The Reign of Terror

The Terror rages. The Committee of Public Safety has sentenced Louis XVI to death. While it debates the same fate for Marie-Antoinette, a desperate conspiracy tries to free her from prison.

Albert Capellani's film is based on one of the few Dumas pere novels I haven't read, so I can't comment on its filmization. However, there are clues that the director made an effort to translate the source work for an audience familiar with it. It's an example of the Chapter-Heading school of film-making. In this sort of movie, the titles tell you what you are about to see, then they show you. It certainly doesn't support the idea of the cinema as an independent art form, but it can be effective if the acting, camerawork and so forth are well done.

Unhappily, 1914 was still early in the evolution of the feature film. The beginning and most of the final reel of this movie seem more intent on getting the audience up to speed with the story. It is in the middle reels that this work flourishes, with some decent cinematic acting (Léa Piron as the imprisoned Queen is excellent), some camerawork that gives the audience a point of view, and some real moments of underplayed excitement (the guard who discovers the note to the Queen pausing to put on his spectacles so he can read it).

As I noted, most of the final reel seems to retreat to underdeveloped Chapter-Heading film-making. However, the final shot is a great example of editing.

Looking back more than a hundred years, this movie can be enjoyed as an intermediate form in the evolution of the cinema. Well, in an art form that is always growing and shrinking, changing and seeking new means of expression, all movies are -- and we can hope, for a long time, will be -- intermediate forms. This one has enough good points to command my attention.

Albert Capellani's cinema is known for being advanced for his time (he was active between 19o5 and 1922). I do not doubt this statement, but having seen no other movie directed by him all I can say is that "Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge", filmed in 1913, must be an exception to this rule. For sure, this tepid adaptation of Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet's novel of the same name, does not break new ground. Worse, if Capellani's reputation is justified, "Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge" is a real setback compared to his previous efforts. I never became involved in this 148 minute long movie, whether as an adventure yarn (the preparations of a plot and its execution should have a minimum of suspense) or as a romance (the loves of the tanner's wife and the handsome lieutenant raised no emotion in me). I can blame it on two factors : the artificial declamatory acting style of all but Georges Dorival (quite natural as Dixmer) on the one hand and the stasis of the staging on the other. Almost all the shots are fixed, relying too much on the title cards, and even if there are many actors and extras moving within the frames, they rarely advance the story. Also disturbing is the use of painted backdrops, particularly when they come into contrast with the well-chosen solid exterior locations. The impression we get is one of artificiality throughout. Of course this is an ancient movie and the shortcomings which kept me from enjoying this entertainment which were meant for a less demanding audience than today's may not have been defects at the time, but I would not have minded some originality, some personality and more respect for the original work (why a happy end whereas nearly all of Dumas' novels end tragically ?). For all that, I was happy to see a film that could well not exist anymore. If it is not a good film, it is a token of what was made in the early days of cinema. Many thanks to those who preserved it by conserving it first and by restoring it later.