Gabriel Gabrio

Quote:
Wooden Crosses (1932) – Hailed by the New York Times on its Paris release as “one of the great films in motion picture history,” Raymond Bernard’s Wooden Crosses, France’s answer to All Quiet on the Western Front, still stuns with its depiction of the travails of one French regiment during World War I. Using a masterful arsenal of film techniques, from haunting matte paintings to jarring documentary-like camerawork in the film’s battle sequences, Bernard created a pacifist work of enormous empathy and chilling despair. No one who has ever seen this technical and emotional powerhouse has been able to forget it.Read More »

Quote:
Wooden Crosses (1932) – Hailed by the New York Times on its Paris release as “one of the great films in motion picture history,” Raymond Bernard’s Wooden Crosses, France’s answer to All Quiet on the Western Front, still stuns with its depiction of the travails of one French regiment during World War I. Using a masterful arsenal of film techniques, from haunting matte paintings to jarring documentary-like camerawork in the film’s battle sequences, Bernard created a pacifist work of enormous empathy and chilling despair. No one who has ever seen this technical and emotional powerhouse has been able to forget it.Read More »

On the eve of the French Revolution, two orphan girls, Henriette and Louise, make their way to Paris…

There are so many unforgettable scenes:
– Louise singing in the streets, Henriette and the Countess trying to reach her.
The police and the Count stopping them. Countess’ silent despair and Henriette’s screams.
– All the sequences with Pierre and Louise.
– The Marquis’ costume orgy, masterfully filmed.
– And, above all, Yvette Guilbert cradling her son with a song… an immense moment of cinema.
Paul Vecchiali – L’encinéclopédie – cinéastes français des années 1930 et leur oeuvreRead More »

Plot:
Jean Valjean is a forced man who after nineteen years is released. At that time he will have to fight against society’s contempt and his fate will go through various phases, from opulence to the relentless pursuit of justice, always with the shadow of his fierce enemy, the policeman Javert, who will persecute him for more than thirty years.Read More »

Episodes from the life of Lucrecia Borgia’s. Spoiled and willful, she has many love affairs and tries to resist her ruthless and scheming brother César Borgia’s plans to marry her off for political advantage.

Episodic and hard to follow to those not familiar with Italian geography and with the political situation of the time. Nice sets and costumes but the 16 millimeter print I saw did not show them well.

The kind of movie the French New Wave rebelled againstRead More »