Judex
By Chris Hyde
June 14, 2004
Early French film audiences often thrilled to the serials of Louis Feuillade. With a new release from Flicker Alley, modern viewers now get the same chance.
One type of film that has vanished from screens is the serial, with its sequential episodes running on a regular basis at theaters having long faded from view. But for the first few decades of the cinema this form was extremely popular, and names like Nick Carter and Flash Gordon continue to resonate on down through the years. The French cinema, perhaps most dominant in the early years of the medium, had its own series of characters that filled this niche. And though they were seriously derided by the critics of the time for their lack of sophistication, as a populist attraction the serials were a quite successful industry style by the teens of the 20th century.
A particular filmmaker who garnered public recognition for his work in this form was Louis Feuillade, whose serials Fantomas and Les Vampires captured the fancy of film fans in 1914 and 1915. Blasted by the intelligentsia, these sprawling episodic projects were nonetheless fascinating to the early patrons of the cinematheques with their heady combination of melodrama, sex and thrills. Feuillade’s serials are also notable for their straddling of the opposing ground earlier staked out by the realism of the Lumieres and the fantastic work of Melies; their failure to be pigeonholed by either aesthetic gives the director’s vision a sense of uncertainty and flair that would be impossible were he wedded to a single polemic camp.
Though Feuillade made feature films in many genres in addition to his serialized work, his most lasting achievements remain associated with the consecutive format. This intimate connection with a form held in low esteem by critics resulted in a long period of oversight on the director’s historical importance, until its later rediscovery and renaissance in the 1940s by Henri Langlois at the Cinematheque Francaise. After years of neglect and disdain, the respected national archivist revealed to a new audience (many of whom would go on to form the famous French New Wave in later years) the singular work of an early craftsman of the cinema.
In addition to his aforementioned serials, in 1917 Feuillade directed a series of successive short films that center on a mysterious blackclad figure named Judex (played by actor Rene Creste). This project also featured the spectacular actress Musidora, the woman who had previously played villainous Irma Vep in the director’s astounding Les Vampires. (Recent filmgoers may remember this moniker as the title of the 1996 Olivier Assayas/Maggie Cheung updated deconstruction of the legend). Somewhat less far-flung and exotic than his prior serialized work, Judex takes a more restrained and melodramatic approach to its subjects — but these pastoralized and moralistic trappings still contain a highly subversive edge that allows the work to transcend it genre roots.
To recap all of the complicated plot twists that occur during the five hour and 15 minute length of Judex in a mere paragraph or two would seem to be the height of folly, as there’s far too much that happens along the way to be synopsized adequately in just a few short sentences. In the main, however, the story revolves around a set of characters whose intertwined fates collide and recombine throughout the length of twelve episodes and a prologue. Among them are Favraux (Louis Leubas), a brutally capitalist banker whose actions lead many individuals to their demise; his charming and innocent daughter (Yvette Andréyor) and her cutesy son; scheming vamp Diana Monti (Musidora) and various male accomplices; detective Concantin (Marcel Lévesque) and child sidekick The Licorice Kid (Bout-de-Zan) are also included in the cast, primarily for comic relief. There are a host of others who turn up as well — from a female trapeze artist/bathing beauty to an aging but still vengeful matron — but title character Judex and his brother (Edouard Mathé) round out the principals.
Like most serials, the machinations of the plot of this one are such that each episode contains twists of tale designed to surprise and intrigue the audience. While the threads here are a bit tamer in nature than in his previous work, Feuillade still manages to weave bits of confused identity and story arc sleight of hand into a coherent whole that maintains its structural integrity throughout. But Judex is in the main free of the sort of appetite whetting cliffhangers that often characterize films of this type, as the director prefers instead to use a measured pace that slowly reveals the action with dramatic subtlety. There’s plenty else besides that keeps things moving along in this one, though, from its at times touching melancholy to the gorgeous location shooting that gloriously shows off the insidious beauty of early 20th century France.
The film’s archival value is unquestioned, especially for its representation of the brilliant work of its director and star actress Musidora. It’s also a valuable document in that the character Judex presages the superheroes of film that would follow in the years to come. He’s a potent combination of mystery, morals and supernatural ability whose clarity of purpose seems to give him an almost unearthly sense of power over others. Judex additionally is a fair chameleon who can change identity when the situation demands it, and the black hat and cape which he dons when becoming the arbiter of justice lend his act a quality that should be instantly recognizable to current fans of costumed crimefighters.
Feuillade’s Judex combines the sobriety of naturalism with an outré sensibility whose psychological ramifications imply that the repression of desire may at times unveil itself in unexpected ways. The realist/fantasist dichotomy here is met halfway, as the filmmaker wields aspects of both approaches to create a film that is slave to neither philosophical position. As this split is one that continues to affect cinema (as well as many other arts) to this day, it’s a boon to those interested in the history of the movies to see an early example of an artist who was not dominated by either side of this ancient debate but who instead combined the techniques of each camp into a synthetic and successful form.
While its value as historic document would make the release of Judex worthwhile in nearly any form, this two-disc DVD by the company Flicker Alley goes a bit further than merely dragging out the old film stock and putting it into a digital package. The material here looks quite beautifully restored, and while of course it’s not pristine by any means (this being a 90 year old serial, after all), its visual quality is extremely impressive. There are also wonderful newly translated English title cards and inserts provided, and the movie has also been tinted for some scenes. Early black and white films were very often hand colored for effect, and whether the chromatic scheme here is 100% historically accurate or not I’m unsure — but it works quite well, regardless. Additional special features include a booklet containing a brief introduction to Feuillade, a brand new score for Judex recorded by composer Robert Israel, and an 18-minute feature from this artist detailing his references and the choices made in the score’s creation.
One of the most interesting of filmmakers to emerge from the early French cinema, Louis Feuillade long suffered an unseemly neglect that was borne of the populist appeal of his cinema and its inability to be conveniently placed into any specific category. Mostly forgotten for years, the work of the director gained a renewed respect in the 1940s that has echoed down into the films of many figures whose names remain familiar today, such as Jacques Rivette or Georges Franju (whose 1963 tribute film Judex fair screams for a new version on DVD). But with us removed some four decades from the heyday of the French New Wave, now seems like an appropriate time for the dust to be blown off of a serial by this towering figure of film and for his careful artistry to once again receive its respectful due. With this excellent new release of the 1917 Judex, Flicker Alley has gone a long way towards seeing that the name Louis Feuillade gets the recognition that it so very much deserves.
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