Evangeline

Watched the Milestone release of "Evangeline" (1929) with Delores Del Rio, Roland Drew, Alec B. Francis, Donald Reed, Paul McAllister, James A. Marcus, George F. Marion, and others. A beautiful film that captures the essence of the story of the Acadians' being driven from their land in Nova Scotia for not helping the British fight the French, the Acadians' native ancestry. I enjoyed the film very much. Much of the film is based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's eponymously named poem. One thing that struck me - and struck me hard, to be perfectly honest - was how much Del Rio was a method-style actress. There were a couple of scenes where Marlon Brando could have been substituted for Del Rio and the same things would have happened! I've always found her performances so very, very stylized, as though she's saying, "Look, Ma, I'm acting!" The camera loves her, but she's making love to the camera, too, and I don't wish to watch her make love to the camera! I've always also found her one of the most beautiful of all actresses of her era, but I've never liked her acting style. All of this was in evidence again last night for me. Gorgeous woman, magnificent film, but I still didn't like her acting style. Still - she was VERY watchable nevertheless. Last time I'd watched this was on an old VHS tape from the 80s. I bought this DVD version about five years ago on sale, but had never watched it. It's a treasure as far as direction and photography and mise-en-scene. It's fascinating to me, though, that this was photographed in California and Minnesota, and not in Nova Scotia...

As a French-Canadian from Québec, I admit this story has always been in my consciousness but I never read Longfellow's poem, whose fictitious heroin has become the symbol of the Acadian people's struggle for recognition inside a mostly English-speaking Canadian province (New Brunswick), has a French-language newspaper named after her in Canada and is the subject of a very famous statue, which is a landmark of Maritime tourism.

This film is truly epic. The DVD version shows an absolutely pristine print with superb photography, tinting, incredible camera movement and versatility, easily equaling any blockbuster that followed or preceded it in grandeur, drama and number of participants. The scenes of the deportation of the neutral Acadians (1755) by the wicked British soldiers are stupendous and unforgettable: they out-Eisenstein Eisenstein in the depiction of the first modern military peace-time atrocity committed on an undefended civilian population, for which England still bears a burden of guilt, right alongside the massacres it later committed on undefended civilian populations in Ireland and India. (Longfellow's poem remains a piece of Anti-British propaganda and a gesture of friendship towards French-Canadians who had suffered much more from the English presence than the Americans ever had.)

I don't know how faithful the film is to the poem but (spoiler!) the separated lovers, Evangéline and Gabriel, are finally reunited, long years after their brutal deportation, in a Philadelphia hospital where she has become a Sister of Mercy and he is one of the sick during an epidemic.

This love story is told in an absolutely Romantic fashion, in idyllic scenery with lots and lots of pastoral touches equating Acadia with "Arcadia". (The contrast between the time before the deportation and the diaspora of Acadians is similar in nature to the one before the first and second parts of "Gone With The Wind".) Évangéline (Dolores del Rio) is the only woman in the principal cast and she is surrounded by some of the dreamiest male lumberjack specimens Hollywood has ever cared to dress up in long trousers.

The original music score and sound effects track is preserved on Vitaphone records that sound remarkably fresh, during 80 % of the 90 min running time. The missing parts of the soundtrack is faithfully reconstructed by a small instrumental ensemble. Dolores del Rio even sings an original (dubbed?) song, "Love Me Forever", to her ailing lover. As a missing Vitaphone record at the beginning of the movie prevents us from having heard her voice the first time she sings this song in the "happy" first part of their courtship (after Gabriel has had a crack at it), it comes as quite a nice surprise at the end. The film score incorporates many lovely authentic French folk songs and, all in all, there is no questioning the seriousness, dedication and talent of everybody involved in this project, which would probably be better known and admired if the talkies hadn't invaded the scene just at that time.

It's quite amazing to me that EVANGELINE isn't more well known, particularly among silent film enthusiasts. What struck me most when watching this movie for the first time were the incredibly spellbinding close-up shots of Evangeline (DOLORES DEL RIO) as she was swept away with the most innocent feelings of pure love in her encounters with her beloved, Gabriel (ROLAND DREW). Her eyes flutter with excitement and anticipation of the happiness to be for her and Gabriel. This dreamy and romantic beginning quickly becomes only a memory for the two when they are separated by the war between the British and the French. Evangeline then endlessly wanders the states in her quest to reunite with her lost love. The cinematography is unforgettable in a number of different shots, particularly of Del Rio and the separation scenes. The use of the selected color tints are also highly effective as each color conveys the mood of the different sequences. Del Rio delivers a truly angelic performance that, in my opinion, wouldn't have been as effective if this movie had been in sound. I do not believe that EVANGELINE would have worked so well as a talkie. We are quite lucky that the film wasn't re-shot as a talkie to suit the new excitement of the sound era, which was already upon the world of cinema in the year of its release (1929), for the images that you experience is pure gold.

If the viewer has not yet read the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's, "Evangeline", it is strongly recommended they do. It is a love story told as few others have been told. The 1755 forced exile of the citizens of Arcadia in Nova Scotia by the British is imortalizes by Mr. Longfellow.