Lucrezia Borgia (1935): Abel Gance’s historical fever dream

Is this for you?

If you like your history lessons served with a side of dramatic shadow and questionable morals, sure. It’s definitely not for anyone who needs a breezy, modern pace. If you get bored by guys in velvet robes talking about power while leaning against stone walls, you’ll probably want to head for the exit before the first act finishes.

Edwige Feuillère is honestly the only reason to really stick with this one. She’s got this way of looking at the camera that makes you feel like she’s already finished reading your diary. The rest of the court? They’re mostly just busy being loud and murderous.

The Gance Touch

You can tell Abel Gance is behind the lens because the scale feels weirdly massive, even when they’re just sitting around a table drinking wine that probably shouldn't be consumed. It’s not as frantic as his other work, like Sankichi the Monkey: The Storm Troopers, but there’s a persistent weight to the whole thing. The way the shadows hit the stone floors in the palace hallways makes the place look more like a tomb than a home. Which, let’s be real, it kind of is.

The pacing is a bit of a mood. Sometimes it feels like we’re stuck in a loop of people whispering behind curtains, and then suddenly, someone gets poisoned and the whole mood shifts. It’s not balanced. It’s not supposed to be.

• There’s a scene where they’re plotting a marriage, and the background extras look like they’re just waiting for the craft services table to open.
• The dialogue is thick. You have to pay attention, or you’ll miss exactly which brother is betraying which cousin.
• I spent way too long staring at the texture of the tapestries instead of following the plot. They’re very nice tapestries.

It’s not as light-hearted as The Paleface, obviously. It’s heavy. Sometimes it’s too heavy. There’s a moment toward the middle where I felt like the movie was just daring me to keep caring about these terrible people. I did, mostly because the costumes are just too much to look away from.

Watching this made me think about La garçonne in terms of how they handle the weight of social expectations, though the eras are light-years apart. It’s a different kind of trap, but a trap nonetheless. Lucrezia is just trying to breathe while the men around her keep rearranging her life.

It’s a bit of a slog, but a pretty one. Don’t go in expecting a tight thriller. Go in expecting a moody, old-school drama that doesn’t mind spending three minutes on a reaction shot that tells you absolutely everything you need to know about the corruption of Rome. 🍷