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Queen Kelly

Queen Kelly (silent)
Location
Main screening room
Date
March 4th, 2022
Duration
101 min
Cycle
Erich von Stroheim : seul en son royaume

Among the pioneers in the history of cinema, Erich von Stroheim is undoubtedly one of those who strived the most to invent his own myth. This hero of another time, who seemed to carry the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on his shoulders, was a remarkable inventor of forms, creating from his very first silent films gems of narration, carried by a breathtaking art of editing. Although he often acted in the films he directed, it was Greed, his great work in which he did not act, that made him the first cursed filmmaker. No version of this film corresponds exactly to the film he had made, which was quickly butchered. With the advent of talking pictures, he became a simple actor (of genius) crossing with his legendary silhouette countless films.

Piano accompaniment: Roman Zavada

Queen Kelly
Directed by
Erich von Stroheim
Language
Silent, English Intertitles
Actors
Gloria Swanson, Walter Byron, Seena Owen
Origins
USA
Year
1929
Duration
101 min
Genre
Drama, mute
Format
Digital
Synopsis

After being the one-night lover of a noble officer, a young woman is sent to an aunt in German Africa. There she is married by force to Jan, whom she hates. She refuses to live with him and ends up in a brothel where she becomes "Queen Kelly".

Queen Kelly

Erich von Stroheim

Eric Oswald Stroheim, dit Erich von Stroheim, est un acteur, scénariste, réalisateur et écrivain américain d'origine austro-hongroise, né le 22 septembre 1885 à Vienne (Autriche) et mort le 12 mai 1957 à Maurepas (France). Il fut un des réalisateurs les plus ambitieux de l'époque du cinéma muet. Jugés extravagants et souvent mutilés par les producteurs, ses films ont depuis été reconsidérés par la critique. Partageant sa carrière entre les États-Unis et la France, c'est cependant en tant qu'acteur qu'il demeure dans les mémoires notamment pour ses interprétations d'un officier allemand dans La Grande Illusion de Jean Renoir ou d'un metteur en scène déchu aux côtés de Gloria Swanson dans Sunset Blvd. de Billy Wilder. Sa performance dans ce dernier lui vaudra d'ailleurs une nomination aux Oscars pour meilleur acteur de soutien en 1951.

(Wikipedia)

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Stroheim shares with Chaplin the sacred wrath of a great moralist, but with him the humanitarian tendency is less easy to discern [...] Thus, the uninformed viewer remains, at first, stunned by the ferocity of his films. Stroheim's world is a Dantesque hell.
Lotte H. Eisner, 1957
About Queen Kelly
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About Erich von Stroheim
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