The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy

Overview

"Taking its title from John Keats’s early 19th-century poem, this highly personal melodrama finds Dulac interrogating the archetype of the femme fatale. La belle dame sans merci follows a famous actress who was once seduced and abandoned by a rich man and subsequently resolved to become a “merciless woman,” forever scheming to hurt others (men in particular) in a ruthless yet captivating manner. Dulac challenges the Romantic archetype embodied in Keats’s poem by way of symbolist mise en scène, self-reflexive narration, and her typically associative approach to editing, locating a modern ambiguity within the stereotypical figures of 19th-century art." - Film Society of Lincoln Center

Details

Status

Released

Release date

April 22, 1921

Original language

French

Countries

France

Production

D.H.

Cast

Tania Daleyme,Denise Lorys,Jean Tarride,Lucien Glen,Yolande Hillé,Jean Toulout,Pierre Mareg,Louis Monfils

Director

Germaine Dulac

Writer

Germaine Dulac,Irène Hillel-Erlanger

Budget

Not recorded

Revenue

Not recorded

IMDb

tt0131966