La terre (1921)

As Jean is walking across the countryside in search of work, he helps and befriends a young woman, Françoise, who is having trouble controlling the cow that she is leading. Jean finds work ... See full summary »

Director:

André Antoine

Writers:

André Antoine, Émile Zola (novel)

Stars:

Armand Bour, René Alexandre, Germaine Rouer

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Armand Bour	...	Père Fouan
René Alexandre	...	Jean Macquart - un ouvrier agricole
Germaine Rouer	...	Françoise
Jean Hervé	...	Louis Buteau
Émile Mylo	...	Hyacinthe dit Jésus-Christ (as Milo)
Berthe Bovy	...	La Trouille
Jeanne Briey	...	Lise
Jeanne Grumbach	...	La Cognette
Emile Desjardins	...	Un berger
Max Charlier	...	Becu
René Hiéronimus	...	Nenesse
Armand Numès
Léon Malavier

Storyline

As Jean is walking across the countryside in search of work, he helps and befriends a young woman, Françoise, who is having trouble controlling the cow that she is leading. Jean finds work at a local farm, but he soon finds himself caught in the middle of the conflicts in Françoise's family. Her uncle Fouan has just decided to divide everything that he has amongst his two sons and his daughter, hoping that he can then spend the rest of his life at ease. But the details of the division only create bitterness, rivalry, and intrigue.

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Plot Keywords:

based on novel

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

15 July 1926 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

La Terre

Filming Locations:

Beauce, Eure-et-Loir, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Pathé Frères

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min 97 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Real-life peasants were hires as extras to add to the realism of the movie.

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Connections

Featured in Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood: The Music of Light (1995)

User Reviews

No classic silent film

This film is slow moving, boring, and just about incomprehensible. How audiences of 1922 sat through it is beyond me, considering all the great silents that had been and were being made before and at that time. I found no humor, no character study, no gripping narrative structure, no suspense, no remarkable photography, or any bold "naturalistic" acting. Adding up these faults amounts to what was, for me, a gigantic yawn fest. Nor did the music score help at all. In its way it was just as poor as the film. It comprised three or four instruments each vying for the spotlight, especially the slow, somber, so sad viola. Someone with a couple of washboard-type, probably homemade, instruments attempted to provide percussion but succeeded only in creating cacophony.

Apparently, this film is of no great import in the history of film. I have several film history books in which I checked for mention and/or discussion of La Terre, but found not one inclusion. Curiously, The History of Motion Pictures by Bardeche and Brasillach--who were French film historians!--contains no reference to La Terre and has perhaps three lines re its director, Andre Antoine, none of it particularly glowing.

Though I wasted 90 irretrievable minutes of my time, I am grateful that I didn't spend $29.95 or some such ridiculous amount to buy this mess, which would be hyped, I'm sure, by "Digitally restored!" and "Now you can own this long lost French classic!" and "'Marvelous!' says Joe Blow."