DIE LIEBE DER JEANNE NEY Movie Review

The Loves of Jeanne Ney
Lusts of the Flesh

G.W. Pabst's adaptation of Ilya Ehrenburg's novel is the story of the love between a young French girl (Edith Jehanne) and a young Russian communist (Uno Henning), and the manipulating adventurer (Fritz Rasp) who comes between them. This beautifully photographed and richly detailed drama is famous for Pabst's experiments in making the film's editing “invisible.” He discussed his method in an interview at the time of its production: “Every shot is made on some movement. At the end of one cut somebody is moving, at the beginning of the next, the movement is continued. The eye is thus so occupied in following these movements that it misses the cuts.” What he couldn't have known was that the technique he was describing, “cutting on movement,” would become standard practice years later, and that The Loves of Jeanne Ney would become the textbook for the future of film editing.

NEXT STOP … The Joyless Street, Pandora's Box, Kameradschaft

1927 102m/B GE Brigitte Helm, Eugen Jenson, Edith Jehanne, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, Vladimir Sokoloff; D: G.W. Pabst; W: Ladislao Vajda, Ilya Ehrenburg, Rudolf Leonhard; C: Walter Robert Lach, Fritz Arno Wagner. VHS FCT, GLV