Abel Gance’s first sound film is among the most notorious what-ifs of cinema alongside The Magnificent Ambersons and much of Erich von Stroheim’s filmography. The version that was released in theaters back in 1931 and which survives today represents a tattered remnant of its maker’s original vision: a three-hour opus intended to spread a message of world unity and pacifism as Gance’s final word on the aftershocks and moral lessons of World War I. But producers immediately took out the pruning shears, reducing the film to half its intended length and, in the process, muddying its bold, operatic themes.
Compared to Gance’s towering silent epics, End of the World cannot help but feel like a curio. Still, it’s as if Gance knew the path that the film would take, as the first images of The End of the World consist of the director himself, as protagonist Jean Novalic,...
Compared to Gance’s towering silent epics, End of the World cannot help but feel like a curio. Still, it’s as if Gance knew the path that the film would take, as the first images of The End of the World consist of the director himself, as protagonist Jean Novalic,...
- 7/14/2023
- by Jake Cole
- Slant Magazine
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