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French Avant-GardeFilm 2 of 18
The Vampires or, The Arch Criminals of Paris
Les Vampires
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Louis Feuillade, Gaumont, 1915 to 1916: ten episodes, more than six hours. Journalist Philippe Guérande (Édouard Mathé) tracks a criminal league that calls itself the Vampires; Musidora, in a black bodystocking, is Irma Vep, an anagram he has to decode on a hotel board. Each chapter ends on a trap, a poison ring, a roof. The Cinémathèque française holds the set that circulates. Feuillade was still shooting Fantômas logic in wartime Paris, one episode ahead of the censors.
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Six hours of crime on real Paris streets, and the Surrealists watched it on a loop. Irma Vep in a black bodystocking on a roof is the image. Feuillade did not mean it as a dream. That is why it works as one.
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