Abel Gance

[Stefan Andersson]

A French-language review of La Roue on French Blu:
http://retro-hd.com/tests/blu-ray/2942-la-roue.html

[Red Screamer]

The Cinémathèque française is streaming La Folie du docteur Tube in HD with some valuable programming notes. It looks great and a cursory internet search suggests this is probably the only copy of the film in what I assume is its original aspect ratio. But I don't have the Lucrezia Borgia DVD. Can anyone confirm/deny? Anyway, I loved this. Had I seen it at the time of our pre-1920s list project, it would've received a high ranking on my list.

[swo17]

I just checked my DVD. It's in the same ratio but there is more image on the right and less on the left. It also doesn't look as good and runs four minutes shorter, due at least in part to playing at a faster speed

[Stefan Andersson]

Video lecture on Gance, in French, no subs:
https://vimeo.com/175241788

[Stefan Andersson]

La Fin du Monde announced for Blu release (Gaumont) in France. See post by Phibes, Feb. 17, 2021:
https://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/viewto ... 2#p2880081

[Stefan Andersson]

An article on La Roue -- only one reel (12 mins.) is missing; outtakes were used in the restoration:
https://www.cnc.fr/cinema/actualites/la ... se_1251825

[Stefan Andersson]

On Gance films released in the Netherlands:
https://therealmofsilence.com/2023/05/3 ... therlands/

[Stefan Andersson]

Interview re: Napoleon an Gance´s career -- we learn that Gance, one month before passing away, was working on a short film called "Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra":
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/cin ... 56469.html

[Stefan Andersson]

Detailed blog reports on select silents from the CF Gance retrospective, w/ restoration details:
https://therealmofsilence.com/ - Sept. 22 post and earlier

[Stefan Andersson]

Robert A. Harris on the editing of La Roue:
"Abel explained that the music score was prepared easily for staccato cutting as he shot at 16fps, and music worked in 16ths."
Source: https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic. ... 1&start=60 - Dec 02, 2023 post

[Peacock]

Finally caught up with La Roue on the big screen in Edinburgh. The Flicker Alley DVD was sat on my kevyip for many years but I’m glad I never got round to it as it meant my first viewing was of the beautiful restoration put out by Pathé instead on Blu-Ray.

Extensive hand colouring in the Prologue and some heavier hand colouring for the high society scene later in the movie. The image is rock steady and stabilised. There’s very minimal damage aside from a few mins in the Epilogue (but the white damage almost looks abstract and beautiful). I had a couple of audio drop outs on the 5.1 but might have just been my setup.

The movie itself doesn’t quite live up to Napoléon… it really drags in the Epilogue and a lot of it is stuck inside a couple of different houses (with the camera usually facing the same direction as the sets presumed weren’t 360degrees). The story takes some unexpected directions and is pretty bleak and perverse.. but the metaphorical wheel is more than a little overused… Gance’s heavy usage of profound literary quotes verges into Don Quixote’s opening at times…

There’s some truly beautiful imagery in this (surely an influence on The Docks of New York and possibly The Seventh Seal) although the interiors can be a little tripod bound and two shot heavy.

Overall though I’m just not sure if Gance earns the massive runtime here, many scenes felt overlong and unnecessary…

But still worth checking out if you’ve not experienced it yet!