Abel Gance - La Roue (1923)

La Roue (1923)

English Title: The Wheel

France/Silent/Art Film,Drama/B&W

Written & Directed by Abel Gance

Cast:

Séverin-Mars as Sisif

Ivy Close as Norma

Gabriel de Gravone as Elie

Pierre Magnier as Jacques de Hersan

Max Maxudian as Le minéralogiste Kalatikascopoulos

Georges Térof as Machefer

Gil Clary as Dalilah

Sisif, a railwayman, and his son Elie fall in love with the beautiful Norma (who Sisif rescued from a train crash when a baby and raised as his daughter), with tragic results. Originally running nine hours, this epic tragedy is notable for the way it foreshadows Gance's later 'Napoleon' in its use of then-revolutionary lighting techniques, and rapid scene changes and cuts.

"There is cinema before and after LA ROUE," wrote Jean Cocteau of Abel Gance's 1923 epic romance of forbidden love and doom, shot with no-expense-spared amidst the chaotic railways of Nice and the high-elevation peaks of Mont Blanc. One of the most influential films of the silent era, its editing style of rapid, rhythmic cuts had never been seen before. 

LA ROUE heralded an entirely new approach to filmmaking that inspired Sergei Eisenstein and Alexander Dovzhenko (among many others). "Cinema endows man with a new sense," noted Gance. "It is the music of light. He listens with his eyes." Pure melodrama, the film concerns a kind-hearted railway engineer who adopts an orphan girl; years later, both he and his son fall in love with her, a tainted triangle that leads to disaster. 

Criticised for its heaving melodramatic flourishes and "lack of verisimilitude" during its original release, LA ROUE is most entertaining precisely because of its wilful lack of realism and decency; this, as they say, is cinema, and here it is being born. A year later, Gance would take what he had learned and put it towards an even more spectacular epic, NAPOLEON. 

- Jason Sanders 

Abel Gance came up with the idea for this film the day his wife, Marguerite Danis, was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Gance insisted on authenticity which meant sets were built on location; railroad yards for the first half of the film and on Mount Blanc in the French Alps for the second half, though the decision to shoot in the Alps has been attributed to his wife's need for alpine air. Gance completed editing on the 32-reel film on 9 April 1924, hours after his wife died, whilst Séverin-Mars died shortly after shooting completed.

The story, a "tragedy of modern times," is seemingly a simple one. Aman named Sisif (Séverin-Mars) rescues a baby girl in a train wreck and raises her as his own along with his son. She's known as a "rose of the rails" since the family lives in a squalid house by the railroad where Sisif is an engineer. As the years pass the girl, named Norma, grows to adulthood. Things get uneasy when Sisif realizes that he is in love with Norma (Ivy Close), and things turn to tragedy when his son Elie (Gabriel de Gravone) also loves her ... but believes she is his sister. Sisif plots to marry her off to a wealthy man to escape the impending disaster.

After Norma is unhappily married off, Sisif is injured in an accident and banished to a small mountain railway near Mont Blanc. He lives there with his son on the edge of a glacier but even in their isolation they cannot escape tragedy ... of their love of Norma.

The film is high art, operatic, Greek tragedy, and must be approached as such. The visuals are stunning. The composition and sets includes the smallest of details, and Gance uses close-ups, iris shots, fades, and rapid editing (borrowed from D.W. Griffith's masterpieces) to make this one of the most beautiful films ever made. The current version also includes tinting to enhance the emotional pitch of the film.

The performance of Séverin-Mars won't be to every taste, but his old-school acting style is similar to that of Emil Jannings. Without dialog, all he has are his body language and face. Shots are held to emphasise the emotional plight of the ageing man. And you can see every thought he has in his face.

The other great performance is by Ivy Close, a British actress who also worked in European silent films. She resembles Norma Shearer and as with Séverin-Mars, her face shows every moment of joy and sadness. There's a stunning scene toward the end when she's asked to go to a village dance. She runs to powder her face and sees a gray hair, a line on her forehead. She's growing old. La Roue, the wheel of life, is turning, and Norma is growing old.

Séverin-Mars died soon after filming was completed in 1921. Gance did not complete and release the film until 1923. Ivy Close made a few more silent films in the late 1920s and retired from the screen.

This may be a film you only watch once in your lifetime, but you will never forget it.