Duvivier’s silent films

This chapter will look at Duvivier’s first forays into filmmaking, and chart the development of the Duvivier ‘touch’ over a decade of working in silent film. It will explore the visual aspects of the silent films and allow continuities and consistencies to be traced between these early works to show a director developing a singular style and then refining it in the later, more technically accomplished films post-1930. In 1925, Duvivier joined the production company 'Film d’Art’, where he worked for nine years, and where he honed his expertise on collaborating groups of artists and technicians on a number of consecutive projects. Such collaborative working methods would serve him well throughout his career. The chapter also pay close attention to those silent films which had a religious subject - Credo ou la tragédie de Lourdes (1924), L’Agonie de Jérusalem (1927) and La Vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin (1929) - a film about the Carmelite saint Thérèse of Lisieux. The chapter concludes with an in-depth look at Duvivier’s most famous silent film, Au Bonheur des dames (1930), an adaptation of Emile Zola’s classic novel, starring Dita Parlo.