THE ROSE OF THE SEA © LA ROSE DE LA MER © 1946 PATHE FILMS
Jacques de Baroncelli: a taste for the sea
With The Sea Rose (1946), silent movie legend and talking picture pioneer Jacques de Baroncelli adapted Paul Vialar’s 1939 novel, now screened as part of Cannes Classics.
Romain Jardehu (Fernand Ledoux) and his nephew Jérôme (Roger Pigaut) have an old cargo ship named The Sea Rose. One day, Jérôme realises that his uncle and the captain along with his crooked crew plan on sinking the boat for the insurance payout.
On the point of intervening, he discovers a stowaway who has just given birth, and entrusts her baby to him before she dies. To save the child, Jérôme kills a man and manages to steer the ship back to port before turning himself in.
“Baroncelli’s only fault is that he doesn’t have any. He is remarkably talented, and has not yet hindered or complicated his gifts to elevate them,” said Louis Delluc of this former journalist, who remained one of France’s most prolific directors until he died at the age of 69, having made over 80 films between 1915 and 1947.
Back in his silent film days, he was hailed for the quality of his book-to-screen adaptations, including Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac and The Dream by Émile Zola. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he did not struggle with the shift from silent to talking movies.
From everyday dramas to colonial epics, period melodramas and mysteries, Jacques de Baroncelli was fluent in all styles, but had a soft spot for high drama at high sea, as illustrated by his The King of the Sea (1917), the silent masterpiece Island Fisherman (1924), and The Sea Rose.
Presented by Pathé. Restored in 4K from original nitrate negatives, a sound negative and a film negative, as well as standard first-generation brown film. Work carried out by the L’Image Retrouvée laboratory.
Attended by Sophie Seydoux, President of the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé.
