Evil Women: Musidora

This month, in addition to film review posts, we'll be focusing on a number of actresses who helped to define the idea of a femme fatale, a stock character of a seductive, mysterious, often exotic woman intent on bringing men to their downfalls that has been consistently employed by films over the past century and a half. Join us for the fourth installment of June's theme: Evil Women.

There was Theda, and there was Musidora. The French actress, film director, and producer who symbolized the vamp concurrently with Theda Bara in the 1910s, Musidora's legacy as an actress and director can be seen in some of the great avant-garde masterpieces of the twentieth century, such as the films of Fritz Lang and Luis Buñuel, as well as the writings of Louis Aragon and André Breton. Musidora's look has been one of the most enduring images of early cinema, and her appearance has been translated by dozens of artists of all mediums throughout the years. Certainly one of her largest contributions to film was as her role as Irma Vep (an anagram of "Vampire") in Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires, a cinema serial focusing on a gang of Parisian criminals who are, though strange, not actually vampires. Beyond her collaboration with Feuillade, Musidora is celebrated in her own right as being one of the first French female directors, as well as for her feminist advocacy. I think I can say with full certainty that while the other actresses profiled for this month's theme are interesting and unique in their own ways, nobody can match up to the magnitude of Musidora as an enduring image of an early femme fatale.

Born Jeanne Roques on February 23rd, 1889 in Paris, Musidora was the daughter of a feminist literary critic mother and a socialist musician father. Her childhood was full of both politics and art, and she was raised with the opportunity to pursue any number of creative endeavors. By the time she was fifteen she had written a novel and begun acting onstage alongside her lifetime friend, the writer and actress Colette. Her first film was Raphael Clamour's 1914 feminist film Les Miseres de L'aiguille. She adopted the stage name Musidora, inspired by Théophile Gautier's novel Fortunio.

Soon into her film career she met and befriended the renowned French film director Louis Feuillade, beginning a long-term collaboration. In 1915, she began appearing in Feuillade's ongoing crime serial Les Vampires, playing a femme fatale cabaret singer and dancer involved with an underground criminal gang. Although, as previously stated, nobody in the film is actually a vampire, Musidora appears in costumes that suggest occultism, such as her famous long black leotard and bat cape. Les Vampires is considered one of the longest films ever made, almost seven hours in length when viewed straight through, and is considered a surrealist masterpiece, although that was never Feuillade's intention.

Although she appeared in several films following Les Vampires, Musidora was always affiliated with her iconic role as Irma Vep. Shortly after her film debut she turned her attention to directing. Her first feature, now lost, was 1915's Minne, based on her friend Colette's life story. Throughout the rest of Musidora's career she worked closely with Colette to adapt her novels to film. Success did not come easy to Musidora, especially as a female film director, and many of her films were flops. In an attempt to sidestep some of the vicious sexism and roadblocks, she founded her own film production company in 1919, La Société des Films Musidora, a common move for women directors at the time. Several of the films she made later in her career were shot in different parts of Europe, including France, Italy, and Spain, where she shot her 1924 film La Terre des Toros (The Land of the Bulls). Her final film was 1951's La Magique Image.

During her later years Musidora was involved in the war effort, and spent more and more of her time writing and producing. She also made ventures into stage direction and songwriting and, in the years prior to her death, worked at the ticket booth of the Cinémathèque Française, unbeknownst to the patrons of the cinema.

Musidora was a muse to many well-known directors, actors, literary minds, and artists of France during the early twentieth century. In addition to her lifelong friendships and artistic collaborations with Colette and Feuillade, she was also friends with writer Pierre Louÿs and fellow female filmmaker Germaine Dulac. She was captured by various artists for her iconic style her entire life. I'm fascinated by Musidora's contributions to the vamp image, as well as her unique and powerful screen performances. Les Vampires is all on Youtube, and I encourage everyone to watch at least clips from it to see Musidora's hypnotizing, very strange performance. Although the film history covered in this blog is primarily meant to focus on American cinema, it would be impossible to discuss the "vamp" persona without mentioning the contributions of Musidora. As an actress and a model she became the European equivalent of Theda Bara, and as a director and producer she is remembered today as one of the pioneering female filmmakers of her time.