#Feu Mathias Pascal

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Ivan Mozzhukhin in Feu Mathias Pascal  (Marcel L'Herbier, 1926)

Cast: Ivan Mozzhukhin, Marcelle Pradot, Lois Moran, Marthe Mellot, Pauline Carton, Irma Perrot, Mireille Barsac, Michel Simon, Jean Hervé, Pierre Batcheff, Isaure Douvan. Screenplay: Marcel L'Herbier, based on a novel by Luigi Pirandello. Cinematography: Jimmy Berliet, Fédote Bourgasoff, Paul Guichard, René Guichard, Jean Letort, Nikolas Roudakoff. Art direction: Erik Aaes, Alberto Cavalcanti, Lazare Meerson.

Feu Mathias Pascal takes nearly three hours to demonstrate the truth of Kris Kristofferson's observation that "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Mathias (Ivan Mozzhukhin) is a studious young man working on a magnum opus, The History of Freedom, while the world around him begins to crumble: His widowed mother is cheated out of her home by an unscrupulous magistrate in their small Italian town. Meanwhile, his shy, homely friend Pomino (Michel Simon) wants him to court Romilde (Marcelle Pradot) on his behalf, but she secretly has a crush on Mathias, who falls in love with and marries her. Because Romilde is under the thumb of her shrewish, demanding mother the marriage quickly sours, and when the two people Mathias loves more than any others, his mother and his infant daughter, die, he decides to leave town. In Monte Carlo, he wins a fortune at roulette, but after deciding to go home he learns that he has been declared dead. Embracing this new opportunity for freedom, he goes incognito to Rome, where he spots the pretty Adrienne and, following her home, takes a room that her father has for rent. There's much ado involving a plot to marry Adrienne (Lois Moran) to the odious Terence (Jean Hervé), and in the course of it Mathias realizes that you can't have your freedom and enjoy it too. It's a fascinating mess of a film, with startling shifts in tone from pathos -- the death of Mathias's mother and child -- to Kafkaesque surrealism -- Mathias's stint as an assistant librarian in a dusty, rat-filled jumble of a library -- to romantic comedy -- his rescue of Adrienne from the clutches of Terence and his fake-spiritualist cohorts. The narrative gets a little elliptical, especially toward the end, when Mathias exposes the corrupt magistrate who cheated his mother. But the Russian actor Mozzhukhin is adept at both the pathos of Mathias's life and the Buster Keaton-like deadpan comedy of much of the film, and he's well-supported by the cast, including Simon in one of his earliest roles as Pomino. Filmed on location in San Gimignano, Monte Carlo, and Rome, the movie provides glimpses of such familiar places as the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and the Forum, strikingly free of traffic and tourists.

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Feu Mathias Pascal (1925) dir. Marcel L'Herbier

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Marcel L'Herbier. Feu Mathias Pascal (1926)

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Ivan Mosjoukine Feu Mathias Pascal, Marcel L'Herbier (1926).

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The late Matthias Pascal 1925

The late Matthias Pascal 1925

Also know as Feu Mathias Pascal French silent movie written and directed by Marcel L’Herbier . It was the first film adaptation of Luigi Pirandello’s novel Il fu Mattia Pascal . French Intertitles only     Le Feu Mathias Pascal is perhaps one of the lesser-known works of L’Herbier, best-known for his work during the avant-garde period (L’Homme du Large, L’Inhumaine) and one of the most prolific…

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still image of Ivan Mosjoukine and Marcelle Pradot in 1925 French silent drama, Feu Mathias Pascal (The Late Matthias Pascal)

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Ivan Mosjoukine in Feu Mathias Pascal (1925) dir. Marcel L'Herbier

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Pauline Carton Feu Mathias Pascal, Marcel L'Herbier (1926).

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Feu Mathias Pascal aka The Living Dead Man (1926) Michel Simon

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Ivan Mosjoukine and Lois Moran in Feu Mathias Pascal (1925) dir. Marcel L'Herbier.

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Feu Mathias Pascal (Marcel L’Herbier, 1925)

Mosjoukine & Co.

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Ivan Mosjoukine Feu Mathias Pascal, Marcel L'Herbier (1926).