Mel Novikoff Award: Lenny Borger: Monte-Cristo

Description

This year’s recipient of the Mel Novikoff Award—named after the legendary San Francisco exhibitor and bestowed upon an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the film-going public’s appreciation of world cinema—is translator, scholar and film sleuth Lenny Borger. Join us for a conversation about the hunt for “lost” films and the unsung art of subtitling with Borger and Variety’s Scott Foundas followed by a screening of the rediscovered 1929 silent masterpiece Monte-Cristo.

Henri Fescourt’s Monte-Cristo stands as a kind of exemplar of everything the silent screen could do at the height of its sophistication, but it had the misfortune to appear just as talkies seized the public imagination: a costly flop, it reduced its producer to selling yoghurt machines. The time has finally come to appreciate it. Producer Louis Nalpas, who had helped launch Abel Gance, poured all his resources into Alexandre Dumas’ celebrated tale of injustice and revenge, The Count of Monte Cristo, making possible unbelievably lavish sets and costumes, an epic running time in two instalments and an international star cast. Stalwart Jean Angelo is Edmond Dantes, falsely jailed due to the conniving of enemies. He escapes and miraculously falls heir to a fortune, enabling him to put into play a most elaborate and deadly scheme of revenge. Director Henri Fescourt delivers gripping melodrama every step of the way, as the movie evolves from beautiful locations in the first half to spectacular sets in the second. The story’s shameless emotion emerges via Impressionistic dissolves, taut editing and elegant, sinuous camera movement. It’s a dazzling display of cinematic power, which calls into question whether movies have actually learned anything new in the last 86 years. —David Cairns

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