Shot in 1932, after L'Or des mers, Les Berceaux is an authentic Epsteinian pearl, because of the perfect symbiosis between images and music. The text of the melody was written by the Parnassian poet Sully Prudhomme:
Along the Quay, the large ships,
Let the swell incline in silence,
Do not take heed of the cradles,
Let the hand of women swing.
But the day of farewell will come,
For women must weep,
And that curious men
Tempt the horizons that deceive!
And on that day the great ships,
Fleeing from the diminishing port,
Feel their mass held back
By the soul of distant cradles.
This poem was set to music by Gabriel Fauré in 1879 and became one of his most famous melodies. Written in the "liquid" key of B♭ minor, it flows to a regular barcarolle rhythm, in a stream of eighth notes to the piano part that represents a gentle swell. In the film, the melody is performed by André Gaudin, from the Opéra-Comique.
To accompany this music, Jean Epstein and his cameraman Joseph Barth filmed, in the spring of 1932, in the bay of Cancale and in Saint-Malo, a large sailing ship leaving the port and reaching the sea at sunrise while a sailor's wife rocks her baby at home. Simple and beautiful images, where the music of light and wind seems to echo that of melody.
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