The Lighthouse Keepers
Synopsis
In a lighthouse off the coast of Brittany, a young man slowly goes mad following a bite by a rabid dog while his father looks on helplessly. Thwarted by a raging sea, they are prisoners of the lighthouse. In a rustic Brittany village, a young bride waits, unaware of the tragedy.
Credits
Director (1)
Production and distribution (2)
- Executive Producer : Société des Films du Grand Guignol
- French distribution : Les Films Armor
Full credits (8)
- Adaptation : Jacques Feyder
- Screenwriter : Jacques Feyder
- Directors of Photography : Georges Perinal, Jean Jouannetaud
- Music Composer : Roland Manuel
- Assistant directors : Jean Mamy, André Barsacq
- Editor : Jean Grémillon
- Authors of original work : Paul Cloquemin, Paul Autier
- Production Designer : André Barsacq
Media Gallery
Technical details
- Type : Feature film
- Genres : Fiction
- Sub-genre : Drama
- Themes : Ocean
- Production language : Silent
- Production country : France (100.0%)
- Original French-language productions : Unspecified
- Nationality : 100% French (France)
- Production year : 1929
- French release : 04/10/1929
- Runtime : 1 h 22 min
- Current status : Released
- Approval :
- Color type : Black & White
- Aspect ratio : 1.33
- Audio format : Silent
News & awards
About
Point of view
A film of rare beauty, Gardiens de phare is a quick lesson in what was golden about the Golden Age of French cinema: the ineffable documentary quality of even its fictions, with characters profoundly and consistently human, their world captured from every conceivable angle except the obvious. In a lighthouse off the coast of Brittany, a young man slowly goes mad following a bite by a rabid dog while his father looks on helplessly. Thwarted by a raging sea, they are prisoners of the lighthouse. In a rustic Brittany village, a young bride waits, unaware of the tragedy. Marcel Carné in 1929 aptly described Georges Périnal's cinematography in this film: "grey but not flat, unprecise but not obscure....The play on light and shadow has the suavity of a Man Ray image." Like the lighthouse itself, Jacques Feyder's script is a seamless spiral, playing mercilessly (in the end, mercifully) with the irony of what we know and the characters do not.
Source : bampfa.berkeley.edu
