Mères françaises

original title:
Mères françaises
other titles:
Mothers of France
country / year of production:
France / 1917
original length:
black/white
premiere:
USA: 11 March 1917
genre:
melodrama
based on:
director:
René Hervil , Louis Mercanton
film script:
Jean Richepin
producer:
cinematographer:
editor:
composer:
cast (role):
Sarah Bernhardt (Madame D'Urbex) , Berthe Jalabert () , Gabriel Signoret (Guinot ) , Jean Signoret (Nonet ) , Georges Melchior () , Sarah Bernhardt , Berthe Jalabert , Gabriel Signoret , Jean Signoret , Georges Melchior
more:
plot synopsis:
Madame D'Urbex lives with her husband and son Robert on an estate in the peaceful village of Meurcy. When war breaks out, all the men go to fight, including Monsieur and Robert D'Urbex, the schoolmaster Guinot and Nonet, an orphan boy who is living with the caretakers of the D'Urbex estate. While working at a field hospital in near by Reims, Madame D'Urbex learns that her son has been wounded and she tramps through the trenches in an effort to find him. She does, just as he lay dying. She returns to the hospital and Guinot shows up there one day, having been blinded in combat. He bears news that Monsieur D'Urbex has also been killed in battle. The grief-stricken Madame D'Urbex decides to devote herself to comforting others who are in pain. Guinot has been engaged to Marie, the daughter of the estate caretaker, but he offers to give her her freedom, since he is blinded for life. She refuses, even though she is secretly in love with Nonet. The schoolmaster discovers this when Nonet comes home on leave, and insists that Marie follow her heart. This brings Guinot to a lonely, depressing juncture in his life, but Madame D'Urbex eases his sadness by taking him to his pupils, who honor him.
keywords:
war:
First World War (1914-1918)
literature:
remarks:
Even more interesting than Bernhardt's performance is the location footage. This movie was filmed in wartime France, and there are many views of actual trenches, munition depots, infantry revetments. The peasant women and the provincial chateaux are astonishingly real: this France is gone forever. Bernhardt plays her climactic scene standing before the statue of Joan of Arc in the Cathedral of Rheims: in the background, we can see the actual damage to the cathedral that was caused by German artillery fire.

Bernhardt injured one knee during her adolescence, and the injury became steadily worse through the long years of her stardom. Eventually the leg was amputated above the knee, a few years before this film was made. Wearing a long frock to conceal her wooden leg, Madame Sarah plays this entire film by turns either sitting down or carefully standing near something to lean on. We never see her walking; she was self-conscious about the clumsiness of her false limb.
availability: