Archival Prints! Bruce Loeb on Piano Germaine Dulac's The SmilingMadame Beudet is an outstanding work of impressionist cinema and anearly classic of feminist filmmaking, exploring the misery of aprovincial couple's marriage entirely from the woman's point of view.Dulac's powerful evocation of a psychological state is based on"theater of silence"-the theory that the silences surroundingcharacters speak louder than their words. Inanimate objects andgestures, camera angles and distorting lenses convey all the emotion andirony of the seething Madame Beudet's existence. Dimitri Kirsanov'sMénilmontant, an important and moving film about a girl, herworthless lover, her sister and, eventually, her blankly hopelessfuture, is one of the most remarkable of experimental pictures. Thebrilliant opening cascade of images both rivals and predates Russianmontage; the pathos of the scene on the banks of the Seine with theclochard has rarely been equalled. Louis Delluc was the central force ofFrench impressionist cinema. Fièvre, inspired by Broken Blossoms(see February 1), creates an atmosphere of psychological tension in aseamy old waterfront cafe, where the proprietor's wife dreams of thesailor who was her first love. He reappears with a Chinese wife whobecomes a fixed counterpoint in a frenzy of emotion. (Notes based on TheMuseum of Modern Art catalog)