| One of the greatest and least-known directors of all
time, Raymond Bernard helped shape French cinema, at the dawn of the
sound era, into a truly formidable industry. Typical of films from
this period, Bernard's dazzling dramas painted intimate melodrama
on epic-scale canvases. These two masterpieces—the wrenching World
War I tragedy Wooden Crosses and a mammoth, nearly five-hour Les misérables,
widely considered the greatest film adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel—exemplify
the formal and narrative brilliance of an unjustly overshadowed cinematic
trailblazer. |