This second set of early films from the Gaumont Studios takes up where the first one left off. Not chronologically, as these films date from 1908-1916, but artistically as they focus on other contributors working there around the same time as Guy, Feuillade, and Perret who were the focus of the first set. The real discovery here can be found on Volume 1 which is devoted to the animated films of Emile Cohl who started out as a member of the forgotten 19th century art rebels known as the Incoherents. There are 40 short films on this disc none of them longer than 8 minutes. In them Cohl (1857-1938) extends the fantasy genre begun by Melies and experiments with the various possibilities of animation from pen and ink drawings to combining live action and stop motion animation thus setting the stage for the short films made by Ladislaw Starewicz, Winsor McCay and Walt Disney a few years later. Some of the titles like FANTASMAGORIA, THE PUPPET’S NIGHTMARE, and THE MAGIC HOOP are absolutely mindboggling to behold considering when these were made.
Discs 2 & 3 focus on Jean Durand (1882-1946) and Jacques Feyder (1885-1948). Durand specialized in wild slapstick farces and adventure films including American style Westerns. When once asked to describe his Keystone comedies, Mack Sennett said that “We stole it all from the French.” A quick perusal of some of these films like CALINO’S BAPTISM, ZIGOTO DRIVES A LOCOMOTIVE, and the utterly bizarre ONESIME, CLOCKMAKER bear this out. Feyder was a Belgian filmmaker who settled in France and produced short sophisticated comedies a la Ernst Lubitsch (HEADS…AND WOMEN WHO USE THEM, FRIENDLY ADVICE) before coming to the U.S. where he directed Garbo in her last silent film (THE KISS – 1929). Also on Disc 3 are other experimental short films including my favorite part of the whole package, the early Phonoscenes (w/synchronized sound) and the Trichromie color films from before World War One. They alone are worth the entire set but there is much to savor here especially if you are a silent film enthusiast or enjoy watching visual evidence from a vanished er
The Capsule Critic 