse, the entire movie seems to be edited to the dead-slow pace of the river.
IMDb's synopsis of this film is accurate. The exterior photography is quite beautiful, and the very impressive editing features several imaginative match cuts. The actors, all unknown to me, give believable performances within the slow-paced and depressing mise-en-scene of humble peasants. Unfortunately, all of this movie's considerable merits are in the service of a gloomy and depressing story.
SPOILERS COMING: Eventually the adopted boy Victor weds his beloved Clara, and it's implied that they live happily ever after: Monsieur Louveau even gives them their own barge, christened 'La Nouvelle Nivernaise'! The ending is meant to be romantic and hopeful, but I found it somewhat distasteful. Victor, after all, was raised under the same roof as Clara, more or less as step-siblings, so the ending felt to me as if he was marrying his sister. Those crazy French...
Apparently this film was a commercial and artistic flop at the time of its original release, and I don't much wonder. According to the programme notes at Sacile, even this film's director Jean Epstein regretted the movie's dead-slow pace when he attended a public screening. I'll rate this treacle-slow tragedy just 3 points out of 10, for its technical proficiency. If you want to watch an exciting movie about bargemen, see 'Young Adam'.