Germaine Dulac — Director (19)
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Movie

The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy (1921)
La Belle dame sans merci WikiData IMDb TMDB
Germaine Dulac actor: Tania Daleyme / Yolande Hillé …
other title: La Belle dame sans merci / La belle dame sans merci …
"Taking its title from John Keats’s early 19th-century poem, this highly personal melodrama finds Dulac interrogating the archetype of the femme fatale. La belle dame sans merci follows a famous actress who was once seduced and abandoned by a rich man and subsequently resolved to become a “merciless woman,” forever scheming to hurt others (men in particular) in a ruthless yet captivating manner. Dulac challenges the Romantic archetype embodied in Keats’s poem by way of symbolist mise en scène, self-reflexive narration, and her typically associative approach to editing, locating a modern ambiguity within the stereotypical figures of 19th-century art." - Film Society of Lincoln Center
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Movie

Themes and Variations (1928)
Thèmes et variations
谢尔曼·杜拉克 actor: Lilian Constantini
other title: 主题与变奏 / Thèmes et variations …
I evoke a dancing woman. A woman? No. A bouncing line with harmonious rhythm. I evoke a luminous projection on veils ! Precise matter! No. Fluid rhythms. Why should one disregard, on screen, the pleasure that movement brings us in the theatre? Harmony of lines. Harmony of light. Lines, surfaces, volumes evolving directly, without the artifice of evocation, in the logic of its forms, dispossessed of any overly human sense, allowing an elevation towards the abstract, thus giving more space to sensations and to dreams : integral cinema. —Germaine Dulac
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Movie

Record 957 (1928)
Disque 957 WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
谢尔曼·杜拉克
other title: 唱片957 / Disque 957 …
Dulac’s three 1929 "abstract" films, Record 957, Αrabesques, and Themes and Variations, were the results of a long period of reflection by the filmmaker, who sought to create a "pure" or "integral" cinema that would capture the essence of the new medium and owe nothing to the other arts. Each of these three studies was designed to be played silent. The first one, Record 957, is conceived of as a "visual impression […] in listening to Frédéric Chopin's Preludes n. 5 and 6." Its title and its opening shot of lightplay on a spinning record not only announce the film's dominant cyclical motif, but also evoke one of the filmmaker’s major sources of inspiration in Loie Fuller's serpentine dances.
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Movie

Invitation to a Journey (2007)
L'Invitation au voyage WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
谢尔曼·杜拉克 actor: Emma Gynt / Raymond Dubreuil …
other title: 旅行的邀请 / L'Invitation au voyage …
From 1927. Starring Emma Gynt. You probably wouldn't be watching this if you didn't already know that Dulac directed the first surrealist picture, The Seashell and the Clergyman. If there's any film that will make you feel sympathy for a woman considering an adulterous affair, it's this one. Without a single intertitle, Dulac brings us into the minds of her characters and shows us the power of the erotic imagination, especially under the sway of loneliness.
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Movie

Arabesque (1929)
Étude cinégraphique sur une arabesque WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
★ 6.9 12 ratings
谢尔曼·杜拉克 actor: Marie-Anne Malleville
other title: 阿拉伯花饰 / Étude cinégraphique sur une arabesque …
The film’s visual structure is principally composed of variations on the arabesque: arcs of light, water spouts, spider webs, burgeoning trees, flowers and foliage, a woman’s smile, arms stretching, an arm giving rhythm to a rocking chair. It uses natural elements (light, mirrors, water, and wind) and photographic techniques (multiple exposures and lenses) to distort the various elements, or to intensify their design.