Alcohol and Its Victims
About Alcohol and Its Victims
A working family eats together in a plain, comfortable room. Friends pull the husband into a café, where he drinks and plays dice, and he shoves his wife away when she comes with the children. The same family is later in a bare attic, and he thrashes on the floor in delirium. In a padded cell he rips off a straitjacket, dances, and drops.
Cast & crew
More about Alcohol and Its Victims
Ferdinand Zecca directed five scenes drawn from Zola's L'Assommoir, each one wide shot on a theater set. A circulating copy runs about 5 minutes. The French title is Les Victimes de l'alcoolisme.
Themes
Look
Each of the five scenes is a single static wide shot in front of a painted set.
Preservation
A print with French titles circulates.
Notes
- Wikipedia calls it the first film taken from L'Assommoir.
- The five titles run from the happy household, to the wine merchant, to the cabaret, to the attic, to the madhouse.
- The camera does not move inside a scene.
Scenes
- The wife and children come to the café and are pushed off.
- He tears the straitjacket in the cell and falls still.
Influenced by
- Émile Zola's novel L'Assommoir (1877)
Also available
- Internet Archive (FerdinandZeccaLesVictimesDeLalcolisme)
