| The Love of Jeanne Ney | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Georg Wilhelm Pabst |
| Screenplay by | |
| Based on | Ljubov' Žanny Nej by Ilya Ehrenburg |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | Hans May (premiere) |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Parufamet |
Release date |
|
Running time |
|
| Country | Germany |
| Languages |
|
The Love of Jeanne Ney (German:Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney), released asLusts of the Flesh in the United Kingdom,[3] is a 1927 Germansilentdrama film directed byGeorg Wilhelm Pabst based on a novel byIlya Ehrenburg.[1]
Jeanne is the daughter of André Ney, a French diplomat and political observer inCrimea during theRussian Revolution. To finance his excessive, decadent lifestyle, Khalibiev sells Ney a list with names of allegedBolshevik agents. Jeanne's lover, Andreas Labov, and one of his Bolshevik comrades show up in her father's office, demanding that Ney hands over the list. Ney shoots at the intruders and is shot dead in return. Soon after, the revolutionary army storms the city. Jeanne flees toParis with the help of a Bolshevik officer, who secretly gives Andreas her address.
In Paris, Jeanne takes up a job as a secretary at her uncle Raymond's detective agency. Khalibiev, who followed her to Paris, sets about seducing Raymond's blind daughter Gabrielle, planning to murder her after their marriage and run away with her money. Margot, a young woman working at a bar whom Khalibiev told of his plan, warns Gabrielle and Raymond. Andreas, who has been sent to Paris as a political agitator, reunites with Jeanne and spends the night with her at a hotel.
Khalibiev sneaks into Raymond's office, murders him and steals a diamond which had been declared missing and found by one of Raymond's employees. He frames Andreas by leaving behind Andreas' coat and photo. Andreas is arrested by the police, appearing all the more suspicious due to the money he has been carrying for his agitational work.
When Jeanne learns of Andreas' arrest, she looks for Khalibiev to help clear Andreas of the charges brought against him, as they ran into one another on the night of the murder. She boards the train Khalibiev took to flee the city, trying to convince him to testify on Andreas' behalf. Khalibiev makes sexual advances to her and attempts to silence her with his handkerchief, exposing the stolen diamond. Jeanne cries for help, and Khalibiev is arrested. Inside the diamond, Jeanne sees an image of Andreas being released from prison.
The Love of Jeanne Ney was shot at theUFA film studios inBabelsberg and on location in Paris.[4] For reasons of authenticity, Pabst had the partyingWhite Russians in the opening sequence played by actual White Russian expatriates.[4] Ehrenburg, initially excited about the opportunity to work with Pabst, whose films he held in esteem, was soon disappointed to find that the director was more concerned with set details than the "absurdity" (Ehrenburg) of the script.[5] Protesting in vain against Pabst's changes to his original work (including a happy ending not in the book), he tried to have his name removed from the titles, condemning the resulting film for its philistine morals, such as having communist Andreas kneel in front of the holy virgin.[5] AfterAlfred Hugenberg had acquired the producing company UFA, more changes were demanded against Pabst's will, including the almost complete deletion of the scene with Jeanne and Andreas spending the night at the hotel.[5]
The Love of Jeanne Ney premiered inBerlin on 6 December 1927.[1] It was released byParufamet, a joint distribution company by UFA,Paramount Pictures andMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer.[1] For the American release version, 20 minutes were cut from the film and, in certain scenes, different camera angles used.[2]
Because thefilm negatives of both the German and US version are lost,HD restorations were made based on negative duplicates and prints.[6] The German version was restored in 2016[7] from a duplicate made by theMuseum of Modern Art in the 1930s,[6] the US version from a German archive copy.[6] The restored German version was first screened with live music at theUFA Filmnächte in Berlin in August 2017[8] and premiered onArte TV the following month.[9] It was released on home media in Germany, the US and the UK between 2018 and 2021.[10]
Initial reactions toThe Love of Jeanne Ney were mixed.[4] Shortly after the film's premiere,Edmund Meisel, composer of the scores ofBattleship Potemkin and other films of the era, wrote a letter toSergei Eisenstein in which he called the film's changes to the novel, apart from moments of unintentional humour, "not funny but profoundly sad".[5]Kenneth MacPherson, co-editor of film magazineClose Up, gaveThe Love of Jeanne Ney coverage in several issues, rating it superior to Pabst'sJoyless Street for being "more complete" and "dynamic"[11] and calling Édith Jéhanne's performance "admirable".[12] MacPherson had been shown Pabst's original cut in Berlin before the film's release and gave the director the opportunity to explain his technique ofediting on actors' movements.[11]
Shortly afterWorld War II, film historianSiegfried Kracauer noted in his bookFrom Caligari to Hitler, "The Love of Jeanne Ney exceeds [Pabst's]Joyless Street not only in scope of vision, but in the determination with which it records reality".[13] Kracauer nonetheless commented negatively on the production company's deletion of all provoking political and moral content of the source material.[13]
ForJames Monaco (writing in 1991),The Love of Jeanne Ney "marked an important advance in Pabst's technique". His rapid cutting on movement "foreshadowed the dialogue cutting ofsound film" and adds to the "surprisingly modern" appearance of his silent films.[14] Reflecting on Pabst's filmography in his 2006 essay for theCriterion Collection,J. Hoberman ratedThe Love of Jeanne Ney as one of "the culminating works of silent cinema", being "an ambitious attempt to synthesize Sovietmontage, Hollywood action-melodrama, and Germanmise-en-scène."[15]