User Reviews

La Marseillaise (1907)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This French film from director Georges Mendel starts off with a brief introduction talking about how Mendel was trying to sync sound with the moving images but the process was still just so young that it really didn't work when originally released. Today this short comes off as a minor miracle as M. Note of the Paris opera sings the title tune. This film runs just under three-minutes and I must say that it put a smile on my face from the word go and kept it there until Note walked out of frame and then back on for a final bow. I found the performance of Note to be quite good as I thought the song was fun and extremely well performed. The sound technique is obviously a bit off in regards to what you're hearing and the lip movement but it would be rather silly for anyone to be too critical. Again, for 1907 the technique is still pretty darn impressive. I also really enjoyed the backdrop. When viewing the film, there's a small cabin to the left, a cannon in the center and then some trees to the right. There's nothing overly special about this but I thought it made for an interesting visual while you listen to the song.

It always astonishes people who think they know the history of films, when they first encounter one of the musical shorts that were produced from 1906-1914. How is this possible? Didn't Edison invent the movies, Porter the story film, the Warner Brothers the talking pictures and Walt Disney the animated feature?

A resounding "No!" to all of those. The wave of sound films in the Edwardian era wasn't even the first. Cinematically, these sound films were primitive things. They had to be because of the primitive microphones of the era, and their popularity limited because you couldn't make the loudspeakers loud enough for a sizable audience. But people wanted them anyway.

The Georges Mendel film "La Marseillaise" seems to be a very, very simple film when you see it today. The singer, Jean Noté, is dressed in period costume and sings the French national anthem in front of a painted background and cannot...while holding a French flag. He sings a couple verses and then salutes the audience. However it is NOT a simple film as it was made in 1907...two decades before the first full-length talking picture! An amazing accomplishment whose only deficit is that the sound is a bit thin and bland...but what can you expect from 1907?! A super-important historical document....worth seeing to historians and film buffs.