The Love of Jeanne Ney

Synopsis

In the chaos of the Crimea during the Russian Civil War, Jeanne, the daughter of a French observer, falls in love with Andreas, a young Bolshevik implicated in her father's death. She flees to Paris and finds work at her uncle's detective agency, where the scheming adventurer Khalibiev insinuates himself into the household and courts her blind cousin Gabriele. When Andreas arrives in Paris on a political mission and the uncle is murdered, suspicion falls on the wrong man.

Critique

Adapted from Ilya Ehrenburg's novel, Pabst's film turns melodrama into a laboratory of editing. Cutting on movement, dissolving the boundaries between shots and refusing the static tableau, Pabst arrives at a fluid, invisible continuity that Hollywood would soon adopt as its own. The Crimean opening, with its drunken officers and casual violence, has a documentary rawness, and Fritz Rasp's Khalibiev is one of the great reptilian villains of the period. A key work of the passage from Expressionism to New Objectivity.

Technical sheet

Director

G. W. Pabst

Original title

Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney

Year

1927

Country

Germany

Running time

113 min

Genre

Drama

Written by

Ilya Ehrenburg, Ladislaus Vajda, Rudolf Leonhardt

Cinematography

Fritz Arno Wagner, Robert Lach

Cast

Édith Jéhanne, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, Brigitte Helm, Sig Arno, Vladimir Sokoloff

Production

UFA

Music

Newly composed original score

Licensing