Gaumont Treasures: Volume 2 1908-1916

Fantasmagoria 1908 Emile CohlThe Puppet's Nightmare 1908 Emile Cohldrama at the puppet's house 1908 Emile Cohlthe magic hoop 1908 Emile Cohlthe little soldier who became a god 1908 Emile Cohlthe boutdebois brothers 1908 Emile Cohltransfigurations 1909 Emile Cohllet's be sporty 1909 Emile Cohljapanese fantasy 1909 Emile Cohlthe happy microbes 1909 Emile Cohlmodern education 1909 Emile CohlThe Living Fan 1909 Emile Cohlspanish clair de lune 1909 Emile Cohlthe next door neighbors 1909 Emile Cohlcrowns 1909 Emile Cohldelicate porcelains 1909 Emile Cohlmonsieur clown among the lilliputians 1909 Emile CohlComic Mutations 1909 Emile Cohlmatrimonial shoes 1909 Emile Cohlthe enchanted spectacles 1909 Emile Cohlaffairs of the heart 1909 Emile Cohlfloral frameworks 1910 Emile Cohlthe smile-o-scope 1910 Emile Cohlchildish dreams 1910 Emile Cohlen route 1910 Emile Cohlthe mind of the cafe waiter 1910 Emile Cohlmaster of a fashionable game 1910 Emile Cohlpetit chantecler 1910 Emile CohlThe Tweleve Labors of Hercules 1910 Emile CohlPetit Faust 1910 Emile Cohlthe neo-impressionist painter 1910 Emile Cohlthe four little tailors 1910 Emile Cohlart's infancy 1910 Emile Cohlthe mysterious fine arts 1910 Emile Cohlthe persistent salesman 1910 Emile Cohla history of hats 1910 Emile Cohlnothing is impossible for man 1910 Emile Cohlmr. crack 1910 Emile CohlBebe's Masterpiece 1910 Emile Cohlmusic-mania 1910 Emile Cohlcalino's baptism 1911 Jean DurandCalino Wants to Be a Cowboy 1911 Jean Durandzigoto and the affair of the necklace 1911 Jean Durandcalino the love tamer 1912 Jean Durandzigoto's outing with friends 1912 Jean Durandoxford vs. martigues 1912 Jean DurandOnesime Goes To Hell 1912 Jean Durandcalino station master 1912 Jean DurandOnesime, Clockmaker 1912 Jean Durandonesime vs. onesime 1912 Jean Durandzigoto drives a locomotive 1912 Jean Durandonesime gets married.....so does calino 1913 Jean Durandonesime: calino's inheritance 1913 Jean DurandOnesime Loves Animals 1913 Jean Durandonesime, trainer of men and horses 1913 Jean Durandonesime and the heart of a gypsy 1913 Jean Durandonesime, you'll get married...or else 1913 Jean Durandonesime's theatrical debut 1913 Jean Durandonesime's family drama 1914 Jean DurandThe Railway of Death 1912 Jean DurandBurning Heart: An Indian Tale 1912 Jean DurandUnder the Claw 1912 Jean DurandHeads... And the Women Who Use Them 1916 Jacques Feyderfriendly advice 1916 Jacques Feyderbiscot on the wrong floor 1916 Jacques Feyderthe long arm of the law 1909 romeo bosettiThe Barges 1911 Georges-Andre LacroixLa Marseillaise 1912 Etienne Arnauda drama of the air 1913 rene le somptierChild's Play 1913 Henri FescourtFeet and Hands 1915 Gaston Ravela factory drama 1912 anonymous filmsthe pavements of paris 1912 anonymous filmsthe fairy's farewell unknown anonymous filmsJean Durand documentaryPhonoscenes Three early synchronized-sound music shortsGaumont in Actualities collection of clips offering rare glimpses behind the scenes at the GaumontTrichromie Films 1913-1919 Excerpts of Gaumont's revolutionary full-color film process

I am not really an Emil Cohl fan, and I was hoping this collection would convert me. Unfortunately, the musical accompaniment pretty much sucked the life out of these films. It is avante-garde calliope music that I found entirely inappropriate to Cohl's fantasies. Not to mention that I simply hate the sound in the first place. After watching a few of these movies with the music on, I felt like I was in the midst of the kind of bad dream I have after eating buttered popcorn before going to bed. And I HATE those dreams. These films are actually better watched silently than with the sound here provided--unless you LIKE music that attempts to turn these little whimsical vintage films into bizarre experimental cinema. I finally made it through all the Cohl films over a period of days, and frankly I don't like them very much. They are tiring, repetitive, frankly boring and creepy enough to leave me feeling a little depressed if I watched too many at a time. And the music certainly never helped, since it was always creepy in its own way. I suggest you go onto Youtube and watch about 4 of these things in a row to see if you can take it, before you decide to purchase this rather expensive compilation.The next DVD of Jean Durand movies was more to my taste. Durand seems to take up where Melies left off, offering more medium shots, some close ups, explanatory intertitles, cut-away shots, and some stupendous double-exposure and split-screen work done with perfect exposures. He has perfected the substitution-shot so that the "jump-cuts" are almost imperceptible, a feat that Melies rarely accomplished. His movies are Sennett-like in terms of frantic pacing and wanton destruction. Alas, the music by Patrick Laviosa is mostly inappropriate to the action: mayhem is on the screen and he is playing a lullaby. What the hell?! He makes a good use of sound effects, but they are almost inaudible, while his languorous music drones on and on in the foreground. Some of these movies would actually be quite funny if there were NO music: only the sound effects (which are done very well, by the way). But the music is mostly uninspired. It fits the overall mood of a couple of the films, but for most of the movies the music is too slow, lame and even dreary, and all but kills the comedy in most of the films, and does succeed in completely destroying it in some of them. The soundtracks also reveal extreme laziness on the part of those putting out this DVD: the exact same piece of music is used in THREE of the Durand movies. Other music is recycled from films that were on Gaumont Volume 1. The dramatic train music for the Durand film "The Railway of Death" is re-used for the COMEDY "Zigoto Drives a Locomotive", a dirt-cheap way to make a soundtrack, and the music is completely ill-fitted to comedy; it really hurts the film.The third DVD largely bored me to death, with very slow-moving dramas and appropriately doleful music, making the films effectively unwatchable for me. Among the bonus features there was an amazing display of early color.Please realize that I am a Melies/Keaton/Chaplin and perhaps Etaix kind of guy, so my review will naturally reflect that inclination. If you disagree with my taste, then you know you'll love what I dislike, and you can use this review accordingly to know that this will be a great DVD collection for you.The image quality of these ancient films is pretty spectacular. Too bad most them are not interesting films. The Jean Durand movies are in excellent condition; actually MINT condition. HOWEVER, there is a lot of digital noise on a couple of the films, and pixelation on all of the live-action films. The presence of noticeable pixels interferes with the sharpness of the image (the edges of people's eyes, jaws and collars are jagged, etc.). This whole volume needs to be re-done with greater care for both image and sound. I'd like to see a volume with all the Alice Guy and Jean Durand films, with truly appropriate comedy music, on a Blu-Ray DVD.Keep your eye out for more of Jean Durand's films; maybe someday Donald Sosin, Paragon Orchestra, Alta Mont, Robert Israel, and Ethan Uslan can be commissioned to make a set of Durand movies really come alive, as they have done in such sets as "Chaplin At Keystone", and Flicker Alley`s Melies collection (but in high definition).

A treasure.

Great