Shir Avinadav
The dramatic narrative through which character psychology was often explored in French Impressionist films, particularly from the female point of view in The Smiling Madame Beudet, demanded of its performers an understated, yet expressive style of acting that complemented the cinematographic style of the era.
Impressionist filmmakers wanted to explore character psychology, like its other avant-garde counterparts. “[F]ascination with pictorial beauty and an interest in intense psychological exploration” shifted the focus to the inner psyches of characters in Impressionist films, which doubtlessly impacted the selection and performance of the actors, as well as the ways in which they were framed and directed to act. Much of the focus on formal cinematic traits during the Impressionist era had to do with film editing and mise-en-scène. Particularly, the formal style of Impressionist cinema made use of close ups to show characters’ emotions, “but here [Dulac] turned to the extreme close-up, which she utilizes in a discretionary, yet more intensive manner, in order to isolate individual gestures marking an evolution of character.”¹ Therefore it was important for actors to be able to express a range of extreme emotions through their facial expressions and gestures.
The “place[ment] [of] characters in extremely emotion-laden circumstances,” helped filmmakers delve deep into character personas.² It is evident in The Smiling Madame Beudet, in which the main character becomes increasingly distressed by her marriage (setting the foundation for the emotion-laden story characteristic of Impressionist cinema). Consequently, silent era impressionist acting served as a vehicle to express the burdensome emotions associated with these situations. Through gesturing, “Germaine Dermoz’s understated acting conveyed the heroine’s bleak, unpromising petit bourgeois marriage.”³
“Dulac, who draws upon a variety of techniques in La Souriante Madame Beudet including associative montage to express her feminist vision, [develops] her idea of gesture in movement and rhythm within the image,”⁴ by juxtaposing the mannerisms and gestures of M. and Mme. Beudet to contrast their differing temperaments and values and emphasize the tension within their constrained, bourgeois marriage. This tension is heightened in certain moments, where the framing of gestures is more dramatic.
EXAMPLES
Gesture is subtly employed in Mme. Beudet’s piano playing, which conveys her only escape from the confines of her marriage. The framing captures both her expression and hand movement, exposing her inner turmoil and emphasizing the emotional heaviness of the situation in which she is entrapped.
When we are introduced to the two characters: Mme. Beudet plays the piano and reads, while her husband counts coins and examines fabric samples. The shot compositions draw our attention to their hands and to the specific activities they are engaging in; while juxtaposing the shots highlights the differences between the two. “In La Souriante Madame Beudet, Dulac employed a specifically cinematic system of signification based on the isolation and the opposition or synthesis of expressive gestures, which she used as social critique.”⁵
Close up of Mme. Beudet playing with her wedding ring. The tight framing emphasizes her confinement within her time-worn, unfulfilling marriage. It intensifies the drama and visually expresses her dissatisfaction and emotional torment.
In the shot to the right, her longing for a man other than her husband, is expressed through her outstretched arms, reaching out towards her daytime fantasy, as she whiles her time away in the absence of her boorish husband.