La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ (1906)

I'm reviewing this film as part of the Early Women Filmmakers Blogathon (though I've been meaning to do so for some time). The film is available as part of the Gaumont Treasures (1897-1913) box set from Kino Lorber or if you're naughty/skint like me you can see it on YouTube.

Alice Guy¹ is famed for being cinema's first female director and producer, having a hand in around 1000 films beginning with her directorial debut La Fée aux choux (The Cabbage Fairy) in 1896. Having revolutionised the infant industry in her native France she moved to America and set up a studio, but not before creating her film on the life of Jesus La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ (The Birth, Life and Death of Christ, 1906). From a technical angle it's shot in a similar tableau style as Pathé's 1905 and 1907 films La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ).²

The Pathé film was down to Guy's friend and rival Ferdinand Zecca. Indeed two years before the release of this film Guy found Zecca selling soap on a street corner having been seen as surplus to requirements at Pathé (McMahan:2009, 125). Guy hired him instead, leaked the news to Pathé who reinstated Zecca and he then proceeded to re-work La Vie et La Passion de Jesus-Christ. It's an anecdote typical of Guy who was not only a pioneer in the film of cinema, but also a mentor who possessed the canny knack of spotting talent and developing it. In addition to Zecca she also gave a hand up the ladder to Victorin Jasset (although he was fired during the making of this film), Lois Weber, Louis Feuillade and her future husband Herbert Blaché all of whom would go on to great success (McMahan:2009, 125-126).

As filmmakers though Guy and Zecca could not be more different, at least within the limitations of the tableau approach that so typifies films from cinemas first decade and a half. Zecca's film is far more theatrical, his actors perform in a manner that is often seen as over the top. The use of stencil colour also adds to this flashy style.³

Guy however is far more subtle and nuanced. Her actors are far more naturalistic and the film lacks the grand, showy gestures of Zecca's film. It's often thought that the style of acting found in Zecca's film is deliberate and typical of the era. What isn't given sufficient consideration, in my opinion, is the fact that many of those who appeared on screen at this time were simply not very good actors. At this stage in the development of cinema it was still very much theatre's poor relation. The best actors appeared on stage rather than on screen and the theatre was a far more lucrative source of income for those with talent. In this context then, Guy's ability to both see the need for, and manage to produce this kind of more natural and realistic types of performance is critical, and far more fitting, I would argue, for her subject matter. "Guy's work is more modest, but more deeply felt." (Williams, p.40)

This noticeably more humble aesthetic did not prevent Mademoiselle Alice from using camera tricks. There are a number of uses of double exposure, or cuts allowing angels to suddenly appear on screen. In fact such angelic visitations happen five times throughout the film (not including the charming original intertitles), most notably in the, extra-biblical, scene above where they guard the sleeping baby Jesus when Mary pops inside for a moment. Notice too the simplicity of the angel's costumes in that shot contrasting with Zecca's elaborate halos.

But Guy was very much an innovator. Whilst she was not quite the first director of drama (the very first films were effectively documentaries) she was certainly one of the first, persuading her boss Leon Gaumont to let her make La Fée in her own time. As Gaumont's Nicolas Seydoux has put it "She told her boss that making movies was the best way to sell his equipment" (Simon: Preface, xv). At the time Guy was only employed as his office manager. having witnessed her success Gaumont freed up Guy to produce more films. When he invented the Chronophone (an early system that synchronised sound with moving images) she produced the 'photoscènes' that showcased it. Guy later moved to the US with her husband and the two set up their own studio, Solax, one of the first to move away from New York.

This entrepreneurial thirst for innovation can be seen in the way Guy uses the camera in the film. Camerawork was still very much point-and-shoot, but this films showcases a number of developments in that respect. Firstly, I recently read David Bordwell's post "Anybody but Griffith". Whilst he describes how during 1908-1920 the move towards editing began to predominate, he argues that "the tableau strategy developed into a powerful expressive resource which "offered rich creative choices to filmmakers" (Bordwell). Bordwell highlights shots from a number of films from the 1910s that suggest that directors using the tableau style were doing more sometimes doing far more than just plonking down the cameras in front of what was effectively a theatre stage and letting the scene play out, but that this was a creative choice.

One of the key things Bordwell focuses on is various times where the "shot makes sense from only a very limited number of points" and he cites various examples from 1910. Yet this approach is found various times in Guy's film. The most notable example is in the scene where Peter denies knowing Jesus (see image below). Like many of the scenes in the film it is inspired by James Tissot's illustrations of biblical scenes, though whilst they owe something to Tissot, by no means does she merely slavishly reproduce his work in moving form. Here the architecture of the scene owes more to Tissot's second denial of Peter whilst the sense of action belongs more to Tissot's third denial.

It's clear however that whilst Guy is inspired by them she also creates something of her own that is more cinematic. When the shot begins Jesus is absent and the focus is on Peter. At the end of the shot Jesus walks along behind the scenery and perpendicular to the camera line. As he does he appears in two places where there is no wall, stopping on the second occasion to look back at Peter. Like the scenes Bordwell discusses, this shot would not work for many viewers in a theatre. It works here by using the composition, and the audience's prior knowledge of the subject to draw their attention to the place where Guy wants to focus their attention.


There are several other shots like this in the film such as "The Arrival of the Magi" where the camera can see the infant Jesus for almost the whole time, but very few people would be able to see him were the same scene reproduced live in an auditorium, and "The Samaritan" where the audience is pre-warned as to the disciples arrival in a similar fashion to the denial scene.

Another way in which Guy develops the tableau style is by filming various scenes from more interesting angles. For example the Last Supper. Whilst the vast major of artistic presentations of this subject have simply captured it with table in the centre of the frame and square-on, Guy films it from an oblique angle, and therefore is able to make Judas's early departure all the more obvious for the audience.

Thirdly, there is a panning shot as Jesus is brought before Caiaphas. It's slight, but still relatively rare for the period. More striking in this respect is the scene "Climbing Golgotha" which begins partway up the hill looking down at the crowd accompanying Jesus to his execution as they snake up the hillside. But as Jesus himself is about to file past the camera it pans left and upwards to view Jesus and the rest of the procession from the rear. Again Guy could have chosen to insert a cut here, but her panning of the camera is a deliberate choice to keep all of the action within the same shot

Most impressive in this respect is a three shot sequence involving a degree of continuity editing. The first "Jesus Before Pontius Pilate" shows Jesus before Pilate, shot from an angle to Pilate's seat of power. Not only does Guy's blocking move both characters around all of the space, but as the shot ends Jesus is taken out of the rear of the shot, more-or-less along the camera line and seemingly down some steps, but Pilate exits to the back and stage right.

The next shot, "The Torment" shows both men arriving at their destinations, Jesus at his whipping post and Pilate at the balcony that overlooks it. Whilst the camera has dropped a floor to be on the same level as Jesus, there's no mistaking that we are seeing the back of the previous shot, filmed from the opposite angle. It's an attempt at continuity in the form of "something close to a reverse-angle shift" although the flow is rather disrupted by the intertitle that introduces the new scene (Abel, p.166).

The third shot, "Ecce Homo", is again looking up at Pilate's balcony, but this time the camera is filming from a fresh angle, straight on as opposed to the previous angled shot. The main reason that the three shots here and the "Climbing Golgotha" shot are possible is because much of the production was filmed on location. Again this gives the film a more natural film in contrast to Zecca's edifices, but it also means the terrain is far more interesting than what could be shot on the flat floor of a studio.

The most celebrated of this film's innovations is the mid-shot of St Veronica that appears as Jesus is dragged along the road to Golgotha. Veronica wipes his face and then Guy cuts to the mid-shot of her displaying a likeness of Jesus's face on her cloth. As David Shepherd points out as this shot is immediately preceded by an unnamed woman kneeling in front of the cloth and gazing upon it this essentially becomes cinema's first point-of-view shot (Shepherd, 73).

Shepherd also notes how the white sheet Veronica uses to show her viewers an image of Christ evokes the cinema screen that Guy is using to display her image of Christ to her viewers (p.73). The fact that the observers of Veronica's image are predominantly female is just one of many suggestions that this film was made with a female audience in mind.

Certainly it is the most female focused of all the major Jesus films. This starts with the emphasis on the birth scenes, noticeably on Mary, including the scene described above where angels care for Jesus to keep him safe whilst she finds some respite. Most notably, as my scene guide demonstrates, the only three scenes included from Jesus' ministry all feature women prominently, the woman at the well (here just titled "The Samaritan"), the raising of Jairus's daughter and the washing of Jesus' feet. "The scene in which Peter denies Jesus focuses on the women around the disciple as much as on him." (Abel, p.166) When Jesus falls on the Via Dolorossa it is "six women coming to Jesus' aid", rather than Simon of Cyrene (Hebron, p.546). Naturally, the scenes of women witnessing Jesus' resurrection feature heavily in the film's closing scenes.

It's disappointing that 111 years later, and all the gains in equality that have been won in that time, that no subsequent filmmaker has yet matched Guy's vision of a Jesus who had women right at the heart of his ministry. Many more recent films have sought to include women at the Last Supper, and highlighted their presence at the resurrection, but all too often this seems like window dressing rather than something akin to Guy's core conviction that women were so central to Jesus' plans. But then few people saw the things in such a remarkable way as Alice Guy. I'm grateful to those who have championed her achievements and helped us see a little of more of how she saw the world.

==============
1 - Whilst after her marriage to Herbert Blaché she became known as Alice Blaché and then after their subsequent divorce, Alice Guy Blaché, at the time of making this film she was unmarried and simply known as Alice Guy. Therefore I have chosen to use this name throughout.
2 - Contrary to what it says on the case, this is the version that has been available on DVD for many years (along with From the Manger to the Cross). One day I'll get around to summarising the evidence for that, but you can find out for yourself in Shepherd et al, "The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897-1927)"
3 - For a longer comparison see Friesen pp.87-94

- Abel, Richard (1994) "The Cine Goes to Town: French Cinema 1896-1914", Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Boillat, Alain and Robert, Valentine. (2016) 'La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (1902–05)' in "The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897-1927)"; ed. Shepherd, David. p. 27
- Bordwell, David (2017) "Anybody but Griffith" http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2017/02/27/anybody-but-griffith/ retreived 24th March 2017.
- Friesen, Dwight H. (2016) 'La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Pathé-Frères, 1907): The Preservation and Transformation of Zecca's Passion' in "The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897-1927)"; ed. Shepherd, David. pp.158-178
- Hebron, Carol A. (2016), 'Alice Guy Blaché and Gene Gauntier: Bringing New Perspectives to Film', in Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch (ed.), "The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of Biblical Reception in Film", vol. 2, 543-55, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter
- McMahan, Alison, (2009) "James Tissot and Alice Guy Blaché" - http://www.aliceguyblache.com/news/james-tissot-and-alice-guy-blache retrieved 25/3/2017
- McMahan, Alison, (2009)'Key Events and Dates: Alice Guy Blaché' pp.124-131 in "Alice Guy Blaché: Cinema Pioneer", Simon, Jean (ed), London: Yale University Press
- Shepherd, David J. (2016) 'La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ (Gaumont, 1906): The Gospel According to Alice Guy' in "The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897-1927)"; ed. Shepherd, David. pp.60-77
- Simon, Joan, (2009) 'The Great Adventure: Alice Guy Blaché, Cinema Pioneer' pp.1-32 in "Alice Guy Blaché: Cinema Pioneer", Simon, Jean (ed), London: Yale University Press
- Simon, Joan, (2009) 'Preface' pp.xi-xx in "Alice Guy Blaché: Cinema Pioneer", Simon, Jean (ed), London: Yale University Press
- Williams, Alan (2009) "The Sage Femme of Early Cinema" in "Alice Guy Blaché: Cinema Pioneer", Simon, Jean (ed), London: Yale University Press , 2009

Early Women Filmmakers Blogathon

This weekend I'll be taking part in the Early Women Filmmakers Blogathon. It's hosted by Fritzi Kramer's site Movies Silently.

I'll be reviewing Alice Guy's La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ (1906) which I wrote a scene guide for back in June last year.

If you'd like to join in then it's not too late - just add your idea for a post in the comments on this post.

The Canon in the Early Silent Era pt.3

Please note this post is very much a work in progress and as such a few parts of it need closer fact checking
In the previous two posts in this series I looked at how the cinema of the early silent era treated the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels. I know want to have a look as to some of the reasons as to why this might be.

This earliest period of film history was very chaotic, certainly when you compare it to the studio system that dominated in the middle of the twentieth century. Studios were only just being set up and whilst some of the names of those studios remain known to us (such as Pathé and Gaumont), most of the film producers from this era have faded from general consciousness. In many ways this was the wild west (although cinema's move to "the west", to Hollywood, did not begin until the second half of the silent era). The technology was still emerging, and improving at a rapid rate, systems were very much ad hoc, expectations around production values were still fairly low, the star system was still in its infancy and the expectations of what going to see a/some film/s actually entailed was very much still fluid.

In essence this still forming context meant that making films was still relatively cheap. Films could be less than twenty minutes, shot against the kind of painted sets as seen at the theatre, and without the need to pay stars huge wages. The shortness of many of the individual films meant that exhibitors commonly showed numerous films in an evening's entertainment, meaning there was a demand for a larger number of films. It also meant that the range of filmmakers was relatively diverse and they brought with them their own agendas and interests. So there were the technological pioneers such as the Lumierè brothers, dramatists from theatre backgrounds, magicians such as Georges Meliés and, of particular relevance here, clergy men and evangelists seeking to harness the potential of the new medium for instruction and to spread the gospel.

Perhaps surprisingly, the period that most matches the hive of filmmaking activity at the start of the 20th century is that start of the 21st century. For much of the intervening period filmmaking became the expensive preserve of the rich or the dedicated. But this earliest period and the current one have found a far more democratized marketplace where production of films is relatively cheap, markets more forgiving and distribution channels more fluid. Religious filmmakers, both then and now, have very much taken advantage of this democracy and both periods are marked both by a relatively high number of religious films and considerable diversity. It's perhaps not coincidental, then, that stories which have not considered particularly worthy of adaption in more professional circles, but are perhaps close to the hearts of religious groups have primarily featured in these two periods. The Book of Daniel is perhaps the most notable example here.

The result of all the activity in this period meant that the numbers of films made was relatively large and diverse, such that the probability of an obscure story being adapted into a film was relatively high. This pattern is particularly apparent when such stories were aligned to a group's specific interests. Nevertheless one thing that is interesting, not least when viewed from the supposedly enlightened 21st century, is this period's inclusion of episodes that have a more prominent female perspective. So during this period we have the Old Testament narratives of Jael, the Shunamite woman and Athalia; the deuterocanonical stories of Judith and Susanna; and Gospel episodes such as the woman of Samaria, the daughter of Herodias and the almost ever present appearance of Veronica.

It's commonly assumed that our own era gives women the greatest voice, but there are persuasive arguments in favour of the earliest silent era. Firstly whilst the impact of directors such as Alice Guy Blaché has historically been minimised by film historians, this is starting to reverse and Guy's contribution in particular has been highlighted for the way it developed cinema. Secondly there are various prominent other roles in filmmaking where there was gender parity, in particular script writing and editing. Finally as cinema was then, as now, primarily a financially motivated business the fact that many of the films of the era seemed those more likely to appeal to a female demographic such as those above with a female hero.

There's a further factor however as to why certain stories ended up being adapted whilst others weren't and that is the religious context in which certain stories were chosen and these films were made. Of course the sheer numbers of people who are part of the Christian faith means that instead of talking about a diverse and wide ranging religious context we are essentially talking about contexts and whilst numerous of Church historians have attempted to summarise and compartmentalise the journey that Christianity has taken, the very fact that these various accounts differ from one another in terms of emphasis and even, at times, perceived fact only further underlines the point.

Furthermore it is also questionable to what extent an individual, or rather a group of individuals, will adopt the overarching mindset and approach of the majority of those who share their faith living in the same place and time. Given this complexity, and that coming up with a path through these dilemmas is outside of the scope of the present work, I shall just offer a few broad observations on these evolving and diverse contexts.

The first is to note the shifting locus of filmmaking activity. In the early silent period it was the French film industry that was to the forefront, with Pathé and Gaumont leading the way as well as the work of the Lumières, Guy Blaché and Georges Méliès, though there was also notable activity in Italy, Britain and the US. When it comes to questions of canonicity, then, it's not difficult, then, to understand the adaption trajectory of, say, the deuterocanonical story of Judith. Whilst it's easy to be distracted by the most famous version of the story, D.W. Griffiths' Judith of Bethulia (1914) produced in Protestant America, the remainder of the Judith stories in this era were from Catholic France and Italy. Nor is it surprising, then, that as the European film industry declined during the First World War and took off in America, that this story has largely faded from view. The notable exceptions to this are a brief renaissance in Italy during the "Peplum" revival of their film industry in the 50s and 60s and a flurry of TV films in a number of other Catholic countries in the 70s as TV drama began to gather momentum. This shifting context may also provide part of the reason as to why characters such as Susanna and Veronica also fared well in this era.

The interwar period cemented this shift in the film industry from Catholic France to Protestant America. The First World War shattered France and the French film industry, the troubled economies of the rest of Europe struggled to recover and the problems were exacerbated by the exodus of filmmaking talent from Europe to America. Michael Curtiz, for example, made Sodom und Gomorrha (1922) and Die Sklavenkönigin (The Moon of Israel) in 1924 before fleeing Nazism and making Noah's Ark for Warner in 1928.

Whilst American film still predominates today, it's noticeable that the growth of the film industry in other regions has led to new regions making films about stories found in the Bible. For example, Catholic Brasil has produced a number of extended series about biblical characters, such Rei Davi (King David, 2012). Elsewhere a number of films have been made in Islamic countries such as Turkey and Iran, though with more emphasis on the Koranic presentation of these stories than the corresponding biblical versions. This again is a different understanding of Canon, one that Christianity does not identify with and yet which very much impinges on the way the canon has been adapted on screen.

One final point that is worth noting is the impact of a number of key works related to the Bible that may have had a wide effect. For example, various authors have noted similarities in composition between particular scenes and famous religious paintings. Perhaps the most well-known example is Leonardo's "Last Supper", but other examples abound. However it is difficult to gauge how recognisable these paintings would have been given that they were single works. They are considered hugely influential, and have been widely copied and imitated, but whilst they would be well known by any student of art, many of the early filmmakers were not students of art.

Nevertheless it's not hard to imagine that these influential images begat more artistic interpretations of the same story which may have led to certain stories becoming more prominent, yet this is not always the case. One of the most famous religious images of all time is Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" yet the Sistine Chapel also contains a considerably larger depiction of Perugino's "Moses Leaving to Egypt" featuring the moment when Moses' son is circumcised after an angel tries to kill Moses (Exodus 4:24-27). This episode has, to the best of my knowledge, never featured in a Moses film despite the proximity of Perugino's image to Michaelangelo's.

Technology, however, changed all that and so it was the biblical illustrations of James Tissot & Gustave Doré, that may have had a far wider influence as Bibles illustrated with their works proved wildly popular. And this was particularly true of the earliest filmmakers who were working around the same time as his death (1902) and the publication of a collection of his biblical works in 1904. Several of the early filmmakers in this era copied Tissot's compositions, based their sets and costumes on his work and used his name to publicise their work. It's not hard to imagine this may also have extended to their selection of source material. I may expand that final paragraph in a lter post, but for now I want to move on to look at the eras of film production following 1916 and the release of DW Griffith's Intolerance

La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ (1906) - Scene Guide

For a long time I've been meaning to sit down and actually watch La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ (The Birth, Life and Death of Christ, 1906) and last night I finally did. I'm going to save my proper review until I've done a bit more background reading, not least David Shepherd's Chapter on it in "The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897-1927)". The film, which was directed by Alice Guy Blaché for Gaumont is 1906, is in many ways quite a different film from Pathé's various cuts, though interestingly it also uses intertitle cards to literally give the title of the scene we are about to witness, which makes compiling a scene guide relatively easy. It's been a while since I did one of these so you might want to refresh your memories as to how I use gospel citations in scene guides.

This is one of those films that's known by several other names as well so for the record it's also known as La naissance, la vie et la mort de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ; La vie et la mort du Christ or simply just La vie du Christ in French or The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ or just The Life of Christ

Arrival at Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-7)
Nativity and Arrival of the Magi (Matt 2:1-11)
The Sleep of Jesus (Extra-biblical episode)
The Samaritan (John 4:1-42)
The Miracle of Jairus Daughter (Mark 5:22-43)
Mary Magdalene Washes the Feet of Jesus (Mark 14:3-9)
Palm Sunday (Mark 11:1-10)
The Last Supper (Mark 14:12-25)
The Olive Garden (Mark 14:32-26)
The Night Watch (Mark 14:37-42)
Judas's Betrayal (Mark 14:43-50)
Jesus before Caiaphas (Mark 14:53-65)
The Denial of St. Peter (Mark 14:66-72)
Jesus Before Pontius Pilate (Mark 15:1-15a)
The Torment (Mark 15:15b-20a)
Ecce Homo (John 19:5)
The Bearing of the Cross (Mark 15:20a)
Jesus Falls for the First Time (Mark 15:21)
Saint Veronica (Extra-biblical episode)
Climbing Golgotha (Mark 15:22)
The Crucifixion (Mark 15:24-32)
The Agony (Mark 15:33-37)
Descending from the Cross (Mark 15:46a)
Committed to the Tomb (Mark 15:46b-47)
The Resurrection (Matt 28:1-6)

A Few Notes
I can't quite remember where I got the version I watched last night from, but it's intertitles were in English, whereas some of the version on YouTube have French intertitles on charming cards complete with pictures of angels. I've kept these in English, which seem to be a pretty good translation.

In nearly all cases the scene announced by the preceding title card consists of only one shot. There are two exceptions. The first is "Saint Veronica" where the first shot captures the moment Veronica captures Jesus' image on her cloth, and then cuts to a slightly later mid-shot of her alone holding the cloth. The second is "The Resurrection" where the scene starts inside the cave where the tomb is while we see Jesus be resurrected and the guards react in fear. Then we move outside the cave to see the arrival of the woman, and then we are taken back inside the cave where the women witness the empty tomb.

Interestingly, if you were solely looking at the images in the resurrection scene, one might assume that the soldiers' fear is because they see the resurrected Jesus, but given how the angels work in this film, not least the way they appear and re-appear, it does leave open the interpretation that the soldiers cannot actually see the angels or the resurrected Jesus, they just see the empty tomb. It is only the audience who sees the full picture.

One of the interesting things about this film is that even though it came to be known as simply The Life of Christ there is relatively little "life" in comparison to the "birth" and "death" scenes which are also included in the full title. Of the 25 scenes, only three ("The Samaritan", "The Miracle of Jairus' Daughter" and "Mary Magdalene Washes the Feet of Jesus") are connected with neither Jesus' birth or passion. The first of these scenes was popular in the early silent era, but for many years was ignored, at least until more recent times.

What is noticeable about these three scenes is that they are three, relatively rare, episodes of the gospels where the main character, apart from Jesus, is a woman. That, combined with the way that the film includes Veronica and ends on the women finding the empty tomb without the male disciples are among the factors that have led to some to see this as a feminist picture.

It's noticeable as well how many of these scenes can be traced back to Mark's gospel. Whilst obviously my own citation policy prioritises Mark, it is striking, for example, that all of the incidents leading up to Jesus' death are found in Mark. Obviously the birth scenes are not based on Mark (as Mark starts with the adult Jesus)

Finally there's a really useful page here with lots of promotional material for the film and Alison McMahan - who has written one of the books about Guy Blaché - has a piece on the film at her own website, where she gets into the relationship between Guy's film and Tissot's work.