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An exploration of Abel Gance's contributions to cinema technique and storytelling via his film, J'accuse (1919). Acknowledged as the first anti-war feature film, J'accuse is unique in its use of battlefield footage and soldiers on leave from the frontlines at Verdun as actors. Presented at The Cambridge Center for Adult Education with an associated screening of excerpts from the film. (November 2009)
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Abel Gance & J’accuse
Cinematic Pacifism & Filmic Poetry
Abel Gance, 1889-1981
Setting the Stage
Still Life with Bowl and FruitPicasso, 1912
Femme devant sa fenetreFernand Leger, 1923
Inception of a Film
Abel Gance1889 - 1981
“I pulled myself up short and said, ‘Why are people making films which are nothing but events, when they have at their disposal such a marvelous medium for psychological stories? They go on making films about people chasing each other, killing each other or trying to commit suicide, but why not films which show feelings instead of merely action?’”
- Abel Gance, 1960
La Folie du Dr. Tube (1915)
Jean
Francois
Technical innovation
Cinematic Poetry
The First Anti-War Film
TECHNICAL INNOVATION
Close-Ups
“Don’t take your camera too close. you know you’re supposed to show the whole of your actors, so you can see their gestures.
“What are these huge pictures supposed to mean? They’ll show up all the faults in the face. you’ll have people panicking in the cinema. They’ll make for the exits!”
- Louis Nalpas (Gance’s producer), 1915
Dynamic Lighting
Traveling Shots
Traveling Shots
Rapid Editing
Cinematic Poetry
A Bag of Tricks
Is it Poetry?
• Ode
• Sonnet
• Haiku
• Repetition
• Rhyme
• Rhythm
• Symbolism
• Metaphor
• Irony
Poetic Elements: Rhythm
Poetic Elements: Symbolism & Metaphor
Hands Going to War
Poetic Elements: Repetition
Jean as a Poet
Ode to the Sun
Ode to the Sun (repeated)
The First Anti-War Film
Soldiers’ Letters
The weather is mild and the morning indifferent. The dead won’t hold back the spring. - A Soldier’s Letter
If these letters reach anyone, may they instill in the honest heart a horror of the infamy of those responsible for this war. - A Soldier’s Letter
Darling mama -If you receive no more letters from me after this one, tell yourself that your son has left this world for a country without postmen, but that he still thinks of you night and day.- A Soldier’s Letter
Soldiers’ Letters
“J’accuse for me was not just a film. I felt that I must use what I had left of my strength and health to make it. I was very ill at the time. When I saw the horrors of war and that all my best friends were dead - I had ten good friends and all were killed except one. I had a feeling of frenzy to use this new medium, the cinema, to show the world the stupidity of war.” - Abel Gance, 1965
The Human Toll
The Battle of Verdun
The Dead Awake
“How I would like to see all those killed in the war rising up one night to visit their countries, their homes, to see if their sacrifice was worth anything at all. The war would stop of its own accord, horrified by its own awfulness.” - Abel Gance, 1917
Reception of the Film
“J’accuse forms one of the most terrible indictments against war which it is possible to imagine. But the effect is not produced by the insistent horrors and sheer frightfulness. It is obtained by the emphasis of simple, natural humanity.” - Kine Weekly, 1919.
“If this film had been shown in every country and in every town in the world in 1913, then perhaps there would have been no war.”
- Prague Newspaper, 1919
Abel Gance in Times Square, 1921
Abel Gance and D.W. Griffith, 1921
GANCE AFTER J’ACCUSE
Napoleon, Abel Gance, 1927
Napoleon, Abel Gance, 1927
Where to Go from Here
Where to Go From Here
Where to Go From Here
Thank you!
