Serge Bromberg
One evening when I was a child, my father brought home a Super 8 projector with a reel whose trailer he put into the machine, making a lanky man with a moustache immediately appear onto the screen. It was A Night in the Show, my first Chaplin film.

 

I was fascinated by the ritual use of the projector and the screen, the obligation to stay in the dark, and also the possibility, which is obvious today, to watch one's favourite images again and again. Except that regarding the high cost of the films, home cinema often concerned silent films, old Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy, or even Felix the Cat. This was the time of Super 8 and the end of Pathe Baby, and I was not even 10.

 

Eric Lange
In the 1930's my grandfather had bought a projector and a film camera Pathe Baby, which enabled him to screen some classics at home, but also to shoot his own films. When I was given the whole, I felt like using it again and looked for other films to screen; thus I discovered a universe as huge as underrated. Twenty years ago silent cinema did not interest many people, only some fanatics exerted themselves to share their love for this "other cinema"!

 

Serge Bromberg
Very soon I felt that my desire to collect images was meaningless, if the images were not shared with others. I organised my first film club screenings with my schoolmates when I was 10. I soon realised that, if I wanted to keep my audience, I had to entertain them, to surprise them or fill them with enthusiasm.
And as I could not compete with what they could watch in movie theatres, I thought up all sorts of tricks to develop their loyalty: films to be continued, enticing trailers, anecdotes about the films, etc.

 

 

Serge Bromberg
My approach today is the same. But unlike traditional film clubs, where a debate or boring talks follow the screening, I give clues, not all of them, and I am careful not to do a pompous analysis. When you don't have an appetite, you're not able to savour a nice meal. Similarly, when you don't know ancient cinema, you may not spontaneously feel like attending a show like this. And yet, to taste it is to adopt it! The audience proves it screenings after screenings.

 

Eric Lange
Most collectors keep their treasures secretly. Serge and I had different tastes but we agreed on what a collection should be, that a film must be screened rather than just being kept on some shelf. We control every life stage of the films we show: we find nitrate prints everywhere in France, we spend time identifying them, we restore and present them. Behind each film's history lies the story of the film's discovery.

 

Serge Bromberg
This is why the Retour de Flamme shows, running well because of the successive public performances, are known as Chef meals and made up of different courses. Every show is a succession of dramas, actors' auditions, comic films, or cartoons, in black and white or colour, with sound or silent. We will thus have an appetiser, a starter, a main course, cheese and dessert. A little liqueur frequently finishes it with a flourish. And if these films surprise us so much, they will certainly surprise our audience. It is a matter of poetry above all!

 

 

 

Serge Bromberg
Yes, but not in the way one can imagine. Some people think preserving films and reediting them means give them a second life. It is only partly true. To rediscover images of a completely unknown world, because forgotten for a long time, brings us back to that school years climate of open-mindedness and enthusiasm when everything is still to be discovered.

 

Eric Lange
For the majority of people, old movies are necessarily black and white with plenty of scratches and a terribly poor quality of image! But it does not matter, as they are old! On the contrary, we attempt to prove that these films, shown in beautifully restored prints, still have the power to fill an audience with wonder and entertain it. There is, of course, a 'lost paradise' aspect, which is quite attractive.

 

Before being an Art, cinema is a show. Silent films are not exclusively meant for some crazy cinemagoers or television insomniacs! Even if our films can satisfy 'hard-line' experts, we try to bring them to a larger audience. Some years ago for example, we found a lost film starring Buster Keaton. We restored it and then realised it was unfortunately a third-rate film. We preferred to show a much better one even if it was not as rare. On the other hand we regularly show totally unknown, yet really excellent films.

 

 

 

Serge Bromberg
To fight against oblivion is certainly an incidental result of the shows, about which I can't complain. Besides, the films we find and restore are generally shown in other festivals and in most respectable museums and film archives. To save films from oblivion by discovering them in unusual places, packed tight in dirty rusty film cans, and restore them back to the light and applause of fully booked theatres, is very rewarding work on memory, believe me!

 

 

Serge Bromberg
Pleasure and discovery. Somebody after a show said: 'At last something new on the screen!' I found it outstanding. And indeed I feel that film productions tend to be more and more standardised, marketing campaigns follow one another and images just flash in theatres or at home at a sustained rate.
Here we offer exactly the contrary: time has stopped, emotion appears, you forget everyday worries and you watch high quality images emerging from the past like a bottle from the ocean, reviving the most beautiful jewels of ancient cinema.

Eric Lange
Entertainment comes first. A long, boring drama directed by a Swedish 'Master' will never have a chance to be shown during Retour de Flamme. We have a marked preference for slapsticks of the 1920's - so inventive and funny - as well as for early cinema of the 1910's, which is often very touching despite some weaknesses. It is difficult to remain indifferent to a hand-tinted fantasy from the turn of the century; this kind of films seems to come from other times, like the illuminations of Incunabula. We mix every genre - comic films, trick films, documentaries, etc - always favouring unusual works.

 

Serge Bromberg
You don't have to be a film buff or to have some knowledge of cinema heritage here. On the contrary, I think that those who immersed themselves everyday in this universe are less surprised and less enthusiastic. To take the best of the shows, you just have to become a child again, with a fresh eye and a fresh ear.

 

 

 

Serge Bromberg
To gather even more enthusiastic people for the next show, to be able to enjoy myself for a long time more!

 

Eric Lange
When we organised the first shows in 1992, we always put one or two shorts with famous names in the programme to attract the audience. The other films were as fascinating, but those ones served as the lure!
Today, people who have heard about the name and the concept of Retour de Flamme just come on trust. We have managed to interest a larger and larger audience to see films by Charley Bowers or Segundo de Chomon. A word-of-mouth reputation precedes us. People are carried away by films they did not even know of a few hours before. They don't come to watch one particular film, but to attend a show.