The Lumière Festival continues in Lyon until October 23 and will award American director Tim Burton the Light Prize. For nine days, this unmissable event for film buffs allows spectators to (re)discover treasures of the 7th art, from all eras and from all continents. This year, the last French silent film shot in 1929 is in the spotlight. In the nightdirected by actor Charles Vanel, fell into oblivion as soon as it was released in 1930, during the boom of talkies. “An exceptional film in more ways than one”, according to the late Bertrand Tavernier. It is presented this Thursday, October 20 in cine-concert at the Auditorium of Lyon. And it will soon be released in theaters all over France.
Charles Vanel (1892-1989) was one of the great names in French cinema. In nearly 80 years of career, he appeared in more than 200 films, under the direction of the greatest French and foreign directors, from Henri-Georges Clouzot to Jean-Pierre Melville via Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock. In 1953 he received the Best Actor Award in Cannes for The wages of fear by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
An immense career and only one film as a director In the night, which will remain as the last French silent film. He also plays in this feature film which tells the story of a worker disfigured by a work accident and forced to wear a mask. He is then rejected by his wife who consoles herself in the arms of another man.
In 1929, Charles Vanel therefore produced In the night Hardly released, it is withdrawn from the poster, not being able to compete with talking films. It will remain for decades in a drawer, fallen into oblivion. The film was bequeathed in 1983 to the Institut Lumière by Charles and Arlette Vanel. Finally restored, this feature film can come back into the light. “We intend to put this film back in the place we consider it should have, that is to say a great film in the history of French cinema”, explains Maëlle Arnaud, programmer at the Institut Lumière.
It is in Ain, where Charles Vanet’s father lived for a long time, that In the night has been turned. Among the patrons who participated in the financing of the restoration of the film, we find the native of the department Laurent Gerra, present at the Lumière festival. “It’s transmission, memory, cinema… and then I don’t deny my origins, I’ve always returned to Ain, I was still there a few days ago”. The comedian then cannot miss a good pun “When I saw it, I said: it’s a little Bugey film!” After its screening at the festival, In the night must be the subject of a national release, so that the general public has access to this piece of history of the 7th art.