From Italian film pioneer, Augusto Genina, and American flapper icon and sex symbol, Louise Brooks, comes
Miss Europe (
Prix de beauté). This 1930 French film directed by Genina, and written by René Clair and G. W. Pabst. A beautiful typist enters the Miss Europe beauty contest, much to the disapproval of her jealous beau.
Throughout the 1920s and 30s, Mary Louise Brooks, professionally known as Louise Brooks, was one of noted actress, dancer, flapper icon and sex symbol. Her bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career. Prior to Miss Europe, Brooks is best known as the lead in Europe: Pandora's Box (1929), and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929); both made by G. W. Pabst. She starred in seventeen silent films and eight sound films before retiring in 1938, and began dancing in nightclubs and working as sales girl at Saks Fifth Avenueto earn a living. Brooks went on to write many witty and intelligent essays on the film industry. In 1982, Brooks published her memoir, Lulu in Hollywood; three years later she died of a heart attack at age seventy-eight. The film is notable for being Brooks' first sound film, even though all of her dialogue and singing were ultimately dubbed. According to Brooks biographer Barry Paris, the film was made from late August 1929 to late September 1929. The film was released on August 20, 1930; making it Brooks' third and final European film of her career. This film is an early example of sound film in France, along with L'Age d'Or and Under the Roofs of Paris, both released in 1930.
The film stars Brooks, Georges Charlia, Augusto Bandini, Andre Nicolle, Marc Ziboulsky, Yves Glad, Alex Bernard, Gaston Jacquet, and Jean Bradin. The cast gave spectacular performances. But it's the brilliant performance by the radiantly beautiful Brooks that makes this otherwise forgettable soap opera story memorable. What prevents all of this from teetering over into burlesque is Brooks, who delivers what is surely one of the greatest examples of naturalist acting on film. There is something hypnotically unbridled about Brooks's performance. Brooks overwhelms the lens with her magnetic eyes. Brooks, who, just like her character, conveys both a seductive and tragic beauty to be admired and sympathised with. Even though Brooks is attractive and she moves her head and eyes at the proper moment, but whether she is endeavoring to express joy, woe, anger or satisfaction it is often difficult to decide. Nonetheless, Brooks offers a brilliantly guileless performance. There would never be another Brooks - nor will there ever be. Charlia portrayed the archetype of the over-protective man (or the "jealous type") who can't keep his emotions in check just as he can't keep the woman he loves in the most obsessive and possessive way.
A masterpiece of the silent era, and a showcase for one of the silver screen's greatest stars. A deliciously sordid soap opera. What rescues the movie from quaint anonymity is the nausea-inducing darkness that permeates its every frame. The tragic beauty tormented by the deleterious effects of the jealous and possessive man remains one of the most haunting synergies, especially in this silent classic. It's lightning in a bottle - remarkable, and endlessly fascinating. Full of striking imagery which, once seen, will stay with you forever, this is a highly accomplished piece of work which brings together some of the greatest talents of the era. With
Miss Europe you forget that it's black and white. You forget that the internet has yet to happen. You forget that more than two hours have gone by. You forget because it's completely one hundred per cent gripping and involving in a modern sense. The movie's horrifying and beautiful conclusion becomes more poignant and powerful with each passing year. There is so much of modern movie life here that the picture, like Brooks' beauty, defies the ravages of time. If ever an actor was born to be seen in black-and-white it was Louise Brooks, who is as luminous as ever in this new restoration of Augusto Genina's silent nightmare-melodrama. One of the classic films of the French silent era. The film is more interested in the waywardness of almost everyone's longings and in their failures of self-preservation than it is about Lulu's particular immorality or recklessness.
Miss Europe is a French silent film that any radiant women could relate to. They wouldn't like the way it ends, though. Give all due credit to Genina, but Brooks pretty much single-handedly raises the film above being just another doomed-girl melodrama. She makes Lucienne unfathomable, a well that always has more to give. Therefore, so is the film. Bold for its time, this restored, uncut version is a touch slow at some points, but its star glows throughout. If you've never seen Brooks - or
Miss Europe - you've missed one of the most extraordinary personalities and films of the silent movie era. Genina was a psychologically astute filmmaker, but it's the shockingly sensual, charismatic Brooks that makes the picture. The movie remains one of the most insightful depictions of the elemental incongruity between man's nature and woman's. It's something that should not be missed. More than a little overbaked and frequently veering from the artistic to the artsy. But Brooks is, herself, every inch a classic. Neither an exposé of social conditions nor a psychological case study and certainly not a moral parable
Miss Europe is a tour de force of tragic cinematic feminism. This is a stirring vision of the world gripped by a sinister moral vice - a nosedive into a carnal abyss of despair lined with visionary chiaroscuro sights and thorny mythological references. One of the great films about the mysterious allure of the female form and the destructive power of the male gaze that's inflicted upon it. It's a stunning film, no question, with sexuality that is quite frank for its day, effective atmosphere and, of course, Brooks' stunning performance.
Simon says
Miss Europe (
Prix de beauté) receives:
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