L'Atlantide (1921 film)

Last updated

L'Atlantide
Manuel Orazi - L'Atlantide.jpg
Poster by Manuel Orazi
Directed by Jacques Feyder
Screenplay byJacques Feyder
Based on L'Atlantide
by Pierre Benoit
Starring Jean Angelo
Georges Melchior
Stacia Napierkowska
CinematographyGeorges Specht
Victor Morin
Amédée Morrin
Music byM. Jemain (original score)
Production
company
Thalman & Cie
Distributed by Louis Aubert [1]
Release date
  • 4 June 1921 (1921-06-04)
[2]
Running time
original length reported as 4000 metres [1] (212 minutes [3] ); DVD of restored copy from Nederlands Filmmuseum 163 minutes (3708 metres)
CountriesFrance
Belgium
LanguagesSilent film
French intertitles

L'Atlantide is a 1921 French-Belgian silent film directed by Jacques Feyder, and the first of several adaptations of the best-selling novel L'Atlantide by Pierre Benoit. It was also released under various English titles at different times.

Contents

L'Atlantide (1921)

Plot

In 1911, two French officers, Capitaine Morhange and Lieutenant Saint-Avit, become lost in the Sahara desert and discover the legendary kingdom of Atlantis, ruled by its ageless queen Antinéa. They become the latest in a line of captives whom she has taken as lovers, and who are killed and embalmed in gold after she has tired of them. Morhange however, already grieving for a lost love and planning to take holy orders, is indifferent to Antinéa's advances and rejects her. Angered and humiliated, she exploits the jealousy of his friend Saint-Avit and incites him to kill Morhange. Appalled by what he has done, Saint-Avit is helped to escape by Antinéa's secretary Tanit-Zerga, and after nearly dying in the desert from thirst and exhaustion, he is found by a patrol of soldiers. Saint-Avit returns to Paris and tries to resume his life, but he is unable to forget Antinéa. Three years later he returns to the desert and sets out to find her kingdom again, accompanied by another officer to whom he has told his story.

Much of the narrative is contained within a long flashback as Saint-Avit recounts his first visit to Antinéa; other shorter flashbacks are used within this framework, creating a fairly complex narrative structure. [4]

Cast

featuring Georges Melchior and Stacia Napierkowska L'Atlantide 1921.jpg
featuring Georges Melchior and Stacia Napierkowska

Production and distribution

When Jacques Feyder obtained the rights to film Benoit's novel, he took the radical step of insisting that the film should be made on location in the Sahara, a strategy which no film-maker had previously used for a project on this scale. His whole cast and crew were taken to Algeria, first to the Aurès Mountains and then Djidjelli on the coast, for 8 months of filming. Even the interiors were filmed in an improvised studio in a tent outside Algiers, with sets by the painter Manuel Orazi.

Feyder initially borrowed production money from his cousin who was a director of Banque Thalmann. By the time of the film's release in October 1921, the costs had escalated to an unprecedented figure of nearly 2 million francs, and its financial backers rapidly sold their rights to the distributor Louis Aubert. The film soon became a huge success however and earned a great deal of money for Aubert; it ran at a Paris cinema for over one year and was widely sold abroad. Aubert re-released the film in 1928 and it had a renewed success. [5]

Reception

The celebrity of the source novel as well as the much-reported circumstances of the production ensured that the film received plenty of attention on its release. Despite the 3-hour running time and its sometimes slow pace, it proved enormously popular with the public and put Jacques Feyder into the front rank of French film-makers. The critical reception of the film was more mixed, with particular objections made against the central performance by Stacia Napierkowska; she had been a dancer and well-known film actress for many years, but Feyder now regretted engaging her to portray the captivating Antinéa, especially when he found that she had gained an inappropriate amount of weight. [5] However the undoubted success of the film was the grandeur of its locations and the photography of the desert landscapes. A much-quoted remark by Louis Delluc was not wholly sarcastic: "There is one great actor in this film, that is the sand". [6]

L'Atlantide was one of the earliest feature films to depict the French colonial presence in North Africa, and led the way for a series of other films made during the 1920s which emphasised the romantic and exotic aspects of the colonial experience; later examples in this colonial tradition included Le Bled (1929), Le Grand Jeu (1934), and La Bandera (1935).

Preservation status

A DVD version of the film was released by Lobster Films/MK2 in 2004, based on a restored copy at the Nederlands Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. This reveals the very high quality of the film's photography, and it includes a detailed scheme of colour tinting throughout the print. Its running time is 30+ minutes (300 metres) shorter than the reported length of the original. It has a new musical soundtrack by Eric Le Guen. [7]

Alternative titles

Related Research Articles

<i>Atlantida</i> (novel) 1919 novel by Pierre Benoit

Atlantida is a fantasy novel by French writer Pierre Benoit, published in February 1919. It was translated into English in 1920 as Atlantida. L'Atlantide was Benoit's second novel, following Koenigsmark, and it won the Grand Prize of the French Academy. The English translation of Atlantida was first published in the United States as a serial in Adventure magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcel Carné</span> 1906-1996 French film director

Marcel Albert Carné was a French film director. A key figure in the poetic realism movement, Carné's best known films include Port of Shadows (1938), Le Jour Se Lève (1939), The Devil's Envoys (1942) and Children of Paradise (1945); the latter has been cited as one of the great films of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacques Feyder</span> Belgian actor, screenwriter and film director

Jacques Feyder was a Belgian actor, screenwriter and film director who worked principally in France, but also in the US, Britain and Germany. He was a director of silent films during the 1920s, and in the 1930s he became associated with the style of poetic realism in French cinema. He adopted French nationality in 1928.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Benoit (novelist)</span> French writer

Pierre Benoit was a French novelist, screenwriter and member of the Académie française. He is perhaps best known for his second novel L'Atlantide (1919) that has been filmed several times.

<i>Carnival in Flanders</i> (film) 1935 film

Carnival in Flanders is a 1935 French historical romantic comedy film directed by Jacques Feyder, and created during the poetic realism period in 1930s France. It is also widely known under its original title in French, La Kermesse héroïque. A German-language version of the film was made simultaneously and was released under the title Die klugen Frauen, featuring Ernst Schiffner in one of his early film roles.

L'Atlantide may refer to:

<i>Le Grand Jeu</i> (1934 film) 1934 film

Le Grand Jeu is a 1934 French drama film directed by Jacques Feyder and starring Pierre Richard-Willm, Marie Bell, Charles Vanel and Françoise Rosay. It is a romantic drama set against the background of the French Foreign Legion, and the film was an example of poetic realism in the French cinema. The title Le Grand Jeu refers to the practice of reading the cards. Blanche asks whether her client wants the 'full works', the whole story: "Alors... je te fais le grand jeu?"

Les Ambassadeurs is a Tunisian film produced in 1975 by Naceur Ktari. It won the Tanit d'or for best film at Carthage Film Festival in 1976 and the special jury prize at Locarno International Film Festival the same year. It was selected for the 1978 Cannes Film Festival in the category "Un Certain Regard".

<i>Faces of Children</i> 1925 film

Faces of Children is a 1925 French-Swiss silent film directed by Jacques Feyder. It tells the story of a young boy whose mother has died and the resentments which develop when his father remarries. It was a notable example of film realism in the silent era, and its psychological drama was integrated with the natural landscapes of Switzerland where much of the film was made on location.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stacia Napierkowska</span> French actress and dancer

Stacia Napierkowska was a French actress, dancer, and director who worked during the silent film era. She appeared in 86 films between 1908 and 1926.

<i>Pension Mimosas</i> 1935 film

Pension Mimosas is a 1935 French drama film directed by Jacques Feyder. Based on an original scenario by Feyder and Charles Spaak, it is a psychological drama set largely in a small hotel on the Côte d'Azur, and it provided Françoise Rosay with one of the most substantial acting roles of her career. It was produced by the French subsidiary of the German company Tobis Film.

<i>LAtlantide</i> (1932 film) 1932 film

L'Atlantide is a 1932 German-French adventure and fantasy film directed by G. W. Pabst and starring Brigitte Helm. It is based on the novel L'Atlantide by Pierre Benoît.

André Roanne was a French actor. He began his career playing in short films, and acted in 91 films in total, most notably those of Fernandel. Most of his films were French; he did, however, also appear in German and Italian works, especially co-productions with French companies. He also served occasionally as an assistant director, screenwriter, technician, and film editor.

<i>Back Streets of Paris</i> 1946 film

Back Streets of Paris is a 1946 French crime film directed by Marcel Blistène. Jacques Feyder also contributed to the film in the role of artistic director.

Léonce-Henri Burel was a French cinematographer whose career extended from the silent era until the early 1970s. He was the director of photography on more than 120 films, working almost exclusively in black-and-white.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Angelo</span> French actor

Jean Angelo was a French film actor of silent movies and early talkies. He was often a leading man playing romantic or athletic roles. Angelo was born and died in Paris.

<i>Siren of Atlantis</i> 1949 film by Gregg G. Tallas

Siren of Atlantis, also known as Atlantis the Lost Continent, is a 1949 American black-and-white fantasy-adventure film, distributed by United Artists, that stars Maria Montez and her husband Jean Pierre Aumont. It was the first feature she made after leaving Universal Pictures.

<i>The New Gentlemen</i> 1929 film

Les Nouveaux Messieurs is a 1929 French silent film directed by Jacques Feyder. It is a satirical comedy, whose initial release in France was delayed for several months because of objections to its portrayal of the French parliament.

<i>LAtlantide</i> (1992 film) 1992 French film

L'Atlantide is a 1992 French-Italian adventure film directed by Bob Swaim and starring Tchéky Karyo, Christopher Thompson and Jean Rochefort. It tells the story of a former soldier who searches for a man who has disappeared, and comes into contact with a mysterious and attractive queen from an ancient dynasty. It is based on Pierre Benoit's 1919 novel Atlantida, which had been adapted for film several times before. The film premiered in France on 30 December 1992.

<i>Gribiche</i> (film) 1926 film

Gribiche is a 1926 French silent film directed by Jacques Feyder based on the eponymous short story by writer Frédéric Boutet.

References

  1. 1 2 Jean A Gili & Michel Marie [eds]. Jacques Feyder. Paris: Association française de recherche sur l'histoire du cinéma, 1998. (1895: numéro hors série). p. 205.
  2. Jean A Gili & Michel Marie [eds]. Jacques Feyder. Paris: Association française de recherche sur l'histoire du cinéma, 1998. (1895: numéro hors série). p. 206. (Other sources cite 28 May 1921 for the premiere.)
  3. 1 2 Christopher Workman and Troy Howarth. Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era. Baltimore, MD: Midnight Marquee Press, 2016. p. 241. ISBN   978-1936168-68-2.
  4. Review, synopsis and link to watch the film: "A cinema history" . Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  5. 1 2 Richard Abel. French cinema: the first wave, 1915-1929, (Princeton University Press, 1984). pp. 154-156.
  6. "Il y a dans L'Atlantide un grand acteur, c'est le sable." In: Cinéa, 10 juin 1921, p.9
  7. L'Atlantide (DVD), MK2 Editions/Lobster Films, 2004.