La Souriante Madame Beudet (Germaine Dulac, 1922) VO

[daseinforlorn]

THE SMILING MADAME BEUDET (La Souriante Madame Beudet)

Directed by Germaine Dulac
France 1922, 16mm, b/w, silent, 32 min.
With Alexandre ArquilliËre, Germaine Dermoz, Madeleine Guitty



Germaine.Dulac.-..THE.SMILING.MADAME.BEUDET.(1922).mpg

[trep]

Set in the drawing room of a bored and disillusioned housewife, the film has a wonderful sense of ennui. Dulac is so adept at turning images into ideas that we don't even need to understand the French title cards to comprehend the images. Beudet's husband, an apparently successful businessman, either ignores or belittles his wife. We deem that their relationship must be precarious because he goes to the theatre without her. Also, he often disturbs her by pointing a small, unloaded pistol at his head. After we see Madame Beudet taunted with in this way on numerous occasions, we begin to envision the climax of the film. In fact, Madame Beudet does put the bullets, which we've seen next to the gun in the desk drawer, into the chamber of the small pistol. But in a wondrous turn of events, the film ends with her plan thwarted in the most interesting manner.

Amid the undertaking of the story here, Dulac finds ample time to intrigue and entertain us with her marvelous cinematic images. Using super-imposition, odd camera angles, iris-outs (where the screen collapses unto a single, round image), smoke and mirrors (used in the literal sense, they give us unique and distorted images to contemplate), the director shows us the incredible boredom Beudet endures. In one sequence, the wife reads a book and, after showing us this action, Dulac gives us a title screen that highlights the sentence she has just read. This is followed by an image that visualizes the sentence. Beudet reads of a bed, a perfectly placed pillow and a vase of flowers. Each time after the title card shows us the sentence she has just read, we see the image representing the words. The shots are as stifled and as static as Madame Beudet's life. The boredom of the prose, punctuating the boredom of her existence, the wife throws the novel to the floor. Later, in another beautiful technique, Dulac shows us the endless yet slow movement of time by superimposing a swinging pendulum over a frame of Beudet in the midst of her discontentment. While not the least bit subtle, the image is overpowering. The frustration of this woman's existence is brought to us with a simple image that we can understand and easily relate to yet it is done so in a manner that is highly original (especially for the cinematic time period) and visually brilliant.
[...]
"The Smiling Madame Beudet" must be considered the first feminist film because it articulates a frustrated female's point of view in a very forthright manner. Madame Beudet's feelings are the only ones we know during the film. We see everything from her point of view. And because Dulac is female as well, her understanding and appreciation of the material leads us even further into comprehending the main character, her dreams and her frustrations. But this film has more than just it's feminist history to be of interest here. The film is a visual history punctuating the importance of French cinema in the silent era. Unlike American films, which became plot driven and dramatic representations of confrontations, the French were more interested in the language of images and the style of cinematics. They explored how images could be used to represent illusions, dreams and other intangible ideas. Dulac's film is a perfect example of this search for new techniques and new languages. More importantly, "Madame Beudet" seems to point the way towards her later, more exploratory visual endeavor, "The Seashell and the Clergyman."

[spione]

Riiaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuu, vaya gozada, gracias.

[oski]

Acabo de encontrar este link, un clásico del cine mudo, del que hablan todos los libros y del que la mayor parte de los cinéfilos no hemos visto:

Germaine.Dulac.-.SEASHELL.AND.THE.CLERGYMAN.(1928).mpg

Oski!

[Luxor]

Acabo de encontrar este link, un clásico del cine mudo, del que hablan todos los libros y del que la mayor parte de los cinéfilos no hemos visto:

Germaine Dulac - SEASHELL AND THE CLERGYMAN (1928).mpg

Oski!

Es un ripeo de daseinforlorn, está publicado en este hilo junto a otros ripeos suyos
viewtopic.php?t=21983&highlight=germain+dulac

[Maldoror]

50% downloaded. Two full sources. Thanx Daseinforlorn!

¿No habrá manera de conseguir de esta directora La Fête Espagnole (1919) ? Porque ya sería el colmo del foro!

[Maldoror]

Descargada y en lanzamiento (downloaded and in release).

Thanx Daseinforlorn!!

[marvin2kk]

it looks like really interesant, thenk daesinform, downloading now!!!!

[Luxor]

Por favor que alguien ponga en lanzamiento esta película, llevo intentando bajarla desde hace un mes y se me queda parada a falta de 6 megas. Please.

[Maldoror]

La he vuelto a poner a compartir y en lanzamiento... En cuanto te vea te doy un empujón...

[Luxor]

Muchas gracias. Se me ha completado en un santiamen.

[by_MaRio]

Yo empiezo a descargar ahora mismo,
muchas gracias

[Fiji]

que bien, esta pelicula está incluida en el libro "1001 peliculas que hay que ver antes de morir". espero poder verlas todas... y bueno, muchas mas, claro.

[Hjelmslev]

Gracias no, lo siguiente