Dans la nuit (IN THE NIGHT)
1929
Director: CHARLES VANEL, SANDRA MILOVANOFF
CHARLES VANEL
ALL SEATS $20.00
In a small, French mining town, a young couple is married, to the delight of friends and family. They are deeply in love, and set up house, barely able to separate from one another to work. But when a mining accident leaves the husband with a grotesque facial deformity (hidden under a silver mask), he rejects her, and the lonely woman falls in love with another. This simple summary can only fail to capture the utter majesty of this gorgeous production, which was hailed as a masterpiece by French filmmakers Jean Cocteau and Jean Renoir. Charles Vanel, who was famous as a French actor (Diabolique, The Wages of Fear), wrote, directed and starred in this wondrous masterpiece, lost to time. Released to incredible acclaim in France, its timing was awful - it came out a year after sound films were launched, and it vanished from public view, remaining Vanel's only directing credit. The Heights is proud to screen DANS LA NUIT'S Midwest premiere.
Featuring live accompaniment by Katie Condon. Condon is a pianist, percussionist, teacher, and composer based in Minneapolis, whose score for "The Fire Brigade" stunned Heights audiences in 2022.
DCP courtesy of Institut Lumiere
