(At the time he seemed to be thinking of a tradition begun by the films of Georges Méliès, though in his later memoirs he made a link rather with a style derived from the Lumière brothers, in which realistic images were here pushed towards a kind of surrealism.

)[4] It gave him the opportunity to return to the kinds of experiment with visual style, and now also with sound effects, which had marked silent films such as L'Inhumaine and Feu Mathias Pascal.

In an interview in 1967 L'Herbier reflected further on the starting points for the film, including the Melancholia by Dürer, a picture in which realistic elements are arranged and lit strangely, creating the effect of a dreamy meditation.

[5] The dialogue was written by Henri Jeanson, uncredited because he was at the time forbidden to work for the press or the cinema following his imprisonment for pacifist writings and non-cooperation with the Vichy government.

L'Herbier described the working conditions as being the worst he had known because of the extreme cold, sometimes as low as -15 °C, but at the same time he found it an exhilarating experience because he felt a creative freedom that he not known for many years.