Le Lion des Mogols | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jean Epstein |
Written by | Jean Epstein Ivan Mozzhukhin |
Produced by | Alexandre Kamenka |
Starring | Ivan Mozzhukhin Nathalie Lissenko Camille Bardou |
Cinematography | Fédote Bourgasoff Joseph-Louis Mundwiller |
Production company | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 102 minutes (on DVD 2013) |
Country | France |
Languages | Silent film French intertitles |
Le Lion des Mogols(The Lion of the Moguls) is a 1924 French drama film directed by Jean Epstein. It is the first film that he directed for the Films Albatros production company.
In a sacred city of Tibet, the cruel Grand Khan, who has been usurping power for 15 years, orders that Zemgali, a young woman loved by Prince Roundhito-Sing, be taken to his palace. The Prince frees her but she is recaptured and he must flee the country.
On the boat which takes him to France, he falls in love with film star Anna and she convinces him to become an actor and play with her in a film. In Paris, the Prince is cast opposite Anna in a film about his own story. Anna's lover Morel, a banker who produces the film, is becoming more and more jealous and takes advantage of the Prince's naivety to make him sign a bad check for a large sum of money. To disarm Morel's jealousy Anna tells him she doesn't love the Prince, who is devastated when he overhears their conversation.
The Prince goes to a dance where he gets drunk and at dawn asks a taxi driver to drive through Paris as fast as possible. The following day, Anna and the Prince go back to his hotel after shooting a scene where they kiss each other. Mad with jealously, Morel calls the police and makes a complaint about the bad check made by the Prince. After looking for him at the studio, the police go to the hotel. Meanwhile, four countrymen of the Prince have arrived in Paris and are looking for him. They also end up at the hotel, where a big masked ball is going on.
Morel threatens the Prince with a gun but one of the Prince's countrymen kills him, saving the Prince, who is wounded. Anna and the Prince put on masks and hide among the dancers of the masked ball. Anna reveals to the Prince that she is his sister and how she had managed to flee when the usurper had killed the King, their father. The police tell the dancers that a criminal is hiding among them and request that they take off their masks. The Prince is identified but before the police can arrest him, one of his compatriots announce that he has come to Paris to announce that the Prince has become the new sovereign of his country following the usurper's death. A few months later, the Prince goes back to his country, where he solemnly marries Zemgali. [1]
Jean Epstein had already established himself as an innovative film theorist and director with the publication of several books and the direction of several films, notably L'Auberge rouge and Cœur fidèle , when he was introduced to Russian exile Alexandre Kamenka, the co-founder of Films Albatros. He signed on to direct a film based on an idea by Ivan Mozzhukhin, the star of the studio. This would give him access to the important means of the Russian Cinema School of Paris but would oblige him to make a more commercial film than what he had done until then. Epstein solved the challenge by giving different styles to the different parts of the film. The exotic scenes are filmed in a rather conventional way, with the lavish sets and costumes characteristic of the Albatros productions. Conversely, for the Parisian scenes, he used his personal style with close-ups, fast editing and camera movements.
Most of the film was shot at the Albatros studios in Montreuil with on-location shots in Paris and on a boat in Marseilles. [2]
The film was a success both at the box office and with critics. La Cinématographie Française characterised it as "a strange and fantastical adventure in which the middle part is taking place in a chimerical Asia, allowing artists such as Epstein for cutting and lighting, Lochakoff for the sets, Mozzhukhin for the interpretation and Bilinsky for the costumes, to indulge in wonderful extravagances." [3] Georges Sadoul on the other hand found the film "romantic and violent" and more a film by Ivan Mozzhukhin than by Jean Epstein. [4]
The film was reconstructed in 1966 by Marie Epstein on the basis of the original camera negative acquired by the Cinémathèque Française in 1958 and lost since. In 2008 the Cinetaca de la Universidad de Chile located a period tinted copy which made it possible to reconstitute a print close to the original colours. The restoration for the production of the 2014 DVD were realised by the Laboratory of the Cinemateca Portuguesa, thanks to a grant from the Franco-American Cultural Fund. [5]
René Clair, born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker and writer. He first established his reputation in the 1920s as a director of silent films in which comedy was often mingled with fantasy. He went on to make some of the most innovative early sound films in France, before going abroad to work in the UK and USA for more than a decade. Returning to France after World War II, he continued to make films that were characterised by their elegance and wit, often presenting a nostalgic view of French life in earlier years. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1960. Clair's best known films include Un chapeau de paille d'Italie, Sous les toits de Paris, Le Million (1931), À nous la liberté (1931), I Married a Witch (1942), and And Then There Were None (1945).
Jean Epstein was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, he directed three dozen films and was an influential critic of literature and film from the early 1920s through the late 1940s. He is often associated with French Impressionist Cinema and the concept of photogénie.
Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin, usually billed using the French transliteration Ivan Mosjoukine, was a Russian silent film actor.
Marcel L'Herbier was a French filmmaker who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked on cultural programmes for French television. He also fulfilled many administrative roles in the French film industry, and he was the founder and the first President of the French film school Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC).
Marcel Robert Péguy, publicly known as Robert Péguy and occasionally credited as Marcel Robert, was a French film director best remembered for his output spanning various commercial genres during the 1920s and 1930s.
Philippe Grandrieux is a French film director and screenwriter. He studied film at the INSAS in Belgium. In 1976, he exhibited his first video work at Galerie Albert Baronian, Bruxelles.
Feu Mathias Pascal is a 1925 French silent film written and directed by Marcel L'Herbier. It was the first film adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's novel Il fu Mattia Pascal.
Natalya Andrianovna Lisenko, also known as Nathalie Lissenko, was a Russian actress who was active during the silent era.
Fédote Bourgasoff was a Russian Empire-born French cinematographer.
Cinderella or the Glass Slipper is a 1913 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès, based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault.
Films Albatros was a French film production company established in 1922. It was formed by a group of White Russian exiles who had been forced to flee following the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War. Initially, the firm's personnel consisted mainly of Russian exiles, but over time, French actors and directors were employed by the company. Its operations continued until the late 1930s.
La Maison du mystère is a French silent serial film directed by Alexandre Volkoff for the Albatros film company. It was made during 1921 and 1922 and was first shown in 1923. It was co-written by and starred Ivan Mosjoukine.
Casanova is a 1934 French historical comedy drama film directed by René Barberis and starring Ivan Mozzhukhin, Jeanne Boitel and Madeleine Ozeray. The film's sets and costumes were designed by the art director Boris Bilinsky. It is loosely inspired by the life of Giacomo Casanova.
Le Double Amour(Double Love) is a 1925 French melodrama film directed by Jean Epstein and produced by the Films Albatros production company.
Gribiche is a 1926 French silent film directed by Jacques Feyder based on the eponymous short story by writer Frédéric Boutet.
The Orderly is a 1933 French drama film directed by Victor Tourjansky and starring Marcelle Chantal, Jean Worms and Fernandel. It is based on Guy de Maupassant's story L'ordonnance. Tourjanski had already filmed the same story in 1921. It was shot at the Joinville Studios of Pathé-Natan in Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Serge Piménoff. It was voted amongst the most popular films of the year by readers of the Pour Vous magazine.
Le Brasier ardent is a 1923 French film directed by Ivan Mosjoukine. It combines elements of comedy, mystery, romance and psychological drama. The title has been variously translated into English as The Blazing Inferno, The Burning Crucible, The Burning Brazier, The Burning Cauldron, and Burning Embers.
Sergeant X is a 1932 French drama film directed by Vladimir Strizhevsky and starring Ivan Mozzhukhin, Suzy Vernon and Jean Angelo.
Romance of Paris is a 1941 French musical film directed by Jean Boyer and starring Charles Trenet, Jean Tissier and Yvette Lebon. The film was shot at the Francoeur Studios in Paris. It was produced and distributed by Pathé.