In the Night
FrenchDans la nuit
Directed byCharles Vanel
Written byCharles Vanel
Starring
Release date
  • 1930 (1930)
Running time
75 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent

Dans la nuit (English: In the Night) is a 1929 French silent film by Charles Vanel.[1][2] The film is a macabre drama about a disfigured worker who wears a mask to hide his face from his unfaithful wife. The producers imposed a happy ending on the film.[3] Louis Sclavis recorded a jazz soundtrack album Dans la nuit for ECM in 2002.[4]

Plot

In a small mining town, a couple gets married, attending a celebration in town before returning home for the night. Months later, the husband is injured because of an explosion at the pit where he works. He survives but is left with disfiguring scars on his face, which he covers with a mask.

The wife falls for another man, and the two form a plan to run away together. At the last minute, the husband comes home to find them together, ready to leave. The two men get into a fight, each wearing a mask, and the husband is overpowered. They dump the body into a pool of water in the mine. The following morning, the wife begs to leave town, only to find that her husband had attacked her affair partner and taken his place before they hid the body. She awakens in bed to see her unscarred husband and realizes that the whole story had been a terrible nightmare.

References

  1. ↑ Eckel, Julia; Leiendecker, Bernd; Olek, Daniela; Piepiorka, Christine (31 March 2014). (Dis)Orienting Media and Narrative Mazes. ISBN 9783839423387. Sometimes, those scenarios remain on a rather general level, for example the dream in DANS LA NUIT (France 1929, Charles Vanel), which shows what would happen to a young couple if the husband suffered a disfiguring accident, ...
  2. ↑ Philippe Rège Encyclopedia of French Film Directors - Volume 1 81086939X - 2009
  3. ↑ Borger, Lenny (26 April 1989). "Charles Vanel, esteemed character actor, dead at 96". Variety. p. 12.
  4. ↑ "Jazz Journal International". Jazz Journal International. 56: 42. 2003. Such visual or poetic factors are central to this, his original score for the recently restored version of a classic French film from the end of the silent era, Charles Vanel's 1929 Dans La Nuit. One of the most immediately attractive of Sclavis's ...


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