{"id":12666,"date":"2025-02-07T10:57:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T16:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu\/?p=12666"},"modified":"2025-02-07T11:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T17:01:11","slug":"lafcadio-1948","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php\/2025\/02\/07\/lafcadio-1948\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost & Found: Jean B\u00e9ranger\u2019s \u201cLafcadio\u201d (1948)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zachary Zahos<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the course of an average day, archivists at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research handle one-of-a-kind materials, whose historical value draws researchers from across the globe. But rare is the day when we stumble upon a genuinely lost<\/i> film in our holdings.<\/p>\n

This happened recently with the WCFTR\u2019s rediscovery of Lafcadio<\/i> (1948). Directed by Jean B\u00e9ranger, Lafcadio<\/i> is an avant-garde short, filmed in Paris in 1948, that stands out for its time due to its nonlinear structure and candid, sympathetic depiction of queer sexuality. At present, we have not found evidence that other prints of Lafcadio<\/i> exist, on either side of the Atlantic, nor have we encountered a record of Lafcadio<\/i> screening publicly, or otherwise being available to view, for over 50 years. Accordingly, the WCFTR is thrilled to rectify Lafcadio<\/i>\u2019s decades of obscurity and spread the word about this fascinating and innovative short film.<\/p>\n

Directed by Jean B\u00e9ranger, Lafcadio<\/i> is an avant-garde short, filmed in Paris in 1948, that stands out for its time due to its nonlinear structure and candid, sympathetic depiction of queer sexuality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The print in our collection, a 16mm internegative, originates from Amos Vogel<\/a>, founder of New York\u2019s influential film society Cinema 16<\/a>. In the annals of postwar American film culture, Vogel stands out as one the era\u2019s most important educators, curators, and authors, as evidenced by his authoritative book Film as a Subversive Art<\/i><\/a>, his co-founding of the New York Film Festival, and his years of teaching film at leading institutions including the University of Pennsylvania. Among his peers, Vogel was particularly attuned to, in his words, \u201cthe accelerating worldwide trend toward a more liberated cinema, in which subjects and forms hitherto considered unthinkable or forbidden are boldly explored.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Scan<\/a>
Cover of 1963 Cinema 16 rental catalog. Courtesy of Media History Digital Library<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vogel\u2019s belief in cinema\u2019s potential as a subversive <\/i>art attracted him to the work of Jean B\u00e9ranger. For a 1963 Cinema 16 distribution catalog<\/a>, Vogel described Lafcadio<\/i> as follows:<\/p>\n

The confusions of adolescence are suggested in this sensitive study of homosexual emotions culminating in real or imagined suicide. The constant blending of realism and fantasy is reminiscent of stream-of-consciousness poetry. Interesting experiment by young [sic<\/i>] French filmmaker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As implied by its inclusion in Cinema 16\u2019s catalog, Vogel not only screened Lafcadio<\/i> at his film society (in June 1951<\/a>), but he also acquired it, as well as several other short films by B\u00e9ranger, for Cinema 16\u2019s circulating film library. One of these other B\u00e9ranger films was Elisabeth<\/i> (1946), which first showed at Cinema 16 in October 1951<\/a>. In the aforementioned 1963 catalog, Vogel described Elisabeth<\/i> as follows: \u201cFilmed in Paris by a now well-known French film maker, this is an unorthodox story of a lonely young woman whose longing for love finally culminates in tragedy. The ending carries a shock of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/a>
Still from Elisabeth (1946, Jean B\u00e9ranger)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Notably, Lafcadio<\/i> did not receive commercial distribution in its native France, and we have yet to find evidence it played at all elsewhere in Europe. But thanks to the wide reach of Cinema 16\u2014and after 1966, its distribution partner Grove Press\u2014Lafcadio<\/i> and Elisabeth<\/i> screened at dozens of \u201cnontheatrical\u201d venues across the United States between 1950 and 1974. These venues ranged from college film societies across the Upper Midwest to Jewish Community Centers in the New York Tri-State area. Lafcadio<\/i> last screened publicly on September 30, 1974, at the Peoria School of Medicine in Illinois. In 1976, Grove Press returned its prints of Lafcadio<\/i> and Elisabeth<\/i> to B\u00e9ranger in Paris, where he died in 2000<\/a>, at the age of 75.<\/p>\n

The path to Lafcadio<\/i>\u2019s rediscovery was paved by individual determination, institutional support, and ample good luck. Vogel donated his papers and film materials to the WCFTR in the early 1980s. It took until 2023 for the WCFTR to begin processing this collection in full, thanks to a $103,063 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. This generous grant facilitated the WCFTR\u2019s two-year project, \u201cExpanding Film Culture\u2019s Field of Vision: Processing and Sharing the Collections of Amos Vogel, Jump Cut<\/i>, Angles<\/i>, and the Wisconsin Film Festival,\u201d the full details of which this blog has shared previously<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These funds went directly to the processing of Vogel\u2019s collection, in part through the WCFTR\u2019s hiring of Matt St. John as a processing archivist. Last August, while researching the films donated by Vogel, St. John looked into the 16mm internegative print for Lafcadio<\/i>, as well as one for Elisabeth<\/i> (1946), and determined they were no longer in circulation nor seemingly available at other archives. With the help of WCFTR Film and Video Archivist Amanda Smith and UW-Madison\u2019s Department of Communication Arts, these internegative prints were soon digitized. Neither print is in pristine condition, and the WCFTR\u2019s print of Elisabeth<\/i> is notably incomplete, as it is missing about five minutes of its originally stated 15-minute runtime. But the archive\u2019s print of Lafcadio<\/i> is complete: projected at 24 frames per second, it runs 14 minutes and 40 seconds, from opening titles to \u201cFIN.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an internegative, this 16mm print of Lafcadio<\/i> was likely not intended for viewing on its own. Vogel likely kept this internegative print in New York to strike additional rental prints, or otherwise use as a backup. Given its faded condition, the WCFTR\u2019s print has probably been duplicated or projected on its own many times in the past. In addition, this print is silent, as was the original film. According to a separate collection of Amos Vogel manuscripts, housed at Columbia University\u2019s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Lafcadio<\/i> circulated across the U.S. with a gramophone accompaniment of classical music cues by Erik Satie and Darius Milhaud. The WCFTR does not possess this gramophone record, nor have we identified the exact cues on this accompanying soundtrack as of yet. Yet even with these caveats, of all the Lafcadio<\/i> prints that once circulated, this internegative survives and thus functions as a record of B\u00e9ranger\u2019s original intentions.<\/p>\n