An elegant epic of amorous intrigue set against lavish moderne interiors that are themselves worth the price of admission, L'Argent is the recently rediscovered masterpiece of Marcel L'Herbier (whose La Nuit Fantastique and Le Bonheur proved to be highlights of PFA's recent series, “Rediscovering French Film”). L'Herbier was in the forefront of the avant-garde film in the Twenties, and when the Paris Cinematheque restored L'Argent in 1967, the result was a revelation in terms of the experimental feature film--and was compared in stature and vision to Abel Gance's Napoleon. An update of a novel by Emile Zola, L'Argent features an all-star cast including Brigitte Helm as the wily Countess Sandorff (“who uses her bed the way others use Merrill Lynch"--N.Y. Film Fest.); Alfred Abel (star of Metropolis) as an unscrupulous speculator; and, in smaller roles, Yvette Guilbert and Antonin Artaud.
L'Herbier made L'Argent in 1928, just after the introduction of the portable camera facilitated the “subjective camera” of the impressionist school. To say that L'Argent “revolves around” money and sex is to speak quite literally; French historian Georges Sadoul describes L'Herbier's use of the portable camera:
“...(H)ere the ‘portables' are let loose in a veritable ballet of their own - withdrawing, advancing, dropping from ceilings and rising from the floor, turning in circles like horses on a roundabout.... Subjective impressionism, sacrific(ed) everything to the search after new developments of vision and originality of camera angle....”