Sunday, October 12, 2008

LES NOUVEAUX MESSIEURS CONCERT WITH ANTONIO COPPOLA AND L'OCTUOR DE FRANCE

Les nouveaux Messieurs / [the film was not released in Finland]. FR 1929. PC: Films Albatros / Sequana Films. P: Alexandre Kamenka, Simon Schiffrin; D: Jacques Feyder; SC: Jacques Feyder, Charles Spaak, based on the play by Robert de Flers & Francis de Croisset (1926); cin: Georges Périnal, Maurice Desfassiaux; ad: Lazare Meerson; filmed: Brie-Comte-Robert; Créteil; Brunoy; Château de Bisy; Studios Billancourt; cast: Albert Préjean (Jacques Gaillac), Gaby Morlay (Suzanne Verrier), Henry Roussell (Comte de Montoire-Grandpré), Guy Ferrant (journalist), Henry Valbel (a deputy), Charles Barrois (Director of the Opéra), Andrée Canti (Julie), Raymond Narlay (Cabinet director), A. Duchange (prefect); 2805 m /20 fps/ 123 min; print: La Cinémathèque française, reconstituée 1990 par Renée Lichtig. Original in French with e-subtitles. The closing gala of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 11 October 2008.
Score composed and conducted by Antonio Coppola
Performed by l'Octuor de France
Feyder's handsome and extraordinary (conservative) political satire revisited. It keeps astonishing with its stunning visuals and witty inventions. The weakness: its characters fail to move.
It was a pleasure to experience Antonio Coppola's rich and many-sided music which responds to the satire of the "pomp and circumstance" and has both magnificent and droll patterns.

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