Film Review: The Wheel (La Roue, 1923)

Silent films demand a lot from modern-day audiences. But there are some silent films that demand a lot even from those viewers accustomed to the lack of sound and colour. One of the most demanding silent films, mostly on account of its length, is The Wheel, a 1923 French epic melodrama directed by Abel Gance, which is considered to be one of the classics of French silent cinema.

The plot of the film starts with a train disaster that claims the life of a woman, survived by her infant daughter named Norma. The daughter is rescued by Sisif (played by Séverin-Mars), a widowed train engineer, who, since the woman had no relatives, decides to adopt her and raise her as his own daughter and thus provide a sibling for his young son. Sisif has kept her true background secret for fifteen years, but when Norma grows up into a beautiful and vivacious young woman, it creates problems for the engineer. He, much to his horror, realises that he has fallen in love with her, and the same thing, unbeknownst to him, happens to his son Elie (played by Gabriel de Gravone). Sisif reacts to it by indulging in drinking, gambling and occasional brawling with fellow workers, but the real crisis comes when his rich and influential boss De Hersan (played by Pierre Magnier) shows interest in Norma. After he learns the secret of Norma's background, he blackmails Sisif into letting him marry her, which is the move that ultimately breaks both the father's and son's heart and leads to tragic consequences.

Made at a time when the cinema was beginning to win respect as a proper art form and enthusiastically supported by Charles Pathé, a pioneering French cinema mogul, The Wheel represented a great opportunity for Abel Gance to experiment with various styles and filming techniques. The gruelling four-month shoot included the use of authentic locations – a railway yard in the first part and the French Alps in the second part. The first part also slightly differs in terms of style – it has a much faster pace, with rapid movements and editing techniques very much like those that would soon be introduced by Eisenstein and other Soviet filmmakers. The second part is much slower and relies not only on superimpositions, but also on cinematography that provides night shots that were quite innovative for the time and breathtaking scenery. The use of the Alps had a purpose other than artistic for Gance; his fiancée Ida Danis was ill with tuberculosis and Gance had hoped in vain that her life could be saved if she was in mountain air. Another tragedy struck Gance during post-production when his good friend Séverin-Mars, known for his role in Gance's 1919 anti-war epic J'accuse, suddenly died of a heart attack.

Mars' last screen performance was arguably the best. He played the character with intensity, but generally avoided the theatricality that had plagued many silent era actors. His transformation from proud train engineer to pathetic cripple is very convincing and moving. The same thing can be said for Ivy Close, an English actress famous for her beauty (and later known as the mother of famous director Ronald Neame), who brings a lot of charm into her melodramatic role. Gance enhances their performances with strong symbolism and the use of the wheel as a motif of industrialisation, progress as well as the circular nature and transience of life.

However, in order to enjoy all of this, fans of Gance, like in the case of his next and better known masterpiece Napoleon, would have to arm themselves with large amounts of patience, because the film is extraordinarily long. Much of it had to do with Gance's extensive use of flashbacks that make the pace slow at times and quite demanding even for the most charitable connoisseurs of silent cinema. The original version of The Wheel was nine hours long, and Gance later had to make cuts for commercial reasons. For much of the next century, the most common version was two and a half hours long. Even in such an abridged edition, it left a strong impression on the audience, and Akira Kurosawa would later claim that it was this film that convinced him to start a filmmaking career. In 1957, a sound remake, directed by André Haguet and Maurice Delbez, was released. In the 21st century, there were two major restorations of the original - a 2008 version, which is four and a half hours long, and a 2019 version, which is seven hours long.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo

InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax y
Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7

Posted using CineTV