Silent Film Sources - Reviews

Les Vampires' nominal hero is Phillipe Guerande (Edouard Mathe who resembles Richard Barthelmess). Investigating the activities of the Vampires, a secret criminal organization that specializes in jewel thefts, he learns that the gang has penetrated to society's most powerful and privileged quarters. It's a community threat that includes high judges and members of the nobility among its partners. Actually, Les Vampires belongs to its villains. We are practically asked to root for the gang's masterminds, the Grand Vampire (Jean Ayme), Satanas (Louis Leubas), Venenos (Frederick Moriss) and their anagramatically named henchperson, Irma Vep (played ferociously by Musidora of the Follies Bergere). Assuming many roles and aliases, they spread anarchy and destruction indiscriminately. The film takes us from catastrophe to catastrophe. As David Thomson has said, it is no coincidence Les Vampires appeared during the wreckage of the First World War. 

Feuillade makes uniquely powerful use of natural settings. His innovation was to set violence in the most bland and respectable-looking of surroundings. Evil really hits home in melancholy residential areas and disarming provincial settings. Baroque twists on this theme include drawing room panels opening to reveal grotesque finds and the villains surprise appearance in the latest newsreel. 

Feuillade tells his penny dreadful story naturalistically, at breakneck pace and with complete conviction. Les Vampires never suffers a moment of irony or self-consciousness, in spite of its apocalyptic events. Even before black-clad brigands and flying vampires start making their entrances, the film has such a bizarre charm that it feels like a waking dream. 

Louis Feuillade must have expressed all his aggressions in his work. He was a jovial, politically-conservative family man who just happened to make some of the weirdest films of all time. Feuillade became the head of production at Gaumont (succeeding Alice Guy-Blanche) in 1906 and directed over 800 films between 1906 and 1925. He was a protean entertainer who worked in all genres. Today, Feuillade is only remembered for his serials. Besides Les Vampires, his greatest are said to be Fantomas (1913), Tih Minh (1918) and Barabbas (1919). In addition, his classic serials include Judex (1916) and The New Mission of Judex (1917). But in his day, the comedies (countless one reelers featuring a child star) and sentimental melodramas he produced were just as popular, frequently more so. 

His influence was greatest on serials and the thriller genre. Feuillade was a suspense stylist who worked closely to his subconscious. That makes him the grandfather (or great grandfather) of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch. Arguably, Fritz Lang felt his influence, as well. Lang directed his own serial film, The Spiders (1922) in addition to his Dr. Mabuse films. Spiders sometimes feels as if it may have been influenced by Les Vampires. 

Stylistically, his films feature a static camera, composition in depth and location shooting. This may have impacted on the development of both German expressionism and film noir (although Feuillade's films were unseen in Britain until the forties and not shown in America until Les Vampires was screened at the New York Film Festival in 1965). His visual influence on Jacques Rivette, Alain Resnais and Georges Franju is obvious. Franju remade Judex in the early sixties and directed the ominous Eyes Without a Face in 1960. Les Vampires was recently given a postmodern tribute, Olivier Assayas' splendidly funny Irma Vep. The film's plot involved a jinxed attempt at a remake and featured Maggie Cheung, a star from Hong Kong where they still know how to make Feuillade's kind of film. 

Les Vampires more than lives up to its reputation as the Rosetta Stone of the modern thriller. Feuillade creates a sense of everyday irrationality, routine peril and commonplace violence. Despite having one foot in the Victorian era, it plays like a subversive, surreally entertaining preview of coming attractions for the 20th century. 

We are fortunate to have its release on laser and video by Water Bearer Films. Their sumptuous original tinting, vintage orchestrations and excellent English title cards makes this film's greatness crystal clear. Do not be put off by the film's length. It moves very quickly, and if enough people buy a copy, perhaps Water Bearer will issue Tih Minh where the activities of the Vampires are continued. (Review © 1998 Christopher Clotworthy)