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| Julien Duvivier: La divine croisière / The Divine Voyage (FR 1929). Simone Ferjac (Suzanne Christy), the daughter of a ruthless shipowner, the spiritual leader of the rescue ship Maris Stella. In the horizon, a desert island is on fire. Arson threatens the survivors of the La Cordillère ship. Poster by: Maurice Toussaint. From: La Cinémathèque française, Paris. |
(La divina crociera) (FR 1929) dir, scen: Julien Duvivier. photog: Armand Thirard, André Dantan. spec. eff: W. Percy Day. cast: Jean Murat (Jacques de Saint-Ermont, capitano/sea captain), Henry Krauss (Claude Ferjac, l’armatore/the shipowner), Thomy Bourdelle (Mareuil), François Viguier (Patron Le Guenn), Louis Kerly (il curato/The Priest), Georges Paulais (Brélez, il marinaio/the sailor), Henry-Valbel (Kerjean), Suzanne Christy (Simone Ferjac), Charlotte Barbier-Krauss (Mme. de Saint-Ermont, la madre di Jacques/Jacques’ mother), Line Noro (Jeanne de Guiven), Angèle Decori (Angélique), Pierre Mindaist, Alfred Argus, M. Herault, M. Muller. prod: Le Film d’Art, Marcel Vandal & Charles Delac. riprese/filmed: 1928. uscita/rel: 14.6.1929. copia/copy: DCP, 95' (da/from: 35 mm, restauro/restored l: 2382 m, 22 fps); did./titles: FRA. fonte/source: Lobster Films, Paris.
Unreleased in Finland.
Score: Antonio Coppola; performed live by: Octuor de France; conductor: Antonio Coppola.
Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Eventi speciali: Serata inaugurale, 7 Oct 2023.
Serge Bromberg, Lenny Borger (GCM 2023): " Julien Duvivier (1896-1967) made 67 films between 1919 and 1967, 22 of them silent. He always wrote his own scripts, alone or in collaboration. For Duvivier, making a film meant first and foremost telling a good story, with good actors and good technicians. He was well aware of the special status of cinema as both art and industry. "
" Admired abroad, and particularly appreciated by his peers (Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, and Jean Renoir), he was criticized in his own country for his eclecticism and lack of style. Julien Duvivier didn’t have a style, he had style. He used to say: “I have the style of the films I make.” "
" One of his last silents, La Divine Croisière (The Divine Voyage) was partly shot in Brittany. A tale imbued with religion and the force of nature and man’s struggle to survive, it smells of the sea and sea spray. Duvivier’s vision of Brittany and its people is all the more true and striking in that he didn’t hesitate to use local inhabitants for secondary roles. The landscapes, the close-ups of the rugged features and facial expressions, are surprisingly strong and authentic. "
" Originally titled Le Miracle de la mer (The Miracle of the Sea), the film was made between July and September 1928. The interiors were shot at the Film d’Art studio, and then the exteriors at Paimpol, Louvigny sur Mer, and, finally, Ermenonville, where the “Mer de Sable” was used as a set to recreate a desert island. "
" The story is simple: Jacques de Saint-Ermond, captain of the merchant vessel La Cordillère, is secretly in love with Simone, the daughter of Claude Ferjac, the crooked owner of the ship. Ferjac, blinded by greed, forces Saint-Ermond and his crew to embark upon a doomed voyage. When the ship sinks, Simone has a vision, and enlists the inhabitants of the village to charter another boat to go in search of her missing love and the unfortunate crew. A foolish idea, but when all hope seems lost. "
" Unfortunately, the film was mutilated when it was released in 1929. The scenes of the sailors’ rebellion against the shipowners and the wealthy were removed, and the film was quickly relegated to minor releases, such as a drastically cut 9.5mm 40-minute “Pathé-Baby” home-cinema version deemed suitable for children in bourgeois families. Those who discovered that version saw only a story of a lost and found ship, with a background of religious faith and the protection of Mary (Maris Stella). Over 45 minutes of the film was gone, and with it all the cruel beauty and strength of this silent masterpiece. "
" Already busy shooting his next film, Maman Colibri, Duvivier could not attend the presentation of La Divine Croisière to the press in April 1929, nor its opening at the Max Linder cinema in Paris in June. He only became aware of the censors’ drastic cuts a few weeks later, when the film’s run was almost over, and demanded that the film be completely re-edited. His own reconstituted version of the film evidently existed in only a few prints, which do not survive. The film’s original length is unknown. "
" Our complete reconstructed version reveals a film of unprecedented strength. Of course, the religious subtext is still present, like a watermark. But there is no longer any question of proselytizing. Unlike the wives in Pierre Loti’s Pêcheur d’Islande (1924), directed by Jean de Baroncelli four years earlier, faith is no longer the only way to fight loneliness, despair, and the cruelty of the sea. Duvier’s sailors take their destiny into their own hands, rebelling against capitalism and the exploitation of the workers of the sea. A true propaganda pamphlet for class struggle, La Divine Croisière was primarily censored because of the risk of inciting revolt. Is it a coincidence that the framing and editing seem to be inspired by Soviet cinema of the time? "
" The close-ups of the faces, of a confounding beauty, are so incandescent that they inflame a film that speaks of hope, struggle, revolt, and the union of men who live from their work. It is a strange political message that Duvivier was not used to, and that seems – for this film at least – to carry him and elevate his cinema to an unexpected degree of formal beauty. "
" Used without excess, the tinting and toning – which would soon be abandoned with the arrival of sound – reinforce the most burning scenes: the revolt, the storm, and the fight on the island. The actors, too, seem carried away by their roles. Suzanne Christy, Jean Murat, and Henry Krauss (who played the father in Duvivier’s 1925 Poil de Carotte) are all excellent, but it is Thomy Bourdelle as Mareuil, the sailor who triggers the mutiny on board, who stands out. He was to appear in four other films by Duvivier (the final one being Le Retour de Don Camillo, 1953, starring Fernandel). "
" While we were reconstructing La Divine Croisière, our friend François Mayrand, a true lover of music and cinema, was struck by the rediscovered strength of the film in its unabridged version. Mayrand asked Antonio Coppola to compose a score and his dear Octuor de France to perform it. He would not live to see the film’s final restoration. He would have been dazzled by it. It is naturally dedicated to him. " – Serge Bromberg, Lenny Borger
The Restoration
GCM 2023: " Long believed lost, and heavily censored upon its original release, La Divine Croisière (1929) was reconstructed and restored in 2021 by Lobster Films with the support of the CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image animée), using the tinted 35 mm nitrate print prepared for the cut-down Pathé-Baby version held by the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, and three incomplete nitrate elements from the Cinémathèque française. Many censored scenes have been derived from two 17.5 mm diacetate Pathé Rural prints in the collections of Eye Filmmuseum and Lobster Films. "
“Music to be seen”
Antonio Coppola (GCM 2023): " I find it awkward to write about my own music – to provide explanations, to describe its creative process – because it’s something that is then listened to, and in the moment of listening all the chatter counts for nothing. The only thing of value is momentary sensation, which cannot deceive or elude us, as may happen with words. The role of music in cinema is to support the tension of the images, a tension that is in any case always created by the director. Particularly in silent film, since one hears no dialogue; directors and those who work with them concentrate all their attention on the image, in order to make it so clear, precise, and punctual as not to need words. In the sum of what is available to the audience, 90% of the effect comes from the screen, especially if the film is a masterpiece. Musicians are entitled to the remaining 10%, and need go no further, fully aware that this is a screening, not a concert. It may seem paradoxical, but the best compliment for anyone who does my job is the polar opposite of what an artist would like to hear: “no one noticed your presence.” This means that the music is exact, that it has blended perfectly with the images: it is “music to be seen.” This is my point of view, and it was starting from there that I tackled La Divine Croisière, a film of rare grace and beauty. It remains for the competent, savvy public of the Giornate to find out whether or not I have succeeded. " – Antonio Coppola
AA: A religious film, an epic about class struggle, a thrilling sea adventure. Plausibility is not among the virtues of La divine croisière, but it is directed by Julien Duvivier with such panache that it is possible to ignore issues of credibility.
Duvivier directed 22 silent films and already achieved greatness in them. He displayed versatility in projects as different as a three hour long filmed history of the cinema, La Machine à refaire la vie 1–6 (1924), and Poil de Carotte (1926), a masterpiece about a bullied redheaded boy. Jacques Feyder was the greatest director of children, and he also wrote the screenplay of Poil de Carotte, but Duvivier shared his sympathy for children, which is also on display in La divine croisière.
La divine croisière, now at last reconstructed to its original length, is an impressive example of the most golden period of silent cinema. Silent cinema reached its highest level of expression in its very last years, when the breakthrough of the sound cinema was already taking place.
The mise-en-scène is eloquent, the camera movement is assured, the camera angles are expressive, the montage is dynamic, and there is a vivid use of all field sizes. Particularly memorable is the art of the close-up. The pain and suffering of the sailors' families is expressed in deeply moving series of close-ups. Key scenes appear in silhouette. Symbolic superimpositions, special effects and visual effects are impressive, for instance in two formidable sequences of conflagrations. The elements of fire and water are central in Duvivier's vision. La divine croisière is to the greatest extent a visual experience.
Epic passages of class struggle evoke keyworks of Soviet cinema, and the figure of Simone as a religious mediator between capital and labour brings to mind Metropolis.
The casting of Henry Krauss as the ruthless shipowner is a powerful choice. For a cinephile his presence adds a wealth of associations, for instance to Les Misérables (both Albert Capellani's and Raymond Bernard's adaptations). For Capellani, Krauss appeared also in Notre-Dame de Paris and Germinal. For Duvivier, Krauss had also played the father of Poil de Carotte.
Antonio Coppola's score is rich and vivid and full of life and it helps expand the sense of emotion, adventure and imagination in the film concert.
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