La Fille de Jephté (Jephthah's Daughter, Henri Andréani, 1913)

Rob Kranz was kind enough to let me know that copy of Pathé's 1913 film La Fille de Jephté (Jephthah's Daughter, 1913) is available on YouTube. It's not actually the full version, which according to the old Pathé archive site ran to 405m (~30 minutes), but the Pathé Baby version which (on YouTube) runs to only 4m57s.

Despite it's short running time the film manages to pack in most of the essential elements of the story from Judges 11 with one glaring exception. The Gileadite leaders plead with Jephthah, previously a social outcast, to lead them in a battle with the Ammonites. He accepts and vows to God that if he wins he will burn as an offering the first person to leave his house. When he gets home the first person through the doors is his own daughter, who then submits to her father's sickening vow.

Two of the most notable omissions are Jepthah's long speech (11:12-28) and his daughter's two months weeping and wandering in the mountains (11:37-40), so it would be interesting to know what was in the 20-25 minutes left on the cutting room floor. Given that the intertitles are fairly long and appear quite often in this print, it's not unreasonable to assume Jephthah's speech may have been included in part, or even at length, likewise with the trip to the mountains.

However, the really puzzling omission is the actual sacrifice of the daughter, here called Leïla and played by Jeanne Bérangère. According to a rather old page at cineartistes.com Bérangère was a theatre actor before the Pathé's tempted her into cinema where she worked until 1928. She starred (though not as the lead) in Andréani and Zecca's Shakespearean adaptation Cleopatra (1910) among other roles. She was born in 1864 meaning that at the time of filming she was around almost 50, which is probably rather older than we would typically assume the daughter of a warrior to be (Henri Etiévant who played her on-screen father was six years her junior).

Instead the closing scene features Bérangère kneeling (pictured below) before two handmaidens cover her with a bed-sheet-sized veil obscuring her face from view. This is a fascinating piece of imagery. Shorn of an actual scene of the sacrifice, this acts as a replacement. The veil is reminiscent of the sheets placed on bed placed over dead bodies, but also a simple of way of obscuring her from our view as if she is no longer present, gone but not forgotten. 

Moreover it could also be read as a comment on the way that the name of her idiotic father has been passed down to us, while she has been obscured from history, forever nameless and therefore, in a way, faceless. An then there's also a sense of holiness, like the veil between the majority of the temple and the holy of holies, or (more pertinently) the veil that Moses wears after his encounters with God in Exodus 34:35.

As I've mentioned before, films about Jephthah and his daughter are few and far between, but occur mainly in this early silent period around the turn of the decade. Prior to this one (and it's longer sibling)  J. Stuart Blackton made one in 1909 for Vitagraph (which I included in my book) and Léonce Perret / Louis Feuillade did the same for Gaumont in 1910 (there's more on that one at the excellent BetweenMovies, including a writing credit for a certain Abel Gance). That one was also known as The Vow.

However, 1913 saw not one but two films titled Jephthah's Daughter, as J. Farrell MacDonald produced another 25-30 minute version of the story for Warner (my review). This one was directed by Henri Andréani, whose name I will always associate with melodrama, following David Shepherd's chapter about his work in his monograph "The Bible on Silent Film". Here there is plenty of melodrama, especially from Mr Etiévant as Jephthah. (In addition starring in roughly 66 movies, Etiévant ended up as a director himself taking charge of around 27 films starting that same year, having co-directed La fin d'un joueur (1911) with André Calamettes). 

One area where Andréani's thumbprint seems clearest is his staging of the battle scene. This large scale scene, featuring a huge crowd of extras looks so similar in composition and camera placing / movement looks so similar to the battle scenes from Andréani's earlier Absalon (Absalom, 1912) that I was convinced he'd simply reused the battle footage from the earlier film. Close inspection reveals this not to be the case. Perhaps he was reusing spare footage he shot on that day, or perhaps he knew how (and, I think, where) he liked to film these shots. Either way it's not hard to imagine that in the fuller version of this movie, the scene is as impressive as it is in Absalon.

Of course with any Jephthah movie the key issue is not the battle scenes, but how it handles the terrible twist in the story. Do they try and justify Jephthah's actions or excuse it. Certainly the absence of the sacrifice scene itself removes some of the horror of the actual story. This needless death happens off-screen. Moreover the absence of the daughter's last days in the mountains also misses the chance to humanise her and to bring her centre stage. Bérangère becomes a rather peripheral figure. Her father is presented as the hero. 

Moreover it's he who is permitted a horrified reaction (again allowing the audience to sympathise with him). Bérangère remains placid and unaffected, calmly accepting her awful fate. The one point I will note in the film's favour in this respect is that the intertitles clearly say that Jephthah's vow (Judges 11:31) was made with human sacrifice in mind. Jephthah promises to sacrifice "la première personne" (the first person) that leaves the house, rather than "whatever" as most English translations render it. The NRSV, my preferred translation, goes for "whoever", though as do the two French versions I checked. It's seemingly one of those passages whose translation is largely determined by your prior convictions about what you think happened.

Perhaps this cut ending where it does leaves such questions open ended, in a similar way to how some argue the sudden ending of Mark might intend to. It leaves. us with questions. Given the vow he has made, what should he do. Would God mind if he broke his vow to avoid such a horrible outcome? So much of Judges plays like a series of cautionary tales, and perhaps this is a good way to translate that sense back into a 'modern' context

The Canon in the Early Silent Era pt.1

At the end of last year I started a series looking at how the idea of "canon" relates to the Bible on Film. There's not been much on it recently maybe because I decided that to write on the subject with any authority I needed to do some proper research and produce the fullest list possible of filmed version of the Bible so that I could do some analysis on them. That in itself has become a project in and of itself and I'm hoping to write more about that soon. For now however the logical place from where to continue the series is at the beginining, in that earliest part of the silent period I discussed in the previous post in this series.

In the period up to the end of 1915 (prior to the release of D.W. Griffith's Intolerance) at least 114 films based on the Hebrew Bible were produced. From a quick glance of these, it seems all the usual suspects are present. Moses, David, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Samson all feature fairly prominently and there are also films about Joseph, Esther, Noah, Solomon and others who have consistently proved popular for filmmakers, preachers and Sunday School teachers alike.

But it's not long however before other far less usual names start to occur. In 1910, the year when perhaps more biblical films were in cinemas than at any other point in history, Gaumont released the fourth entry in their Les Sept Péchés Capitaux series, La Luxure which told the story of Susanna and the Elders (based on the deuterocanonical story of Susanna - Susanna/Daniel 13). This tale of attempted sexual coercion and false accusation is fairly dark for the period although it's not hard to imagine its message of the importance of female virtue might be something the filmmakers wished to stress.

The following year Gaumont released Fils de la Sunamite (1911, The Son of the Shunamite) directed by Louis Feuillade. This story, based on an episode from the life of Elisha, has less dramatic potential, but obviously a strong emotional element, and its appeal is based more on miraculous elements than the spectacular. Elisha's only other screen appearances are as a cartoon, from the Animated Stories from the Bible series, Elisha: Man of God (1994), Riding for a Fall, part of the Bugtime Adventures series and the subversive online animation Don't Dis Elisha from Extreme Bible Stories (which I discussed here).

Just as active in this period were Pathé Frères who released Athalie (1910, dir. Michel Carré) about queen Athaliah, the daughter/sister of King Ahab who seized the Jewish throne after Jehu's revolt (2 Kings 8 & 11). It's a fascinating story that contains more than enough drama to fill the film's 20 or so minutes, but which has, to my knowledge, only been attempted two other times in the entire history of biblical films - two sixties, made for TV, productions from France (1962, dir. Roger Kahane) and Italy (1964, dir. Mario Ferrero). The following year Pathé Frères produced a slightly more familiar Old Testament film - Jaël et Sisera (1911), one of the many biblical films directed by Henri Andréani in this period. This is, as far as I can tell, the only time the events of Judges 4 have found their way onto the screen and it's curious that even in this case, the story's usual leading lady - Deborah - is omitted.

In some ways it's surprising to find these stories covered at all - across all of film history there are only seven versions of these four stories. After this early silent period when we get these four treatments they were almost never covered again and that the stories are relatively obscure to modern believers and audiences.

In effect there are three measures:
1. How many times was the film adapted in this first era of cinema?
2. How many times was it covered subsequently?
3. How well known is it to modern believers/audiences?

These film versions of Athaliah, Elisha, Susanna and Jael/Deborah are notable because whilst they were covered in this early period, even then they might be considered one-offs. Furthermore, they score poorly on the last two measures. Other stories covered in this period however score more prominently in one of the other categories, but still lack a lot of coverage in the modern period.

One such story is the story of Jephthah. The tragic story of Jephthah's daughter was covered no less than four times in this earliest period (Vitagraph, Gaumont, Pathé and Warner), but has only had one subsequent adaption - Einat Kapach's Bat Yiftach [Jephtah's Daughter] (1996). It is similarly obscure to modern audiences, but this subsequent swerve to obscurity is made more surprising by its popularity within this period. Perhaps this is down the first film performing particularly well at the box office, but there is relatively little evidence to support such an assertion.

Another story to buck these trends is that of Judith. Arguably the most famous Hebrew Bible film in this era is D.W. Griffith's Judith of Bethulia (1914), not least because its director was subsequently catapulted into controversy and stardom. However, by the time Griffith's version had arrived there had already been three other films produced about the story (from Italy, 1906; France, 1909, pictured above; and the UK, 1912). But whereas interest in films about Jephthah and his daughter had begun to peter out, Judith films continued to appear, albeit far more rarely than most other stories, and largely in Catholic countries, hence there was one other film in the silent era (dir.Negroni, 1928), at least seven television films from 1959-1969 as well as a few later entries in 1979, 1980 and 2007. More details about these films can be found here.

Whilst this story remains fairly obscure to modern audiences, particularly to those in Protestant churches/countries, there is one story that is well-known to modern audiences and was popular in the silent era and yet has hardly been adapted in subsequent periods: the stories around Daniel.

The first films about Daniel were the amongst the very first biblical films, the earliest being two from Pathé in 1905, Le Festin de Balthazar and Daniel dans la fosse aux lions. These were followed up by no less than seven other Daniel films in this earliest period (five of which were from Gaumont). All the more surprising then that following the last of these in 1913, it was not until 1953's Slaves of Babylon before the story was covered again and then another gap of 25 years before the story was covered again in the Greatest Heroes of the Bible series. So it's perhaps surprising that the story has see something of a revival in recent years, mainly due to animated, church-targeted, productions or adaptations of Verdi's opera "Nabucco".

What is also noticeable about films based on Daniel is the lack of a major production of the Daniel story. Slaves of Babylon is perhaps the highest profile, but even then, the Daniel story is somewhat in the background. Whilst this part of the biblical canon has been covered in film on a number of occasions, none of these have really entered into a (theoretical?) canon of Bible Films.

In the next parts of this series I'll look at New Testament portrayals in this period and at some of the reasons that might lie behind the findings above.

More Films About Jephthah

Back in 2013 I wrote a piece about the portrayal of Jephthah on film. Since then I have become aware of several other films about Jephthah, so I thought I would bring them all together here. I'm aware of five in total, though in an age when anyone can own a video camera and video editing software there are probably a few more. Most of these however were released in just a five year period, from 1909 to 1913. Here are some details.


Jephthah's Daughter (1909). 
Vitagraph. Dir: J. Stuart Blackton
I discussed Blackton's film at some length back in 2013, but there's also a bit on it in David Shepherd's book "The Bible on Silent Film". He notes

Much as in The Judgement of Solomon, the characters of Jephthah's Daughter offer the depth and range of emotional responses only hinted at in the biblical narrative itself, but increasingly expected by audiences steeped in the melodrama of early twentieth=century cinema (p.70)

La Fille de Jephté (1910). 
Gaumont. Dir: Léonce Perret
(Pictured above - there's another image at IMDb)
Whilst this film is sometimes attributed to Louise Feuillade, it was actually made by it's star Leonce Perret (who plays Jephthah) and features additional performances from Luitz-Morat and Jeanne-Marie Laurent. It's apparently based on a scenario by Abel Gance having been inspired by the poem by Alfred de Vigny. It was also released in English speaking countries as The Vow

A summary of the plot, from a 1910 edition of "Moving Picture Magazine", is also available on IMDb.


Jepthah's Daughter (1913).
Diana Film/Warner Bros. Dir: J Farrell MacDonald
1913 saw the release of not one but two films about the errant judge. I discussed McDonald's entry in 2013 and there are a couple of stills with my review as well.

Surprisingly David Shepherd doesn't mention this one.


La Fille de Jephté (1913). 
Pathé. Dir: Henri Andréani
Andréani produced a string on Bible films for Pathé in the 1910s - at least six biblical films in 1913 alone. Whilst Shepherd lists this film in his filmography, and discusses Andréani at length in the book, he doesn't really discuss this film. However, there is a summary in the Pathé archive which suggests that the film seems to broadly follow the biblical account. Here's a translation of that summary:

Jephthah was a brave warrior of Gilead; disinherited by his brothers, he withdrew to the mountain, began to lead a band of adventurers and indulged in a kind of banditry. He thus acquired a great reputation for boldness and courage, and soon the leaders of his tribe - enslaved by the Ammonites - came to him and asked him to put himself at their head to drive out the oppressors. Jephthah agreed, but on condition that after the war he would remain the head of Gilead.

He completely defeated the Ammonites on the banks of the Arnon. He had vowed, if triumphant, to sacrifice to Jehovah the first person who would come out of his house to meet him. Upon his return, his only daughter walked first to the sound of instruments, at the head of her companions. Jephthah, overwhelmed with grief and despair, tears his clothes and in tears announces the promise that his mouth has uttered. The girl, resigned, asks for a grace period of two months with her companions on the mountains of Gilead, to mourn the disgrace of being neither wife nor mother. Then she offers the sacrifice to fulfil the vow of Jephthah

Bat Yiftach [Jephtah's Daughter] (1996). 
Dir: Einat Kapach/Eynat Kapach
The only modern film about Jephthah of any note is by Israeli filmmaker Einat Kapach (who may spell his first name with a "y"). There's a clip from this film on YouTube which I've embeded below.

There's also a little more about Kapach here and the same site contains some more information about the film including this synopsis.

The year is 1984. A Jewish family is on its way by foot from Ethiopiato Sudan, from where they will board a plane for Israel. The father, whom the family’s life depends on, is seized by brigands. Things change when his eldest daughter comes across the place. The story is typical of what happened to hundreds of Ethiopians on their difficult journey to Israel, in the 1980’s, when they crossed the desert, in order to reach the Promised Land

You can actually pay to watch the film online.

A few more notes on this one. It's 19 minutes long. The English title does appear to be Jephtah's Daughter with only two aitches. And there appears to be a variety of release dates from 1996 to 1998 (and even 2003). I'm a little pushed for time but I might try and review this one if I can.

Jephthah in Film

It seems like a bit of a cheat to call this piece the definitive guide to Jephthah in film; after all there are only two of them. Aside from this pair of early silent films, the complex and controversial story of Jephthah has been overlooked by filmmakers. As the cost of producing movies escalated exponentially from the very early silent era to today, so the financial risk in making films has increased, leaving producers uneasy about adopting subjects which even the majority of those interested in the Bible find unpalatable. In short increasing spectacle nudged filmmakers towards an increased conservatism, and so whilst some filmmakers have persisted in seeking support to explore difficult, insular and challenging material, such as Jephthah, they tend not to adapt conservative material such as the Bible. Even those who have done (Huston, Pasolini, Rosellini, Scorsese and Arcand) have tended to opt towards the more popular stories rather than those of the more obscure characters from lesser known Old Testament histories, Amos Gitai being a notable exception.

As a result to date we are left with only two Jephthah films, or, to be more correct, only two films about Jephthah's daughter. The distinction is not just in order to reflect that both films (1909 and 1913) share that title, but also because both films can be seen to be more about this unnamed widow that her rash and barbaric father.

The distinction is easier to appreciate with the later film. There are a few excellent shots of Jephthah during the battle -his vow to God as the battle rages down behind him and that of him stealthily creeping past the camera a little while later - but his recall to the leadership of the Gileadites, or his account of Hebrew history to his enemy are omitted and replaced with the fictional story of his daughters attempted elopement during her tour of the mountains.

As melodrama it is overwrought and non-sensical: the affair ends in Romeo-and-Juliette-esque tragedy, with the only mild comfort for the viewer perhaps being the idea that Jephthah's daughter and her lover Zebah we're together in death the way they could not be in life. Yet as theology it draws attention to the face of the victim. Indeed the biblical account portrays Jephthah's daughter as the classic sacrificial victim, not only chosen for death to fulfil a bargain with a cruel God, but also a seemingly willing victim. There are other ways to read the text but what this film does is give the lump of meat for the sacrificial offering a name (well almost), a face, a personality and a story. Girard argues that the radical break that the crucifixion makes is allowing to see, for the first time, the face of the victim. This film does likewise.

Whilst the earlier 1909 version of Jephthah's Daughter is only a mere 6 minutes long, it to goes beyond the boundaries of the original story in humanising the daughter and judging in her favour in contrast to her father's. Whilst the actor's overwrought performance on seeing his daughter is the one to be sacrificed is typical of acting styles of the time, it only serves to weaken modern audiences' connection with Jephthah heightening the characlter's apparent stupidity.

The critical moment occurs as the flames lap around the daughter's corpse, suddenly she stands serenely erect before them glowing as if resurrected. It evokes so many other biblical stories not least Shadrach, Meshach and Abenbego miraculously survivng Nebuchudnezzar's furnace and the resurrection of Christ.

At time of writing it is 100 years since the last film we know of about Jephthah was produced and whilst many reasons could be out forward as to why the story was never adapted again, perhaps the answer lies in the events of the following year. 1914 saw the outbreak of the First World War. With stories rife of ageing political leaders sending their children out to be (often) needlessly sacrificed for the sake of military success, it is more than possible that the audience would no longer stomach pious retellings of the story of Jephthah and his daughter.

Jephthah's Daughter (1913)

Four years after the 1909 Vitagraph film of the same name Warner's Features released another Jephthah's Daughter, four times the length of the original (though at 25 minutes it was still far shorter than some of the 70+minute films that were starting to be made elsewhere). The film was produced by J. Farrell McDonald who directed 50 film between 1912 and 1917 and went on to have acting roles in over 300 films including bit parts in such great films as Sunrise, It's a Wonderful Life, My Darling Clementine and Meet John Doe.

The real strength of this film was its compositions. The image below is perhaps my favourite from a silent Bible film. The opening shot (above) is also very interesting taken with the camera standing high up with Jephthah and his men in the foreground whilst the battle rages on lower ground behind them. Jephthah's position on high ground is apt. Not only is he the leader who stands above them, it also reflects the traditions around spirituality and high places.

The plot itself contains significant deviations from Judges 11, mainly omitting Jephthah's longish speech to the King of Ammon and inserting an overblown love story that only unfolds once Jephthah's daughter heads for her time in the mountains. the biblical material is skimmed over quite quickly. The opening title card gives way for the battle scene described above, just in time for Jephthah to make his vow. Critically he uses "whatsoever" rather than whosoever.

Unusually, for the era, the film is still introducing credits by this point, so we are told the Jephthah's daughter is played by Constance Crawley and her lover Zebah by Arthur Maude. That same year the pair would also star together in another Bible film The Shadow of Nazareth (stills here) a love triangle between Crawley's Judith, Maude's Barabbas and Caiaphas (Joe Harris). The year before she made this film Crawley had suffered a severe bout of tuberculosis, from which she never truly recovered, dying tragically young in 1919. Crawley and Maude starred in a string of films together, many of which, like this one, were directed by Maude, and rumours have persisted that the pair were lovers.

It's not too surprising, then, to find Crawley and Maude playing each other's love interests here too. Zebah has a vision of / flashback to Crawley's character declaring her love for him. There's some suggestion that she is in peril and crying out for help. Having previously offered to do so, Zebah kidnaps Jephthah's daughter and some of her maids (?) as they roam the hills in their mourning period.

Being an established war hero, Jephthah tries to find them and there's quite a long sequence of shots where Jephthah and his men hunt Zebah down. Eventually, after a tip off from Zebah's sister, Jephthah catches the pair but, as I think is obvious from the image below, his daughter is deeply conflicted between the man she loves and her duty to her father/God.

Jephthah kills Zebah leaving his daughter to declare her love for the Zebah and offering to die in his place. It's too late of course and so Jephthah's daughter stabs herself in a gesture strongly reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. Crawley had appeared in many Shakespearan plays prior to becoming a movie actress and 1916 saw her return to the stage for her last great in Julius Caesar, so perhaps the Shakespearean undertones here should not be too surprising.

Sadly though it does seem to result in leaving the rest of the plot rather nonsensical. The death of the daughter (and it would have been so much easier if Maude had given her character a name) leaves both Zebah's love and Jephthah's vow unfulfilled. Perhaps this is fair enough given the film's subtitle A Tragedy from the Scriptures. The daughter's death is deeply unsatisfying on a narrative level, but perhaps that dissatisfaction leads us to re-examine the original story in a way that a more conventional ending might not have done.

Furthermore, it's hard to think of an ending would have been more satisfactory. The daughter's obedient death at her father's hand would seem even worse now that she has been so significantly fleshed out as a women with a life and a love of her own. Conversely her successful elopement would be to take a path that the film had seemingly ruled out from the start.

Seen from the point of feminist theory the ending is even more interesting. In contrast to the love triangle of Maude's The Shadow of Nazareth, her there is a power triangle. Crawley's father views his daughter as a thing that can be used to make bargains, even to the extent of offering her up for a sacrificial death. Whilst on the other hand there is the chief bandit Zebah - presumably named after the Midianite king from Judges 8 - who kidnaps her against her will. Whilst she eventually falls for him, his estranged sister (and Deborah's best friend) still considers him a malignant force, ultimately choosing to betray him in order to protect her friend. The daughter's death at her own hand highlights the extent to which she is trapped, but renders her not as a powerless victim, but as a figure who is still able to make decision and determine the course of her own life.

Writing about this film less than 24 hours after the final episode of Breaking Bad also raises the question of how tidy the end of a narrative should be. If, from a narrative point of view, the ending is unsatisfactory then perhaps, given the subject matter, this is rightfully so. The story is disturbing. It's from a book that is steeped in the moral ambiguity of characters simply doing "what is right in their own eyes". And a story about a man that makes a deal with God to kill his daughter in exchange for a victorious battle; and a God who seems either to endorse his actions - or at the very least unwilling / unable to intervene, should not be let off the hook so easily.

====

The BFI archive doesn't have a plot summary and neither do Campbell and Pitts, but I'll include the one provided at the Ancient World in Cinema II event in 2009.

Jephthah's Daughter (US, J. Farrell Macdonald, 1913) 25 mins.
"A tragedy from the scriptures". In battle, Jephthah vows that if he is victorious he will sacrifice to God the first creature he meets on his return. His daughter and her servant Deborah (awaiting news of the outcome) meet Deborah's long lost brother, the wily robber chief Zebah. The victorious Jephthah is greeted by his daughter and reveals to her his vow. Zebah sends spies to follow the daughter and capture her as she rides in a wagon. He holds her in the woods and tried to woo her. Two months later, Deborah chooses to betray her brother in order to protect her mistress. Zebah is wounded and captured, accompanied by the daughter who is now in love with him. SHe asks her father to spare Zebah in return for her readiness to be sacrifices, but the two lovers die.

Jephthah's Daughter (1909)

Having meandered in my last few blog posts I thought I really ought to get back on talking about Bible films again. I'm still working my way through the silent bible films I studied from the Joye collection almost a year ago now - not to mention those I saw back in 2009 for which I still need to write up my notes.

The next couple are to be a pair of films about the little celebrated Hebrew judge Jephthah from Judges 11. It's a notoriously difficult text, not least because of what is arguably the Bible's "what the...?" moment. I've always wondered - and theologians have utterly failed to convincingly answer - what Jephthah thought was going to happen. So one of the main things that interested me about these films was whether they would shed any light on that particular issue.

The answer, sadly, is, not really, but given that, as far as I'm aware, these are the only two films a=made about this story I thought it was worth me recording a few thoughts for posterity.

The first film is Vitagraph's 1909 film Jephthah's Daughter. The version I saw had German intertitles so I was relying on my weak grasp of German and my knowledge of the story to help. It was fortunate with this first film that it stuck fairly close to the story from Judges. I've included all of the intertitles here as I needed to write them down at least and I thought there might be others who were interested. I've also provided a translation though it leans rather heavily on Google Translate. I should point out though that there are a few places where I may have made some errors in writing them down or some of the intertitles may have included errors. So without the means to verify the at present, here is the outline of the story with a translation of the intertitles as I recorded them suspected errors are marked with a *.

To an extent, the opening title card rather gives the ending away. This is not going to be a happy film.

"Jephthah's Tochter" eine biblische tragödie
["Jephthah's daughter," a biblical tragedy]

A second card appears before the opening scene explaining the set up.

Jephthah bereitet sich wieder die ammoniter zu streiten
[Jephthah prepares to fight the Ammonites again]

Jephthah arrives home hugs his daughter and immediately a group of Gileadites arrive. If you sense any annoyance on behalf of the daughter just wait until you see what happens later. Jephthah celebrates, presumably signifying his acceptance back into the Gileadites and heads off with his new friends leaving his daughter heartbroken. It's interesting how the film heightens the daughter's poor hand. Not only is she soon to end up as a human sacrifice to a God who consistently explains that he hates them, but she's also got abandonment issues.

The next intertitle is perhaps the hardest to translate well:

Jephthahs Abzug
[Jephthah's departure]

Other alternatives for "Abzug" are deduction (think tax, not Sherlock), withdrawal, trigger and vent. The problem here is that not only am I translating from a language I don't really speak, but also the occasion on which is was written is over a century ago. The Kaiserian use of the word may very well difficult significantly than from today. The reason I went with "departure" over the other eight possibilities that Google offers is that this is what we see in the very next scene. A procession moves off with Jephthah hugging his wife and daughter as he departs.

The long dialogue between Jephthah/Israel and the (king of) the Ammonites is excluded so we cut straight to:

Der Abend vor der Schlacht
[The evening before the battle]
Jephthahs Gelübde
[Jephthah's vow]

There's a brief shot of the GIleadite camp with Jephthah dispatching various orders, and then comes his infamous prayer:

"O Herr, Giebst du die kinder Ammon in meine hände, se# will ich, was zu meiner haustüre mir entgegengehet*, wenn ich im frieden wiederkehre, dir zum brandopfern opfern."
["O Lord, (if) you give the children of Ammon into my hands, I want to sacrifice as a burnt sacrifice to you what comes to meet me on my doorstep when I return in peace."]

One of the things that is interesting here is that the German (and as I understand it the Hebrew) doesn't clarify whether Jephthah is expecting one thing on his doorstep or several. The English translations always seem a bit awkward here and are pretty well divided between those that opt for "whatever comes out of my door" suggesting Jephthah expected an animal and was merely unlucky, and those which choose "whoever", implying Jephthah had already decided to sacrifice someone, it was just unfortunate that his daughter was quickest off the mark. In some ways the question is moot. Whichever of those best translates what he actually said, he was prepared to commit human sacrifice if it meant winning his battle. Put like that it sounds rather brutal (and I suggest it is) but then history is full of military leaders who have taken a risk that may mean sacrificing "friendly" human lives in the pursuit of a military goal.

Were this story to be filmed again today, there's no doubt that a good deal of screen time would be dedicated to the battle where the tension would be ratcheted up. Here (again) the intertitles give things away for those who didn't know the story.

Jephthah*s Sieg
[Jephthah's victory]

The ensuing battle scene is chaotic and very hard to follow. The next intertitle follows suit:

Und als Jephthah wieder heim kehrte kam ihm seine einzige tochter entgegen
[And as Jephthah returned home again, his only daughter met him]

We're then shown Jephthah returning home as part of a victory procession. His daughter's appearance is very sudden and a crestfallen Jephthah has to explain his rash promise to his "lucky" daughter with a brief shot of the two in conversation splitting up the following two titles.

Jephthah teilt sein Gelübde seiner tochter mit
[Jephthah shares his vows with his daughter, but]

Sie Aber bat ihren Vater ihr zwei Monate zu lassen um ihre Jungfrauschaft zu beweinen
[she asked her father to let her two months to bewail her virginity]

Jephthah heads home to explain things to his wife (and I really wish the Bible had recorded her reaction) whilst his daughter heads to the hills.

Jephthah sandte seine tochter mit ihren gespielen zwei monate auf den bergen.
[Jephthah sent his daughter, with her playmates, for two months in the mountains.]

There's a brief clip of the daughter playing badminton with Table Tennis bats before they all say bye and she shuts a curtain so that not only can they not see her, but neither can we. The final intertitle occurs here and simply says:

"Das brandopfer"
["This holocaust^"]

Again the translation is interesting here, for this is one such word where I imagine the modern use is significantly different from the one from the time when the film was made. Then the word would naturally be understood as a burnt sacrifice, unpleasant, but with far less by way of connotation that the word "holocaust" has for us today. I've used the carat symbol to note that the same word is used above, but the modern meaning is far more powerful than it was then. That said there is something relevant in translating it with a modern translation. Jephthah's sacrifice should horrify us. There's no comparison to the actions of the Nazis in terms of scale, but in terms of letting misguided idealism shroud extremists from their inhumanity it's pretty shocking. It's depressing how many people consider this passage to be a fable warning us about making rash promises. Closer to the mark might be that it's an exploration of the lostness of humanity. If there is a lesson here perhaps it's that sometimes breaking a promise to God isn't the worse thing you can do - he might well prefer you to break a promise rather than follow through with it. Perhaps it just serves as a reminder as to how mired in the cultic religions of their neighbours Israel was at this point in history.

The scene itself is clearly where the vast majority of the artistic decisions were made. There's a sacrificial altar table, a crowd. The daughter hugs her mother. Jephthah looks a bit put out though his daughter is not overly upset, reflecting her apparent willingness in the text to let her father see through his vow. Then Jephthah stabs her himself and lights the fire. The final shot though is dramatic as reproduced below as a Jepthah's daughter reappears as a ghostly apparition standing bolt upright. There's something very reminiscent of scenes of Jesus' resurrection / ascension from the early Jesus films. The daughter is clearly vindicated, but Jephthah himself is obscured from our view. Just as the story's eitiology only recalls the actions of the daughter not the father so in her cinematic light, he is cast into the darkness.Campbell and Pitts do not mention this film, but the BFI archive does include the following synopsis:

The Biblical story of Jephthah's vow. Jephthah takes leave of his wife and daughter before setting off with his troops to fight the Ammonites. On the eve of battle, he vows that he will sacrifice to Jehovah the first creature to greet him, should he return victorious. The Ammonites are defeated. On his return, Jephthah is dismayed when the first creature to greet him is his daughter. On learning of her fate, she begs for two months' grace. Together they break the news to Jephthah's wife. The daughter plays with her friends during the two months' grace. Finally she mounts the sacrificial altar, and her father raises his dagger. He subsequently sets fire to the pyre, and the flames engulf her corpse. Her spirit appears above the pyre (536ft).

At about 7 minutes long the film was made for Vitagrah (US) by co-founder J(im). Stuart Blackton. Blackton is remembered for Vitagraph's many Shakespearean adaptations, mercilessly mocked years later by his co-producer, and for being an industry spokesman. His many historical films were marked by a commitment to period detail and for humanising his characters. He also produced the better known Life of Moses a five reeler that began to be released later that same year.