Louis Feuillade | Fantômas | Les Vampires | Judex
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Louis Feuillade was a prolific director of French silent films. Feuillade worked in many genres, including comedy and realistic dramas. but today he is most admired for his spectacular serials. These often pitted master criminals against great detectives. Feuillade's work is of very high quality, and is still gripping and entertaining today. Feuillade was brought into the cinema by the pioneer director Alice Guy. The article on Edwin S. Porter also explores points of similarity between Porter and Feuillade.
Feuillade followed the traditions of earlier filmmakers. The comedy short La Course des sergents de ville / The Policemen's Little Run (Ferdinand Zecca, 1906) alternates exteriors shot on Paris streets, with artificial but interesting looking studio sets representing interiors. This is the same ground plan as in Feuillade. The Paris exteriors, with their vast facades, ornate architecture and deserted streets, look almost as eerie in this comedy short as they later will in Feuillade. They seem to be concealing mysterious secrets. They convey a strong atmosphere. Zecca's police climb up some of these buildings, and walk along the roof, just as in later Feuillade. But while Feuillade has his daring villains along real building facades, Zecca cuts to cardboard imitations, in the campy manner of the 1960's Batman TV show. Of course, Zecca is aiming for slapstick comedy, not thrills like Feuillade, and it is hard to tell if he intends these climbs along phony walls to be as silly as they now look, or not.
Juve contre Fantômas (1913) This hour long film is Chapter 2 of Feuillade's serial Fantômas. It deals with the "duel" of wits between master criminal Fantômas, and the policeman Juve who is trying to capture him. The scenes capture the elaborate, often Art Nouveau look of pre World War I France, with overdesigned, fantasy bedrooms, elaborate metal work gates and fences, and people dressed to the max as boulevard dandies and fashionable ladies. Much of this looks dream like, other parts seem expressive of sexual fantasies - and French design of the era on the whole does seem designed to promote sensual gratification. Into this paradise of the upper middle classes come the most outrageously melodramatic plots by Fantômas, including snakes in the bedrooms and armies of sinisterly dressed hoods. The counter plots by Juve often seem equally outré. These scenes evoke bizarre fantasies and unconscious desires.
The scenes in the bedroom recall those of Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" (1891). Feuillade brings this to life with a surreal flair.
The great limitations of Feuillade's technique here are similar to Robert Wiene's in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Feuillade sets up his camera, then lets his scene roll. It is a crude and straightforward technique that promotes little excitement. Stills from this film seem much more interesting than the movie itself.
Sheldon Renan's book An Introduction to the American Underground Film includes a still attributed to Feuillade's crime serial, Les Vampires (1915 - 1916) (it is a non-supernatural mystery story, and there are no vampires in it, by the way). The still is remarkably poetically suggestive and surreal, and I have enjoyed looking at it for many years. I have been unable to find it in the modern version of Les Vampires, however, and suspect it is from some other Feuillade movie. In his massive guide to early French silent film, The ciné goes to town: French cinema, 1896-1914 (1994) Richard Abel ascribes it to one of the chapters of Feuillade's Fantômas, La Mort qui tue (1913). This book has a huge amount of commentary about Feuillade and his contemporaries. Richard Abel's book is a companion to his French cinema: the first wave, 1915-1929 (1984), and he has also written a guide to early American filmmaking, The red rooster scare: making cinema American, 1900-1910 (1999).
One can see why the Surrealists were fascinated by Feuillade's work. The still shows a couple about to enter a room through a door. Two men inside, dressed in black, are pressed against the wall on either side of the door. They are waiting to capture the man and woman as soon as they enter the door, and have some sort of hood or net they are ready to throw over their heads. The men are dressed identically in some black satiny material from head to toe, including hoods over their heads, and are clearly part of some army of bad guys. The couple, on the other hand, are dressed for the French boulevards of the era. The man, although in a fashionable suit, looks brave and courageous, and is clearly some sort of hero. The woman is a heroine; her face is in deep shadow from a hat or veil, however. Her appearance recalls Gaston Leroux's mystery novel, Le Parfum de la Dame en Noir (1909) ("The Perfume of the Woman in Black"); I always thought this was one of the most perfectly titled of all mystery novels. The room looks empty of furniture or ornament. The couple are about to step from the Normal World, represented by the hall, into the Abnormal World, represented by the room. Melodrama is going to take over their lives completely. If the couple represent normalcy, they do not represent simplicity however. They look like a romantic couple, and look as if they have very complex feelings and desires. Their complex fashionable clothes suggest an elaborate personal history. So does the staircase seen behind them through the door. The small region of the shot seen through the open door, which includes the couple and the diagonal staircase, seems far more complex than the broad, empty expanse of room which they are entering. So do their elaborate clothes contrast with the minimalist, identity concealing uniforms worn by the bad guys. The deep focus of staircase behind the couple suggests a long history in time, a past, in other words; whereas the blank wall behind the two bad guys suggests that they are at year zero, or pastless. The still also reveals Feuillade's skill with visual composition. It combines rectangular forms with diagonals. Two symmetrical lines extend from a point midway along the top of the frame. One consists of the rail of the staircase, followed by the head and shoulders of the right hand bad guy. The other eventually takes in the crouched left hand villain, and his head and extended right arm. This sort of geometrically organized composition goes back to Titian and other Renaissance painters. This analysis only begins to hint at the feelings this image stirs up in me. The door is a double door; one half is closed, one half is open, showing the couple, hall and staircase. Each half of the door takes up exactly the same space in the shot, the same size and shape. But one is just blank; the closed door; the other evokes all the complexity that can be revealed when closed doors are opened. I was fascinated by the architecture of buildings as a child, and have often seen complex rooms in my dreams. Feuillade captures this dream like feeling with uncommon skill.
The restored version of Les Vampires seems vastly more coherent than earlier accounts suggest. Henri Langlois used to show a print of Les Vampires, back in the 1940's and 1950's, that was missing all its titles - the only available print then. Not surprisingly, viewers of that era described the serial as a jumble of surrealistically strange scenes, that made little narrative sense. However, the current version has a logically constructed story, one which is easily followed by viewers. It seems in a direct line with many movie crime thrillers since. Its story telling logic reminds one of the numerous crime shows on 1980's American television, for instance. Feuillade's exposition is in fact easier to follow than many 1930's Hollywood whodunits, which were often full of characters that were only briefly introduced.
Feuillade's plot is usually quite linear, with all events being made clear to the viewer, as they happen. Occasionally Feuillade will introduce a mysterious situation or character; but usually, within five or ten minutes, all the mysteries concerning this will be explained completely. This is a narrative strategy that seems identical with most subsequent crime films.
Feuillade anticipates later film tradition, by including characters which whom all kinds of people can identify. Their are a little kid, a middle class hero, a working class isdekick, a glamorous vamp, and the hero's mother, a middle-aged lady who proves uncommonly gutsy and resourceful. Hollywood films regularly used to contain characters of all ages and genders. This allowed everyone in the audience to fantasize that they had a role in the adventures. This tradition is now dead; few contemporary action films would include the hero's mother as a major character, for instance. As recently as the mid-1980's, the TV show Simon and Simon featured the detective heroes' strong willed mother, and Remington Steele often featured the agency's middle-aged secretary, played by the excellent Doris Roberts. All of these characters broadened their shows' appeal to all age groups.
The titles of the episodes of Les Vampires in the original French, and in the restored English version distributed today:
1) La Tête coupée / The Severed Head
2) La Bague qui tue / The Ring that Kills
3) Le Cryptogramme rouge / The Red Cypher
4) Le Spectre / The Spectre
5) L'Évasion du mort / The Dead Man's Escape
6) Les Yeux qui fascinent / Hypnotic Eyes
7) Satanas / Satanas
8) Le Maître de la foudre / The Thunder Master
9) L'Homme des poisons / The Poisoner
10) Les Noces sanglantes / The Terrible Wedding
Feuillade continued with his mystery serials, with Judex (1916).
Plot elements in the Prologue of Judex recall Edgar Wallace's prose mystery thriller, The Four Just Men (1905). Just as the Just Men are noble outlaws who attack the evil powerful, seeking justice, so is Feuillade's heroic avenger Judex. Both avengers make demands on a powerful figure: the minister in Wallace's story, the banker in Feuillade. In both works, this man is given a deadline, by which time the avengers demand he make an important concession. In both, they threaten to kill him at a certain time if he does not accede to this demand. In both, he is attacked in his own home at exactly the hour specified in the threat, even though he is surrounded by colleagues and detectives. Both deadlines are at night, which adds to their spookiness. Even the names of the Four Just Men and Judex have similarities, with "Ju" in common. "Judex" means "judge" in Latin, so the names have a similar invocation of the search for justice. Wallace's plot has been echoed countless times in other prose thrillers, movies and comics.
Both Wallace and Feuillade express a liberal skepticism about the wealthy and powerful. I have seen articles that describe Feuillade as a conservative. This is not consistent at all with the politics in Judex. Feuillade does seem to have been an ardent family man, something that is reflected in the many family ties in his films.
The hero Judex has been described as an ancestor of super-heroes to come. This is perhaps misleading: Judex has no super-powers whatsoever. He does have a headquarters full of high tech devices. And he uses advanced technology to bring the heroine out of her coma. In this sense, he anticipates Batman, who also was a master of high tech devices. Judex' striking style of dress, with a cloak and an unusual tunic, also anticipates such pulp heroes as the Shadow. The cape also anticipates all the comic book super-heroes who wore them. Judex appeared during the 1910's, when interest in scientific detectives was at its peak. Such detectives appeared regularly in British and American prose mystery fiction. The Four Just Men were also expert users of technology.
Judex differs from the Shadow, Batman, and other later figures in that he is not a general purpose crime fighter. Instead, he is mainly concerned with avenging the ill deeds of the banker Favraux.
Episode Four: The Secret of the Tomb: The underground lab reminds one of the many laboratories in the work of Edgar G. Ulmer to come. Like them, it is full of visually impressive high tech lab equipment. Typically, Judex sits at the desk, while Roger stands next to it. The tall, vertical telephone is positioned so that it forms a phallic symbol in front of Roger's body, while a picture on the desk serves a similar function with Judex. The hat Judex always wears is a similar phallic symbol. So are the tall top hat and cane carried by Vallieres. The boat Judex pilots in the next episode is also strongly phallic, as is the boat pole he uses to steer to shore.
Episode Five: The Tragic Mill: Musidora's descent down the mill, recalls her ascent of a building wall in Les Vampires. Feuillade's camera concentrates with steady intensity on Musidora's progress in both scenes. She seems remarkably athletic. The swimming scene in Judex is a relatively rare camera movement: the camera pans along with the swimming Musidora. Earlier, the camera also traveled (panned?) along with Musidora, as she was carrying the heroine's unconscious body into the mill. After Judex rescues the heroine, the camera will be fixed in his boat, while the boat moves forward. This is a different sort of camera movement, this time fixed on the hero. Once again, the shot depicts transporting the unconscious heroine. This moody subject is made more atmospheric and trance like by the camera movements in both cases. Musidora's shot involves a forest, Judex's a river: two archetypal locations, laden with emotion. Both the mill and the forest are important settings in fairy tales. They return in Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932).
The tuxedo like garments Judex wears at the end of this episode are the most flattering looking of any in the serial. They are echoed at the end, where Judex wears a tuxedo, but with a more festive looking white waistcoat. These show him in good, regular clothes for one of the few times in the serial, as opposed to his outré garments as the avenger. While Judex is in the tuxedo, his brother is in a suit (at the start of the next episode). Brother Roger's clothes tend to be like the hero's, but less heightened: his suit here has trousers of a different color from the coat and vest, making it less dressy. Similarly, when Judex is in his avenger's tunic and boots, Roger tends to wear his patch pocket suit with puttees. The patch pocket suit looks great, with a uniform-like feel, but it is not as formal as Judex's tunic, and his puttees are not quite as dressy as Judex's boots. Both brothers wear flared trousers.
Episode Six: The Licorice Kid: Little Jean's rescue from Cocantin's apartment recalls the kidnapping of the hero from his apartment in Les Vampires. Both are startling scenes that happen with great rapidity. While both are exciting to watch, one hopes that no one will try either stunt in real life. Both look very dangerous and hard to pull off.
Episode Seven: The Woman in Black: The hero's kidnapping in Les Vampires is followed by a scene of the hero in a box, being dragged by car through the streets of Montmartre; a similar incident in Judex concerns a box and the Licorice Kid. Both of these scenes are comic.
In general, the Prologue and first six episodes of Judex (the first 3 hours) seem more crime oriented; the last six episodes (the last two hours of the film) seem more like a domestic melodrama, focusing on the hero's messy personal life. I tend to like the earlier episodes more, but the whole film has interest. This episode marks the start of the domestic scenes, with flashbacks to the hero's childhood.
This episode takes place largely in the hero's homes: the ancestral Tremeuse mansion, and the Vallieres apartments. Both are heaped to the skies with Art Nouveau features. Once again, the presence of such design in a Feuillade film seems deeply creepy. The spectacular Nouveau staircase at the Tremeuse home seems to symbolize all of that dysfunctional family's emotional problems, for instance. And the bedroom decor at Vallieres' is equated visually with the hero's trauma over his family-romance conflicts. The Vallieres apartment is in four linked sets whose geometry are precisely defined: something of a rarity in Feuillade serials. The long hallway corridor links to the hero's bedroom, his study and the heroine's room, in that order. The different rooms are the sites of different issues and relationship struggles of the family, a useful visual schematic in Feuillade's staging.
In addition to Art Nouveau, there are also classical elements in the Tremeuse mansion. There are Roman-looking busts everywhere. The mother makes her sons swear revenge, using the same salute as seen in Jacques-Louis David's painting set in Ancient Rome, The Oath of the Horatii (1784). This famous Neoclassical work would probably have been familiar to both Feuillade, and many of his viewers. The three adult brothers in David's work are swearing an oath to their father. Feuillade modifies this by having two young boys swear an oath to their mother. There are perhaps suggestions here that the young boys are being made unfairly to accept grown-up duties, and that also they are entering into a pact without fully understanding it. Feuillade perhaps suggests that the parents are exploiting their children here, that they should not be emotionally coerced into such a bad idea as revenge.
The same large group of characters keep interacting with each other, often in new and unexpected ways. This is somewhat similar to the story construction Robert Bresson would use in Au hasard, Balthazar (1966). There are other similarities, too. Both films largely take place in the French countryside. In both, a woman loses her ancestral home in the country, due to her father's problems. Both films have a sympathetic, prominent role played by highly intelligent animals: see Judex: Episode Three: The Fantastic Dog Pack.
Judex anticipates the films of Fritz Lang, in a number of ways. Traditionally, many critics have speculated that Feuillade influenced Lang. But there was no actual proof, in the form of Lang interviews mentioning that he liked or had even seen Feuillade's work. Lang did tell Peter Bogdanovich that he saw Rocambole (1913), a French crime thriller directed by Georges Denola. Lang lived in Paris in 1914, and saw a lot of French movies, according to his interview in Bogdanovich's Who the Devil Made It?. He could easily have seen Feuillade then.
In any case, Judex has features that suggest Lang's work:
By contrast, Feuillade's use of natural locations throughout Judex would NOT be followed by Lang, who preferred to shoot even his "exteriors" on studio sets.