So tragically naïve is aspiring painter Maurice in La Chienne that Jean Renoir does not even let his demeaning fall from grace speak for itself, but rather frames this pitiful antihero as a mere puppet on life’s stage of poetic irony, weaving lyrical musings on romance and despair through his fated love triangle.
Whether Carl Theodor Dreyer’s horror film is to be interpreted as a political allegory, a spiritual fable, or a cryptic, expressionistic nightmare, Vampyr’s supernatural conspiracy is designed to lull us into the same impressionable state as its hypnotised victims, calling upon our subconscious desire to submit to the psychological darkness.
The self-centred bourgeoisie of The Rules of the Game are content living with a constant mistrust of their own peers if it means preserving their status and wealth, becoming the targets of Jean Renoir’s biting social satire as he comically undercuts the egos entangling themselves in an intricate web of affairs over one weekend at a country estate.
Despite its thrilling espionage plot and enormous stakes, The 39 Steps is far more fascinated in the sweet allure of danger that sends one man through Scottish moors, monuments, and to the heart of a deadly conspiracy, paralleling Alfred Hitchcock’s own growing psychological obsessions with corruption and pleasure throughout the 1930s.
The eccentric, madcap energy of Bringing Up Baby isn’t atypical of 1930s screwball comedies, but Howard Hawks reaches near-perfection in his orchestration of sexual innuendos, animalistic subtext, and an amusingly tense dynamic between polar opposites finding an unlikely romance as reluctant caretakers of a leopard.
That wistful memories last far longer than the events they are born from is a painful paradox in A Day in the Country, but with a visual style and narrative pacing as elegant as Jean Renoir’s, it is fully possible to recognise the beauty of these moments as they pass us by, manifesting as scintillating portraits of an idyllic, rural France.
Edgar G. Ulmer savours every demented moment of conflict between Bela Lugosi’s creepy psychiatrist and Boris Karloff’s prowling Satanist in The Black Cat, painting over its uneven narrative pacing with a macabre expressionism that makes for a darkly mesmerising occult horror.
If Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara represents the Old South in Gone with the Wind, then her selfish vanity paints a pricklier portrait of this historical culture than one might expect, deserving nothing less than the sweeping Technicolor grandeur of what may be Hollywood’s most ambitious historical epic put to film.
Dr. Moreau’s twisted biological experiments are brought to disturbing, expressionistic life in Island of Lost Souls, immortalising H.G. Welles’ classic sci-fi story onscreen as a horror fable complete with fearsome prosthetics, treacherous villainy, and a tightly-plotted script cautioning against the dangers of interfering with nature.
Blowing in the wind through the French cities and royal castles of Love Me Tonight, Rouben Mamoulian’s infectious melodic motifs unite distant characters from across class boundaries under stirring expressions of love, carrying a narrative dexterity and formal texture that canonises this early movie-musical as one of cinema’s great fairy tales.
