The power of work

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Movie
German title The power of work
Original title La Vocation d'André Carel
Country of production Switzerland
original language French
Publishing year 1925
length 6 acts, 90 minutes
Rod
Director Jean Choux
script Jean Choux
production Jean Choux, Hazard-Joseph de Ruyter, Production Jean Choux (Genève), Les Films HDR (Paris)
music Günther A. Buchwald (2005)
camera Charles-Georges Duvanel, Paul Guichard
cut Jean Choux
occupation
  • Stéphane Audel : André Carel
  • Camille Bert : Jean Carel, Andrés father
  • Michel Simon : Gaston Lebeau, Andrés tutor
  • Blanche Montel : Pure Lugrin
  • Maurice Destain: Father Lugrin
  • Thérèse Reignier: Mother Lugrin
  • Jean Cyri: Louis Cardan
  • Helena Manson: Cardan's mistress

also Lucien Chanal, Ami Chantre, Fabien Reignier

Die Macht der Arbeit ( French: La Puissance du Travail) is the German title of the French-Swiss silent film drama La Vocation d'André Carel , which Jean Choux wrote in 1925 according to his own script and in his own company Production Jean Choux together with Hazard-Joseph de Ruyter and his company Les Films HDR from Paris. He also selected the actors and edited them himself.

action

Accompanied by his good-natured tutor Gaston Lebeau, André Carel travels to Lake Geneva to relax at the will of his father, who is concerned about his health. There, the unstable son from an upper-class family falls in love with Reine, the beautiful daughter of a simple shipper, on a boat trip. In order to impress her solely with his character, he conceals his origins and hires on board the ship as an alleged migrant worker.

But the sailor Cardan, although already engaged, has his sights set on Reine. One night André is attacked by his jealous rival and thrown into the water. Reine and the boatmen can save him, but he gets a bad fever and, when he arrives in Evian, collapses weakly in his father's arms. He admits his love for him and his calling to a life as a boatman. The father understands everything and André is allowed to marry his wife.

background

After studying law, Jean Choux worked as a journalist and critic (including at La Suisse ) before moving on to film; La Vocation d'André Carel was his first film and the role of tutor Lebeau in it was Michel Simon's first film role.

The outdoor shots took place from summer to autumn 1924 in the landscape around Lake Geneva, in Montreux, Lausanne and Meillerie; the interior scenes were created in the winter of 1924 in the Gaumont studios in Paris La Villette. The photography was in the hands of Charles-Georges Duvanel and Paul Guichard.

The film was first shown in Switzerland on October 2, 1925 in Geneva. It had its cinema premiere in Geneva at the Grand Cinéma on October 9, 1925 and in Lausanne at the Lumen cinema on April 2, 1926; in France it was premiered on February 9, 1926 at a press presentation in Paris. Geneva-Film in Geneva took over the distribution for Switzerland, and Les Films Cosmographe in Paris for France . In Lausanne and Paris it ran under the title La Puissance du Travail .

reception

The positive criticism with which the film received after its premiere in the Journal La Suisse was due to the fact that the journalist who engaged it wanted to please his former colleague Choux rather than the popularity with the audience. In Geneva, the film was not advertised for more than a week, despite the attraction of the display values ​​that the representation of the local landscape offered viewers. In Lausanne, where it was only shown in April 1926, it met an indifferent audience. "La vocation d´André Carel" quickly disappeared from the canvases and was soon considered lost. Discouraged, Choux left Geneva and turned to France.

The premiere of the film was a revelation and caused enthusiasm and general recognition in Pordenone (media tip, Sep. 14, 2004).

With its successful implementation and its impressionistic sequences of the hard work of the boatmen on Lake Geneva, the film can be placed in the series of the great silent films of the French avant-garde (Delluc, L'Herbier, Epstein) (memoriav.ch).

The most interesting aspects of this Swiss film are the beautiful landscapes showed superbly thanks to the cinematography by Herr Charles – Georges Duvanel and Herr Paul Guichard. The evocative and marine scenes at the Léman Lake focused on the boatmen's hardships (an important statement about a way of living which has disappeared). Detailed are those different worlds where André is immersed - the idle and the working class. Unfortunately the film doesn't go deeply with those dramatic and interesting subjects (only succinctly). The director is satisfied depicting an anodyne and classic love story instead developing the drama implied in the film. That is not to mention the process of becoming aware of class-consciousness that André suffers. (Ferdinand of Galitzia)

The film that was only spotty and scratched. was restored in 2001/02 by Carole Delessert and Reto Kromer from the Cinémathèque Suisse , in collaboration with Hermann Wetter, in association with the Cinèmathèque Française and the Archive Français du Film CNC Paris in two years of work. The version of "Die Macht der Arbeit" now available is viraged, measures 2068 meters and plays at 18 fps for 85 minutes

"Die Macht der Arbeit" was performed again in a restored version in autumn 2002 at the Giornate del cinema muto in Pordenone- Sacile (Northern Italy), where Switzerland was the guest of honor, and then in Switzerland on August 7, 2003 at the International Film Festival of Locarno.

The culture broadcaster Arte broadcast the film on May 27, 2005 at 12:30 a.m. with musical accompaniment by the violin pianist Günther A. Buchwald from Freiburg.

In February 2014, the Cinèmathèque Suisse in association with Radio Télévision Suisse released a double CD in memory of the two Geneva actors Michel and François Simon, on which "The Power of Work" is included with musical accompaniment by the Inutil quintet .

A Swiss postage stamp (60 centimes) with a picture by Michel Simon from “Die Macht der Arbeit” was issued in 1995.

Jesse Lee Kercheval, professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Madison , added a poem on "The Power of Work" by Jean Choux to her "Cinema Muto" collection, inspired by watching silent films at the Pordenone Festival in 2009.

literature

  • François Albéra, Maria Tortajada (ed.): Cinéma Suisse: Nouvelles Approches: Histoire - Esthétique - Critique - Thèmes Matériaux. Editions Payot, Lausanne 2000, ISBN 2-601-03275-8 , p. 243. (French)
  • Freddy Buache : Le cinéma suisse: 1898–1998. Collection Histoire et théorie du cinéma. L'AGE D'HOMME Verlag, 1998, ISBN 2-8251-1012-4 , p. 460. (French)
  • Claude Beylie, Philippe d 'Hugues: Les oubliés du cinéma français. (= Collection "Septième art". Volume 108). Verlag Cerf, 1999, ISBN 2-204-06189-1 , p. 39. (French)
  • Wolfgang Beilenhoff, Martin Heller, Museum for Design Zurich (ed.): The movie poster. Verlag Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, 1995, ISBN 3-9803851-7-5 , p. 130.
  • Hervé Dumont: Histoire du cinéma suisse. Films de fiction 1896-1965. Cinémathèque suisse, Lausanne 1987, ISBN 2-88267-000-1 , n °. 63. (French)
  • “Count Ferdinand of Galitzia”: La Vocation d'André Carel (1925). by Jean Choux, September 29, 2006, at blogspot.de ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.de . (English)
  • Jesse Lee Kercheval: Cinema Muto. Crab Orchard Series in Poetry. SIU Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8093-2895-6 .
  • Paul Maillefer, Eugène Mottaz: Revue historique vaudoise. Volume 104. Editeurs: Société vaudoise d'histoire et d'archéologie, Vaud (Canton), Commission des monuments historiques. Published 1996, pp. 32, 38, 351.
  • NN in media tip, Sep 14. 2004: Once upon a time ... Switzerland. The Cinémathèque suisse presents the results of its "Helvetica" rescue operation. on line at medientipp.ch (medientipp.ch)
  • Rémy Pithon: Une tentative de multi-fonctionnalité des intertitres: Jean Choux, 'La vocation d'André Carel'. In: Francesco Pitassio, Leonardo Quaresima (a cura di): Scrittura e immagine. La didascalia nel cinema muto. Forum, Udine 1998, pp. 409-422.
  • Rémy Pithon: L'art d'abord: La Vocation d'André Carel. In: Rémy Pithon: Cinéma suisse muet. 2002, pp. 91-100. (arte.tv , French)
  • Rémy Pithon (Ed.): Cinéma suisse muet. Lumières et ombres. Editions Antipodes, Lausanne 2002, ISBN 2-940146-26-8 . (French)
  • Rémy Pithon: "La vocation d'André Carel, de Jean Choux (1925): un film lémanique". In: Revue historique vaudoise. (= "Limite non-frontière: aspects du cinéma dans le canton de Vaud" ). 1996, pp. 27-54. (French)
  • Martin Schaub: Film in Switzerland. Pro Helvetia Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-908102-27-8 , p. 11.
  • Swiss Film Center: Past and Present of Swiss Film (1896 to 1987): A Critical Assessment. Verlag Schweizerisches Filmzentrum, 1987, p. 10.
  • Werner Wider, Felix Aeppli: The Swiss Film 1929–1964: Switzerland as a ritual. Materials. (= Swiss film 1929–1964: Switzerland as a ritual. Volume 2). Verlag Limmat, Zurich 1981, p. 269.

Web links

items

Illustrations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Pithon, L'art d'abord at arte.tv/fr: “ Au début de may 1924, Choux abandonne sa collaboration à" La Suisse "pour se consacrer entièrement à son film. ”
  2. ↑ Fig. Of the cinema poster ( memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) at cinematheque.ch
  3. ↑ Still with Simon as tutor Gaston Lebeau at regardsdailleurs
  4. ↑ cf. Pithon: L'art d'abord at arte.tv/fr
  5. ↑ cf. J.Poitrat, Dossier - image of the movie poster at cinema-francais.fr
  6. ↑ cf. J. Poitrat, dossier
  7. ↑ cf. Description of the condition at memoriav.ch
  8. ↑ cf. J. Poitrat, dossier
  9. ↑ cf. media tip from 14 Sep 2004 (medientipp.ch)  : "The great success in Pordenone was crowned by the film premiere" La vocation d´André Carel "[...] until then this film was only in fragmentary form, scratched and covered with spots After two years of reconstruction work, it finally appears in its complete form, in its original montage and its colors. "
  10. ↑ cf. stummfilmmusiker.de
  11. ↑ cf. filmsdocumentaires.com
  12. ↑ cf. colnect.com
  13. ↑ cf. Cinema Muto. Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, 2009, pp. 59-59.