The silent westerns of director Jean Durand: Camargue Westerns – “Fiery Heart”

 

Coeur ardent – French title

Gloeiend Hart - ? title

Burning Heart – [English translated title]

The Heart of the Red Man – English title

Fiery Heart – English title

 

A 1912 French film production [Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont (Paris)]

Producer:

Director: Jean Durand

Screenplay: Frank Dilnotte

Cinematography:  [black & white]

Running time: 13 minutes

 

Story: After Sitting Bear rejects Coeur Ardent/Blazing Heart as a suitor for his daughter, Sun Ray/Firefly), the two lovers steal another tribe’s cattle as an offering to her father. Again rebuffed and told to return the herd, Coeur Ardent is captured by the other tribe and forced to undergo a “trial” in which he has to ride off while being shot at. Although wounded, he and his horse cross a wide river, and he collapses on the shore. Sun Ray hears the shooting, reaches him, and he takes her rifle to shoot several pursuing warriors from the other tribe. Sitting Bear now accepts Coeur Ardent’s bravery and agrees to the couple’s marriage.

 

Cast:

Coeur Ardent/Fiery Heart – Joë Hamman (Jean Hamman)

Mouche-de-Feu/Sun Ray/Firefly - Berthe Dagmar (Albertine Hamon)

Sitting Bear - Gaston Modot (Jean-Charles Barniaud)

 

“Fiery Heart, a young Indian, loves Sun Ray, the daughter of chief Sitting Bear. But Sitting Bear demands a herd of cattle from Fiery Heart. To gain Sitting Bulls approval, he attempts to single-handedly steal the herd from the neighboring tribe, almost starting a Tribal feud. Sitting Bear then realizes that Fiery Heart is a brave warrior and approves to the marriage. “cinefest” Not only did Europeans consume American Western films in large numbers; soon they were making their own. (…) Many of the thirty or so Westerns made in Britain before 1915 had Indian themes, as for example the Hepworth company’s “The Squatter’s Daughter” (1906), one of the very few of such films to survive. (...) The capture and rescue plot follows directly from the novels of Fenimore Cooper, from a myriad of dime novels and from the narrative elements of Buffalo Bill's show. A less lurid, more wistfully romantic view of Indians emerges in Jean Durand's Coeur Ardent (1912), a Western shot in the south of France, in the Camargue, a wild region that passes for the American prairies. The film has a real feel for the beauties of landscape and, like some American Westerns of the period, the story takes place entirely within Indian society, in an idealized world before conflict with whites. The film stars Joë Hamman, a French enthusiast of all things Western who had visited America and met Buffalo Bill. Durand and Hamman were to make several Westerns together in the period before the First World War.” Edward Buscombe: 'Injuns!': Native Americans in the Movies. Reaction Books 2006 “'Camargue Westerns' are used to describe films, preferably by director Jean Durand, which were shot between 1910 and 1912 on behalf of Gaumont in the Camargue region of southern France. The main actor in these films was the actor Joë Hamman. Hamman had previously traveled the United States and met Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show. When Buffalo Bill came to Europe with his show, Hamman even took part in numerous performances. Hamman brought these experiences to the films with Durand. Among the best-known Camargue westerns that also survive are Pendaison à “Jefferson City” (1911), “Coeur Ardent” (1912), and “La prairie en feu” (1912). Typical for the European western, a European landscape is also used here, which is supposed to represent the Wild West of the USA.” ~ Thomas Klein

Entire film link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJN-AbeeH58&t=125s