Gaumont Treasures 1897-1913

Unless you are familiar with the seven-DVD box set Le Cinema Premiere, released in France in 2008, the splendid contents of Gaumont Treasures will provide a startling revelation. Chronicling the remarkable early output from France's Gaumont Film Company (founded in 1895 and still operating as the world's longest-running film studio), this set showcases the work of three pioneers of French silent cinema. The first disc is devoted to Alice Guy (later Guy-Blaché), whose influence on the formative years of cinema cannot be overstated, with the shorts and mini-features included here (dating from 1897 to 1907) offering ample proof of her creativity. Guy developed her skills to include early synchronized-sound “phonoscène” films, social commentaries, and a religious epic (The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ, from 1906) that marked the peak of her career. Disc 2 covers 13 films (1907-13) by Louis Feuillade, a versatile innovator with over 800 films to his credit (many lost forever), including thrillers like The Trust (1911) and The Obsession (1912), which serve as tautly paced precursors to his later classic spy-thriller serials. Also included is The Agony of Byzance, a visually impressive historical epic from 1913. Disc 3 presents a pair of rarely seen films by Léonce Perret, who used a film-within-a-film plot device in The Mystery of the Rocks of Kador (1912) and worked comfortably in the nascent feature-length format in a 124-minute Dickensian tale, The Child of Paris (1913). DVD extras include two new short documentaries on Feuillade and Perret. Highly recommended. (J. Shannon)