Henri d’Ursel - La Perle (1929)
The count Henri d’Ursel shot La perle (The Pearl) under the pseudonym of Henri d’Arche “in the flush of inexperience”, as he put it. D’Ursel made only one film, based on a screenplay by the poet Georges Hugnet. In a Paris straight out of the serials of Louis Feuillade, the hero goes in search of a pearl which constantly disappears in a string of bizarre encounters - thieves sneak into a hotel wearing body stockings à la Musidora, a beautiful fiancée on a bicycle, a somnambulist walking the rooftops in a night-shirt and amorous fantasies in the undergrowth. Hugnet himself played this waking dreamer, haunted by an unending eroticism reflected in the images.
April
c86:
Michael Haneke, one of my favourite film directors, turns 70 tomorrow
In the UK, Film4 are screening Benny’s Video tonight at 11PM
Here’s a little tribute that I wrote about him on my BLOG
