In 1930, the year that marked the French film industry’s total conversion to sound, Dulac directed six “illustrated records”. These were essentially post-synchronized silent films designed to accompany a variety of classical and popular music recordings, as Thomas Edison had dreamed.
Several of these films featured French melodies by popular women singers like Fréhel and Damia. In keeping with the social concerns of the period, and Dulac’s penchant for a “pure cinema,” most of these films were shot on location. They also featured working-class subjects in provincial settings as they carried out their daily lives and reflected, with hope or despair, on the possibility of achieving their dreams.

Tami Williams

Shot in the summer of 1930, the films were released in theatres in 1931. The promotional goal was to have the public purchase the records at the same time as the films were released in theatres, but this alliance between the record industry and the cinema, as envisaged by Dulac, was somewhat disrupted. The films were also considered poor by the production company, which no longer seemed to support Dulac in the venture, and one finds no evidence of these showings in the press. The archives of Germaine Dulac, held at the Cinémathèque française, have helped fill this gap, and are particularly illuminating on the reconstruction that had to be carried out to recover the synchronisation desired at the time.

Manon Billaut