Baroncelli, Jacques de

(1881-1951)

   Director and screen-writer. Born Jacques de Baroncelli-Javon in Bouillarges in Langue-doc-Roussillon, Jacques de Baroncelli went on to become one of the best-known silent-film directors and a modestly well-known sound film director as well. Baroncelli at first aspired to journalism, but around 1909 turned to cinema. His first known film is L'Arlésienne (1909), an adaptation of the novel by Alphonse Daudet that was made for the Société Cinématographique des Auteurs et des Gens de Lettres (SCAGL), the film d'art division of Pathé. The film stars Stacia Napierkowska, one of the great silent film actresses. In some ways, this film established the tone for much of Baroncelli's career, as literary adaptations are seen as one of his strengths.

   Although he is today better remembered for his sound films, Baroncelli was, in his day, considered a master of the silent film. He made more than forty silent films, many of them with the great silent-film actors, most of them for Pathé, although he did make an occasional film for Éclair and Gaumont. His better films include La Nouvelle Antigone (1916), Soupçon tragique (1916) with Georges Wague, Le Jugement de Salomon (1916) with Léontine Massart, Le Revenant (1917), Le Delai (1918), Le Scandale (1918), the classic silent film, La Légende de la Soeur Béatrix (1923), based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, Ramuntcho (1919), based on the novel by Pierre Loti, La Rafale (1920), Père Goriot (1921), based on the novel by Honoré de Balzac, Champi-Tortu (1921), based on the novel by Gaston Chérau, Le Rêve (1921), based on the novel by Émile Zola, Roger la honte (1922), based on the novel by Jules Mary, Pêcheur d'Islande (1924), also based on a novel by Loti, Nitchevo (1926), Le Duel (1927), starring Jean Murat, and La Femme et le pantin (1928), based on the novel by Pierre Louys.

   Baroncelli's early sound films include several remakes of his silent films. These include L'Arlésienne (1930), Le Rêve (1930), and Nitchevo (1936). He also made a number of melodramas, another genre he had developed during his silent film years. His early sound melodramas include Le Dernier choc (1932), Gitanes (1933), and Le Calvaire de Cimiez (1934). His aristocratic origins show through in Soyez les bienvenus (1940), a satire on the nouveau riche. After this he seems to have gone in several directions, making costume dramas such as Michel Strogoff (1935) and gritty dramas like Le Pavillion brûle (1941), starring Jean Marais.

   Perhaps his best-remembered film is his so-called ethnographic drama, L'Homme du Niger (1939), an epic ode to French colonialism. Some have seen this film as an anomaly in Baroncelli's work. However, there are, to those who look closely, a number of similarities between this film and his larger body of work. Baroncelli had a long-standing interest in the exotic travel writer Pierre Loti, also known for his glorification of colonialism, and he had adapted a number of Loti's novels. It is also worth noting that there is a distinctly exotic colonial backdrop to his film SOS Sahara (1938). What is more, even when he was filming in or about France, there is a certain exotic tone to some of Baroncelli's films, particularly those that deal with those who lie outside the mainstream of French culture. Le Roi de Camargue (1934) is a case in point.

   Near the end of his career, Baroncelli seems to have returned to what he knew best, literary adaptation. He made La Duchesse de Langeais (1942), adapted from the novel by Balzac and starring Edwige Feuillère, as well as Rocambole (1948) and La Revanche de Baccarat (1948), both based on novels by Pierre-Alexis Ponson du Terrail and both starring Pierre Brasseur.