The Tale of the Ark (1909)

The earliest film about Noah and the flood is The Tale of the Ark (1909) by British animation pioneer Arthur Melbourne Cooper. It's currently available for free on BFIPlayer, in the UK at least, and seems to also have been circulated under the title Noah's Ark. I don't know much about Cooper, but he apparently learnt some of his skills from the legendary British cinema pioneer Birt Acres and while I'd love to get into all of that, I simply don't have the time at the moment. So I'll restrict myself to a few passing observations about the film itself.

The film begins with a young girl playing with a toy Noah's Ark, who soon tires and settles herself down for a nap. there's a cut, and the next shot is of the ark now resting on water, by grass. This is a charming framing device, which both contextualises this as a children's film (or at least one suitable for/aimed at children), while also putting it outside the scope of historical scrutiny. Years later another black and white film that featured Noah, The Green Pastures (1936) would employ a similar framing device.

The rest of the film is stop-motion animation. Plot-wise things are fairly straightforward. Noah opens the doors, the animals bring themselves on board, the rains comes forming a flood, then the water recedes and the animals disembark, but there are a number of nice touches here. Firstly while most of the animals file onto the ark fairly uniformly, the elephants provide a certain level of comedy, spinning and rolling about and heading off in different directions. This shows a level of advancement, of Cooper going beyond basic execution of a smoothly executed piece of animation, to include humour and give his characters personality.

Secondly I was struck by the way the waters gradually recede after the flood. I don't know whether the water was gradually drained off camera, or if it was gradually filled and the footage reversed, but again it perhaps could have been done with simple cuts but this seemed a superior approach.

Finally, Cooper again uses the elephants to lighten the tone and highlight his dexterity as an animator. When Noah and the animals disembark Noah lowers the ramp, but it's not placed quite right, at least, not for one of the elephants who uses their trunk to adjust it before going down. Again the fussiness / sense of  exasperatedly having to show Noah how to do it right is quite a complex thing to convey with animated figures.

For those wanting to read more about this film, David Shepherd wrote a paper on it for the Journal of Religion and Film back in 2016 called "Noah's Beasts  Were the Stars": Arthur Melbourne Cooper Noah’s Ark (1909)'.

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 Story of Esther (1910)

Back in 2016 (was it really that long ago?) I wrote the first entry in my "Silent Bible Film Mysteries" series, seeking to get to the bottom of three Esther titles that Gaumont released around the early 1910s. The conclusion was that there were two shorter films, The Marriage of Esther and Esther and Mordecai that were released in the US a week apart in June 1910, but at other times and places were circulated as a single film Esther. There was also something of a lament that these films were not available to view outside of (offline) film archives.

Recently, however, I got notified by John from betweenmovies.com that a composite version of the film could now be streamed from the (online) Gaumont Pathé archives. You have to create an account – which takes a while, perhaps because they are individually verified – but then a composite version of the film is there to view. (BetweenMovies is a great website, by the way, and has some really interesting additional information about these films, including original reviews, press ads, still and some more screen grabs).

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The first thing to notice is that the title version of the film is The Story of Esther. It's plain enough that this is a renaming of the composite material, though perhaps with some additions and subtractions. The production was attributed to Louis Feuillade, and its stars were called "three of the most noted of Paris", "Mademoiselle" Gravier as Esther, Leonce Perret as Ahasuerus and "Monsieur" Legrand as Mordecai. Perret also worked for Gaumont as a director. He was at the helm of at least 292 of their films, including his La Fille de Jephté (1910) which I've discussed before. Mlle Gravier then is presumably Gisèle Gravier who starred in both another of Perret's films, Gisèle, enfant terrible  and another of Feuillade's La prêtresse de carthage the following year.¹ I could turn up nothing on M. Legrand.

The plot remains fairly close to the contours of the biblical text. Vashti has already been deposed before the start of the film, conveniently relieving the film's leading man of the suggestion of impropriety. Instead the opening shot sees an array of young women arrive at the palace as candidates for Ahasuerus' next wife. For most of the shot, though, Mordecai and Esther stand at the front right of the screen facing the crowd. Esther hesitates before entering – and is the last to do so – then Mordecai returns to centre stage and reaches his arms to heaven. 

After the width of the opening outdoor scene, the indoor scenes move in closer for a more intimate atmosphere. Esther and the other "maidens" are prepared to meet the king and there's a deft iris shot to close the scene focusing on Esther. 

In the next scene similar camera placement sees Ahasuerus chose Esther from only a handful of women, with everyone else ushered out before the King himself places the crown on Esther's head. Moving Picture World's Rev. W. H. Jackson called this moment "decidedly and extremely peculiar, most unwarranted, and without doubt not faithful to the times and custom".² I think he may be protesting a little too much. "Without doubt" seems a bit strong given how little was known about the era 110 years ago, even if he is probably right. Historical inaccuracies in Bible movie? Surely not.

In any case it's noticeable that this scene is not particularly romanticized. Given the lengthy procession of women into the palace, Ahasuerus seems to spend almost no time at all deciding on his new queen and while he picks his bride based purely on looks, there's very little indication that she is attracted to him.

Jackson was much more favourably disposed towards the wedding banquet scene however which manages quite an impressive depth of field with an advisor front, centre and relatively close while dancers twirl away on the stage at the back of the room. The composition is a little odd – Feuillade doesn't pan or zoom at all in this film – so the advisor is sat facing off screen, but it does leave a gap for Esther and Ahasuerus to process down. This seems to be the climax of The Marriage of Esther and, in honesty, it's more than a little slow.

It's also noticeable here how the walls reproduce some of the statues and bas-reliefs taken from the Palace of Sargon II (in Khorsabad). While Sargon II pre-dates the era in which the story was set by about 200-250 years, the palace had only been discovered by French archaeologist Paul-Émile Botta in the 1840s and was (and is) prominently displayed in the Louvre. If you compare the scene with this image from the Louvre you can see it's a direct attempt at reproduction.

A fairly detailed title card leads us into the second half (or Esther and Mordecai) opening the shot above. I've not managed to turn up any association between Esther and the harp, but it makes for quite a striking image. Mordecai warns Esther and the two proceed to foil a plot against her husband in the film's best action scene with Esther and Mordecai saving the king in the nick of time. 

The same set is also used for the next scene where Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman. The wall decorations here are not immediately identifiable; they look more Egyptian than Babylonian to me. Perhaps they were recycled from another Gumont film set in Ancient Egypt, perhaps even Feuillade's own L'exode (1910), which I've seen but don't have access to in order to check.

Haman goes to Ahasuerus who gives him the ring from his hand in order to enact his revenge on Mordecai and his people. Interestingly the throne room here resembles Jean Pesne's print/etching of the scene. It's supposedly based on Nicolas Poussin's "Esther devant Assuérus", but, Pesne's image mirrors Poussin's and makes it a good deal lighter such that the detail and architecture is far more apparent. Perhaps Feuillade and his set designers were influenced by one or both of them, perhaps neither. Haman sets off to set the wheels in motion.

However in the meantime, Ahasuerus discovers that Mordecai had not been honoured, calls in Haman and orders him to put Mordecai on a horse and lead it through the streets announcing his honour. One of my favourite parts of the story is omitted here. In the Bible, the king asks Haman to devise the method of honouring. Haman thinking it is he who is to be honoured is then appalled by to discover his method of honouring himself will now be applied to his hated enemy (Esther 6:6-10). This ironic switch is made all the worse as it is her who has to parade round honouring Mordecai. It also foreshadows the following chapter, with a not dissimilar switch whereby the method of execution Haman has devised for Mordecai will be used to kill Haman instead (Esther 7:9-10).

The scene of Mordecai's honouring is the film's most interesting in terms of influences. It cleverly combines both Gustave Dore's "Triumph of Mordecai" & Jacques Tissot's "Mordecai's Triumph" with a single static shot that merges the composition of one into the other. On top of this the bystanders wave palm leaves which also recalls Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. While it's appropriation / supersessionism this typological interpretation of Mordecai (as a "type" of Christ) has long been popular with Christian interpreters and so it's no surprise that biblical filmmakers carried on this tradition.

And then comes the climatic scene with Esther's banquet. the plot abridges the cycle of meals Esther goes through prior to explaining her predicament to her husband and instead cuts to the chase. The composition here is more akin to Rembrant, Lievens, Victors and Armitage than to Tissot or Dore, but it's notable how many depictions of this scene place Haman on the left, but none of the historical artistic takes on this moment capture the dramatic way in which Esther flings her arm out across Ahasuerus to point to the man she is accusing. 

It's noticeable also that she doesn't faint in contrast to the deuterocanonical passage from Esther 15:7 where she swoons. However Ahasuerus comforts Esther as she sobs which is found in Esther 15:8. Haman begs for is life, is seen and is led away. 

Haman's grim execution is omitted, but there's a final scene in Ahasuerus's throne room and a final Thanksgiving scene featuring women dancing in the kind of generic SE Mediterranean costumes that dancers are routinely given in this kind of scene. I don't know enough about costumes from this time and place to know if any of them are accurate, but these ones feel particularly orientalising.

There's little of the additional material from deuterocanonical books, or subsequent Jewish tradition. What's more interesting though is the way that he parts of the narrative that are omitted tend to benefit Ahasuerus, Mordecai and perhaps the never-mentioned God. The grim realities of Harem life are minimised. While Esther's not portrayed as attracted to Ahasuerus, he's made to seem decent enough with physical shows of affection and comfort. His questionable treatment of Vashti is left out as his Haman's execution. Meanwhile, Mordecai's orders which result in over 75,000 gentiles being killed are also not included.

So while there isn't anything as heinous as the trivialising in the Veggie Tales version, nor the teenage romanticising of One Night with the King (2006) and perhaps a few other recent outings), it is a fairly sanitised adaptation of the story. 

That said, all things considered this isn't a bad first cinematic screen outing for the Book of Esther. Some of the processions are over long and the characterisation is a little weak, and there's little of the spark that we find in Feuillade's Fantômas just a few years later, but it does have its occasional moments. And it's network of visual references from Assyrian bas-reliefs to Tissot and Dore provide a good deal of interest.

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1 - Gisèle, enfant terrible listed on the IMDb. La prêtresse de carthage listed on p4 of this catalogue of Early films from the collections of the Swedish Film Institute.

2 - Jackson, W. H. "The Marriage of Esther: A Critical Review by Rev W.H. Jackson" in Moving Picture World, vol 6 Jan-Jun 1910, p.1098. Available online at https://archive.org/details/movinwor06chal/page/1098/mode/2up?view=theater 

Jesus the Christ (1923)

One of the things that is so interesting about silent film is the possibilities for discovery: a lost classic turns up in an attic here, mention of a previously unknown movie is unearthed in a journal there. So it's genuinely exciting when an entire film turns up that no-one had ever even previously heard of. And this is precisely what's happened with Jesus the Christ (1923) which was released by Grapevine on DVD/Bluray and digital download a couple of weeks ago.

Grapevine's release is made all the more intriguing by the total lack of credits. There's no director's name so we can compare it with their other work; nor are we told the name of the actors who play Jesus or any of the other characters so we check out their past roles. 

Herald Non-Theatrical Pictures
There is, however,  a company name: "Herald Non-Theatrical Pictures". Terry Lindvall discusses this company in his book "Sanctuary Cinema: Origins of the Christian Film Industry". Herald was an off-shoot of periodical "Christian Herald" who first tried to get into the film business to promote a better quality of film but quickly ended up making them themselves. While much of their surviving footage was pro-prohibition pictures and "missionary films", in addition to this film apparently they also made "fourteen episodes of Old Testament history".(1) Periodicals from the time also record that the company was "non-sectarian",(2) and apparently this film specifically was "made at one of the renditions of the Passion Play in Europe".(3) Lindvall concludes that herald's efforts "constituted the most comprehensive film production effort by any religious organization of the silent era" yet notes that its "muted" demise shortly after "did not even make front-page copy".(4)

Compositions and lighting
The film itself belies the notion that Herald were just amateurs jumping on a band wagon. Some of their goals may have been a little naïve, but there is an undoubted artistry behind some of the compositions and lighting. This is certainly helped by Grapevine's excellent transfer (the digital download is 1080px full HD), but even an excellent copy cannot add what was not there to start with. The image above, for example, looks almost like a sepia-tinted Caravaggio imbued with a burgeoning sense of anticipation of the life that is to come. A long shot of Jesus carrying his cross across a ledge above (final image below) anticipates the famous closing shot of Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) while a shot into the tomb containing a freshly resurrected Jesus captures both its full-bodied nature and its inherent strangeness. It feels like the first time a film has really captured an event that left some overjoyed and others frightened and startled. This resurrected Jesus feels like he could credibly be both mistaken for something as mundane as a gardener (John 20:15) and something as extraordinary as a ghost (Luke 24:37). It's a shame the intertitles jump in here rather than leaving the camera to linger, but it's a wonderful moment nevertheless.

Recalling the earliest days of cinema

At the same time, this feels like a step back to an earlier era in cinema history. It feels like those early Pathé Bible films may well have impacted some of the filmmakers. There are several uses of the double exposures techniques which so typified Zecca's work, for example, which feel a little stagey here. One notable example –  the Ascension – tips its hat to Zecca's La vie et Passion de N.S.Jésus-Christ (1907) in terms of composition, even if it omits its visual flourishes. Characters often bow in unison with their backs to the screen. Often the larger crowd scenes are filmed  in long static shots while the crowd processes in or out. 

Elsewhere in the world of the cinema, Robert Wiene was bringing German Expressionism to the masses with Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1919) while films such as The Phantom Carriage (1921), Nosferatu(1922) and Haxan (1923) were emotionally affecting audiences in creative new ways. Meanwhile DeMille and Curtiz were reaching new heights in terms of spectacle and epic scale while the montage of Battleship Potemkin was only two years away. Compared to these more pioneering movies (and perhaps its unfair to compare a run of the mill film with some of the greatest example of what the medium is capable of) Jesus the Christ feels fairly antiquated. At the same time, I like slow cinema and and there something dignified and contemplative about its stately pacing.

A Filmed Passion Play
Having considered the film's visual contributions, what of the story? The suggestion that the film was made at a European passion play certainly chides with the film's structure, which would otherwise seem a little unusual. Of the film's 55 minute runtime, the first 5½ minutes (10%) cover Jesus' birth and childhood, the next 11 minutes cover Jesus'  ministry (20%), with the remaining 70% covering the events of the 'final week' from his Triumphal Entry to his Ascension. In other words this is just a passion story with an extended prologue – a description that has also been used about Mark's Gospel.

The incidents that are featured in that brief 11 minute section are interesting though. We start with Jesus declaring his mandate in Nazareth and then casting a demon out of a boy. Next comes the Sermon on the Mount featuring a fair bit of the Beatitudes in the intertitles as instructions to be like children from Matthew 19. A woman is accused of adultery, then (prior to his triumphal entry) he casts the sellers out of the temple. Lastly he raises Lazarus. In other words this is a real jumble of highlights from the four Gospels harmonised into one account.

After the Last Supper and Gethsemane Jesus is tried before both Caiaphas (briefly) and Pontius Pilate (at greater length). Judas' remorse and suicide is also treated at length, most notably is the way that Judas also walks along the same rocky ledge that Jesus will take on his way to the cross moments later (mentioned above, pictured below). On the cross Jesus says five of the seven last phrases (Paradise, forgive them, I thirst, why forsaken, It is finished), then a procession takes him to his tomb. Pilate has the tomb sealed before the Resurrection and Ascension scenes mentioned above.

A Contemporary-style Jesus
The other-worldly nature of these final two scenes is given extra heft because of the very physical portrayal of Jesus that has preceded it. While the film generally feels most at home with mid-long shots, it does occasionally shoot Jesus in close-up. This is something even DeMille's The King of Kings (1927) is reticent about (the film's famous first shot of Jesus is a close up, but it's in soft focus, and a rare example). Here however, the occasional use of close-ups in combination with the high-contrast lighting really emphasises the wrinkles on Jesus' face. While he's nowhere near as old as H.B. Warner's Jesus he certainly seems older than Jeffrey Hunter's or Enrique Irazoqui's. There's something refreshingly real about the actor. Not only is he believably human, and a credible manual worker, he also seems grounded; he feels like someone who has experience of real life.

This is doubtless part of the reason (and only part) of why this unnamed actor playing Jesus somehow feels very contemporary. It's not just about the close-ups, it's the mid and wide shots as well. There's a lack of pretension or affect. Much of the footage simply doesn't feel like it's a hundred years old despite  the apparent lack of technical sophistication. It's a salient reminder that artistic prowess can exist, even in the absence of innovation of form. Jesus the Christ transcends its limited innovation regarding form to provide a fresh and groundbreaking portrait of Jesus the man. 

Sadly, Herald Non-Theatrical Pictures never really took off and the film found itself stuck in a vault; it's backstory, and the lives of those who contributed to it, were eventually lost. I'm grateful, then, that Grapevine have rescued and restored it. It is by no means an exemplary film. The pacing of the film is a little off and perhaps part of the reason Herald lost out is their failure to remain contemporary in a fast-changing visual world. Nevertheless there are some beautiful moments and the presence of a contemporary-feeling, believable, Jesus in the midst of all this staid presentation somehow feels almost as paradoxical as the character himself.

You can download a copy of this film from the Grapevine Video website. Not only am I not affiliated with them I paid for my copy myself.

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1 - Lindvall, Terry, "Sanctuary Cinema: Origins of the Christian Film Industry" (NYU Press, 2011). Quotes are from page 147, but the whole section from 139-148 is instructive.

2 -"Christian Paper Backs Non-Theatrical Films" Exhibitor's Herald, April 21, 1923

3 -  "Religous Move Here July 12- 14", Arizona Daily Star, July 5, 1923.

4 - Lindvall, p.148

Obscure silent Jesus the Christ (1923) to be released in July

Thanks to Sterling Jones for alerting me to this. Grapevine Video – one of the long-running heroes of the silent film world, held a kickstarter in December to fund a digital, DVD and Blu-ray release of an obscure silent Bible film Jesus the Christ purportedly from 1923.

I don't use the term obscure lightly here. I'd never heard of the film before Sterling's tip off and neither had he. An email from the team at Grapevine explained that they themselves "were unable to unearth really any info that wasn’t in the film itself, and the film itself has no credits for the director or actors." I've consulted with all the recognised works on the subject and various other lists, and asked a number of other people who might have been able to uncover something about this, but still absolutely nothing.

Judging by the trailer it was a relatively expensive production. The size of the crowd is considerable at certain points (e.g. above) and the costumes look of reasonable quality. My hunch is that this film may have also been released under another name, but even then it's hard to think of a candidate. My mind leapt to 1928's Jesus of Nazareth, but the footage Grapevine have released is at odds with the stills from that film in Kinnard and Davis' "Divine Images". 

Perhaps when the restoration is complete and the film is released some more evidence might emerge from the wider community. In the meantime, if you have any ideas, please let me know!

And the kickstarter itself? Smashed its target in just 7 hours – before even I had a chance to sign up. The DVD and Blu-ray are already available for pre-order and are likely to be released in July. Grapevine have also told me they are hoping a digital download option will be available as well.

La Nativité (1910)

My final seasonal offering this Christmas is La Nativité (1910) seemingly released in some English speaking regions as Herod and the New Born King as seen in this advert which I believe was from 1910.¹. 1910 was in the middle of peak production of biblical movies (1908-13) and was one of at lease four biblical movies Gaumont was promoting at the time, with Louis Feuillade behind them all (available on YouTube).

Despite the film's greater focus on Herod and the magi, the action starts with the shepherds inside some kind of shelter. The absence of any scenes featuring Mary and Joseph before the day of Jesus' birth is notable. The shepherds appear bottom left of the screen with the camera peering over their shoulder to a black void beyond. To anyone familiar with this era of filmmaking it's obvious what happens next. It's unclear if this is a double exposure technique or back projection, but a single angel appears in the darkness. Here Feuillade's work is rather clumsy compared to some of the work his forbears have already produced by this stage. The shepherds hold their somewhat awkward-looking pose for what seems like an age. Then the angel appears. They briefly turn to face him/her, bow, and then reconvene, holding their pose for long enough for the original angel to be joined by the full choir. Once the heavenly host has departed, the shepherds leave the shelter by the same exit to the rear of the set.

Interestingly, a similar composition is adopted for the next shot. Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus appear cramped into the bottom left of the screen, with a view extending into the distance occupying the majority of the remaining space. I've seen various version of this scene that were recorded before this one, and in every other one I've seen up to this point the camera peers into the stable from the outside. Here however things are the other side the camera (and so, by extension, the audience) is inside the stable looking out into the night. Naturally the shepherds soon appear from the rear. It's notable that neither shot would work in a theatre - they only work from the specific vantage point of the camera, not the multiple viewpoints required for successful theatre composition. Even if Feuillade's compositions don't match the standard of his later work, the idea that he just arranges his scenes as if he were arranging a theatre set doesn't hold water.    

The version I saw runs to almost 14 minutes, but these two scenes with the shepherds occupy only three and a half minutes. As the alternative title suggests, the film's main concern is with the magi and King Herod. The next two shots cover the arrival of the magi, both outside and then inside Herod's palace. What's noticeable here is that one of the wise kings, presumably Balthazar, is played by a Black actor. I haven't researched extensively into who the first Black actor was - a cursory google suggest that a comedian called Stepin Fetchit (aka Lincoln Perry) was the first Black actor to receive a screen credit/earn $1 million but neither of these are the same thing, I'd be interested to know if anyone knows of an earlier actor from the African diaspora.

Oddly, in contrast to the use of this actor, Herod seems to be played by someone in brown make-up. I'm curious to know how this inconsistency arose. Using a Black actor in a positive role seems somewhat progressive, but the racist use of "brownface" undermines this. What, if anything, they were trying to convey?

One possibility is that it was a way of "othering" Herod. Herod's father was an Idumaean – a people from Edom, South-West of Jerusalem who had converted to Judaism during the Hasmonean period – and his mother was Nabataean (Arab) princess.  At the time of this production, though, Josephus' designation of Herod as an "Idumaen i.e. a half Jew" was seemingly how his background would have been understood. Perhaps this othering is intended not just to place a barrier between Herod and the audience, but also between him and the other Jewish characters (who are otherwise played by white actors). But given that the historical Herod would most likely be physically indistinguishable from the other Jewish characters the clear determination to mark him as different from them is strange.

Herod's throne room here is quite dramatically lit, in a fashion that Feuillade also used for the scenes inside Moses' house in L'Exode (1910). There, though, they suggested secrecy, as if the family might have been hiding from the Egyptians. Here, however, the darkness feels more like a moral judgement. 

The magi head to Bethlehem and  arrive at the grotto, shot from the same angle as before (pictured above). Next there's a cut back to the palace where Herod discusses the matter with his queen before calling three soldiers or perhaps advisers and instructing them to go to Bethlehem. The massacre scene is left off camera, as is Joseph's dream, so the next shot is simply Mary and Joseph walking quietly away from Jerusalem.   

The author of glowing review in the December 17th edition of Moving Picture World found the film's final scene – where Mary and Joseph rest in front of the Sphinx (still above) – as particularly striking, describing the 50 ft long shot as:

...a real master in every sense of the word. It would be impossible to find a more beautiful composition, with such admirable light effects and of such superior photography... this last scene is art, pure and simple and will remain engraved in the memory of every person lucky enough to have a chance to gaze upon it.

What I find more interesting is the fact that the composition of this scene matches that from the same scene in the earliest extant Jesus film La Vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ (1898). As far as I can make out it's not based on Doré or Tissot so it's possible that this shot is derived in some way from the 1898, though Merson's "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" seems more likely².

The MPW review also mentions a scene "Herod and the Woman" which does not seems to appear in the version available on YouTube unless the palace scene with his queen(my assumption) is intended. There are further reviews in the 1910 Moving Picture World including the December 31st edition (available here) which described it as follows:

An illustration of the first part of Chapter II of the Gospel of St. Matthew. No more beautiful and artistic film has been shown during the year. Every scene is a marvel of accurate representation. The scene which Hoffman has so graphically portrayed as the "Repose in Egypt," is one of the most impressive ever shown on a motion picture screen. It depicts the search of Herod for the new born King and details the flight into Egypt to escape his jealous rage. A reading of that chapter in the Bible will supply a synopsis more graphic and complete than any that could be written now. (view on IMDb)

Overall though the film is a bit of a disappointment. It's overly slow, not only by today's standards, but even compared to other biblical films of the time, and not in a contemplative way. Moreover it lacks the spark of Feuillade's other work even from the same year. Hard to believe that he was only three years away from the first instalments of Fantômas (1913-14). Without the action or novelty of many of the other films from biblical cinema's boom years it drags, even for those 14 short minutes. It's not bad, and short enough that it's not a bad option to drag out at Christmas and for those who are interested in Feuillade and his development as a director it's certainly worth watching. 

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In addition to the version available on YouTube the film also appears as an extra feature in Kino's Fantômas Bluray set.

1 - I'm grateful to John Larsen for drawing my attention to the link between these two films. (If you haven't checked out his excellent website Between Movies, you really should. It looks like the add linked to actually came from 1910's Moving Picture News (not 1911 as stated in the tweet, though I have no idea how I got hold of it as the 1910 edition isn't in the MHDL archive). 

2 - I owe this observation to Twitter user @Zyber's post here.

Absalon (Absalom, 1912)

Henri Andréani was just an actor when Pathé's "promoted [him] from within its ranks" to the role of co-director under Ferdinand Zecca.¹ At the time the market for 'respectable' material such as biblical films was growing rapidly. Gaumont, Vitagraph and a number of lesser known (mainly Italian) studios had all released films on biblical subjects such that despite Pathé's early Passion Plays, and a handful of New Testament films they were losing ground. Pathé's strategy had been to create/acquire various new 'Art' brands/subsididiaries such as SCAGL (Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres), Film d'Art and Filme d'Art Italiana ².

Having learned from Zecca (who had previously co-directed the 1902-05 Passion Play La Vie et passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, and directed its 1907 remake), Andréani's first solo effort was David et Goliath (1910) before he went on to make films about Moses, Cain and St. Stephen, but he returned to the story of David in 1911 with David et Saül and with La Mort de Saül the following year. 

Given Andréani's penchant for the Bible's more visually striking acts of violence - Andréani is the only director to have given us Jael driving a tent peg through Sisera's skull, and also gives us Goliath's head on a spike, Cain caving in his brother's head and one of the few versions of Jephthah's daughter - it was only a matter of time before his continued adaptation of the David narratives tackled Absalom. For those unfamiliar with the story, Absalom is one of David's sons who started a rebellion against his father after his half-brother raped his sister. Sadly, he proves to be more of a politician than a warrior and when the battle with his father's forces starts to go against him, he flees into the woods and gets caught in a tree by his hair and is stabbed by David's general Joab.

The film largely follows this narrative (there's more in the Bible, but, like Andréani I've not gone into all the details. You can read the story for yourself in 2 Sam 13.1–19.8). The main difference occurs at the start. Despite Andréani's apparent relish for grizzly deaths, he omits Amnon's rape of Tamar. Instead Absalom's motivation derives from David choosing Solomon to succeed him even though Absalom is the eldest. This is a bit of conflation. By the time David appoints Solomon, Absalom is long since dead and it is David's next eldest son Adonijah who misses out to Solomon and starts a rebellion. (The scene is covered in Solomon and Sheba (1959) featuring George Sanders as Adonijah).

In any case, this is the scene with Absalon (also known as A Prince of Israel) begins. The composition strongly echoes that of the battle between David and Goliath in Andréani's earlier film with the low camera, looming figures and the depth of the shot, but the scenery is very different. Solomon is still  child. Absalom cuts a pretty hefty figure. Of all the characters in the Bible none are described as thoroughly as Absalom. Not only are we told that "in all Israel there was no one to be praised so much for his beauty as Absalom"  and that he was without blemish (2 Sam 14:25), but also that he only cut his hair once a year and that it weighed "two hundred shekels" (2 Sam 14:26) – about 2kg according to the Good News Bible. Perhaps the film was meant to be set shortly after that annual trip to the barbers, but it's fair to say this is not how I pictured him.

However, the casting is interesting for another reason. I think Absalom might be played by Louis Ravet who starred as Goliath in Andréani's earlier film. Meaning he Ravet had pretty much cornered the market in playing enemies of King David. Ravet's is credited in the intertitles to David and Goliath as being from the Comédie Française - the world's oldest active theatre company. Ravet was more or less simultaneously involved in various productions of Racine's "Athalie" at the Comédie Française while appearing in a string of historical films for Pathé, particularly working with Andréani ³. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his build, he also took the lead in Capellani, Zecca and Andréani's Samson (1908).

In film-making terms Andréani had moved on significantly since the start of his David series. Here there's a little more insight into the motivations of the characters, though not to the extent we find in La Mort du Saul. More significantly we see a far greater cast. There are a number of crowd scenes as Absalom puts himself about gaining popularity while undermining David and fomenting rebellion. perhaps the biggest spectacle here is the battle scene (pictured above). It would be interesting to compare Andréani's crowds with one of its contemporaries Enrico Guazzoni's Quo Vadis? (1912/3) for Cines. Certainly they are more sizeable than those in D.W. Griffith's Judith of Bethulia a year or two later. Andréani also uses a cut to make the start of the battle larger. The result is what looks like a rather odd panning shot. It starts on one set of advancing soldiers, only to pan away to empty space, presumably to enable an invisible cut while the extras move to the other side of the imminent conflict and charge in the other way. Either way the next shot (above) - of soldiers in hand to hand combat looks very impressive, and there's a depth of field on display here which really makes the battle look huge.

Indeed Andréani's use of the 3D space here is a significant advance on David and Goliath. See for example the shot below of two men sent by David's spy Hushai, peeling off from Absalom's marching forces and cross (the River Jordan?) to warn their King. It very effectively tells the story with the river clearing marking the distance between Absalom's forces and David's spies. Their prominence in the shot reinforcing the fact that these are the good guys. (Though Absalom is portrayed relatively moderately in the film).

As with many films revolving around an iconic moment ⁴, a significant part of how it is judged depends on how it handles that moment. Here's it's a little disappointing. This is in part because the first time I remember hearing this story it was Absalom's hair (specifically) that got caught in the tree, rather than just his head as the text says (2 Sam 18:9). I was probably a teenager and the preacher in question was from a free/ independent/ conservative evangelical church and used the story as a warning against vanity. Doubtless the idea that Absalom's fate was an apt punishment for his vanity persists in some circles.

However, this is to take things quite a way beyond the text. Firstly it only says "head" and there seems to be no connection in the writer's mind between the two. Perhaps the further you get from the story the more appealing the connections seems. As Daniel Lavery points out in this quirky reworking of the story, "if Absalom’s heavy hair were caught in the limbs of the terebinth tree, he would have only to cut it to free himself."⁵ Moreover, the text has plenty of bad things to say about Absalom, but it doesn't criticise him for being vain, nor does anyone view the accident which led to his execution as being an act of God. 

In any case, here Absalom's hair is not long enough to get accidentally caught in a passing tree while fleeing a battle, and, as you can see from the .gif below, it doesn't really show him as getting his head caught either. There's an attempt at an impressive stunt. Absalom/Ravet grabs at the tree as his mule goes under it. It must have been fairly difficult, but it never looks anything other than a man hanging from a tree with his arms. It's difficult to know if audiences would have been impressed by this at the time. I suspect not because while movie stunt work, like the rest of cinema, was in its infancy, it was well enough established in the theatre that it's unlikely anyone was as impressed as they would have been by some of Méliès' camera trickery. After he's cut down there's some sort of plait that's left swinging as the soldiers ride on. Was this deliberately included as part of his hair (in which case how did it get caught?) or some part of his apparel? Or was it just part of the stunt that was left, a little carelessly on display afterwards?

Joab stabs the dangling Absalom ("exactly as stabby as we could wish" in Fritzi Kramer's words) and his men hack him down and carry him to David.⁶ It works dramatically, but it does mean that one of the few Black characters in the Bible – an unnamed Cushite – is excluded. Having been marginalised in the text by not having their name mentioned, they are cut out of this film adaptation entirely. The final shot shows David morning for his son rather than celebrating the victory, while Joab looks on disdainfully.

It's interesting how the final shot in many ways mirror the first. David showering affection on one of his son's in the middle of the screen, unaware of the extent to which it is irritating one of those close to him who is shown on the left of the screen demonstrating visible signs of their annoyance. While Joab continues to serve David the incident with Absalom seems to have been the start of a rift between him and David, which led to Joab eventually being replaced as David's commander and David advising his son and appointed successor Solomon to have Joab killed, advice Solomon takes. The film nicely captures that cycle.

Absalom appears in a handful of films about David, particularly The Story of David (1976), the Richard Gere vehicle King David (1985) and the Bible Collection's David (1997), but they tend to be ruined by terrible wigs failures an a failure to empathise with the character or give him any sense of depth. In a way, this portrayal of Absalom avoids those pitfalls, mainly because even though this is in some ways a continuation of Andréani's David series, the film-makers are happy to make Absalom centre stage. Admittedly, the acting is in that stagey style (which people assume typifies acting in the silent era, even though it doesn't), but nevertheless the film is fairly effective at telling the story dramatically and cinematically and the battle scenes and its use of depth of field is an interesting development in the directors style.

Readers might also be interested to see Fritzi Kramer's review of Absalom at Movies Silently.

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1 - Shepherd, David J., The Bible on Silent Film: Spectacle, Story and Scripture in the Early Cinema (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.125.
2- Abel, Richard, The Cine Goes to Town: French Cinema 1896-1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp.38-43

3 - Anon. "Louis Ravet" Wikipedia, France. Available online: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Ravet

4 - I know "iconic" is overused, but I struggle to find a suitable alternative. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

5 - Lavery, Daniel, "Absalom's Death and Death", The Chatner. 11 March 2020. Available online: https://www.thechatner.com/p/absaloms-defeat-and-death 

6 - Kramer, Fritzi, Absalom (1912) A Silent Film Review", Movies Silently, 8 September 2019. Available online: https://moviessilently.com/2019/09/08/absalom-1912-a-silent-film-review/

An Introduction to The King of Kings

Last week I had the pleasure of introducing Lobster films' new restoration of The King of Kings (1927) at its UK premieré in Bristol Cathedral, courtesy of South West Silents. As it was only a short intro, I thought I'd post it here to supplement my other posts and my podcast on the film.

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Whenever I come to these kinds of events I'm always intrigued as to what specifically attracts people to them. Are we film fans? People of faith? Both? Have we come because of our love of music? Or for something else? It's kind of ambiguity that cuts to the heart of Cecil B DeMille. He could oil up Charlton Heston, put him in chains and tell you that that was Moses, or begin his film about Christ with a woman in a gold coil bra stroking her pet leopard.

It's easy to deride DeMille's mix of titillation and piety, or see them as being cynical, but for him the combination was very real. As Fritzi Kramer puts it:

DeMille is an almost perfect split between his flamboyant actress mother and his bookish lay minister father... DeMille's religious beliefs were not exactly in the mainstream but they were from the heart. The conflict between faith and trash was very real for him. He loved both.

Indeed DeMille was critical of those who proposed more staid portrayals of the Gospels, arguing that "they must have read them through the stained glass telescope which centuries of tradition and form have put between us and the men and women of flesh and blood who lived and wrote the Bible."

We tend to think of cinema's silent era as time of beginnings, but in fact by 1927 when The Kings of Kings was released it had been around for quite some time. The first Jesus films came out in 1897, meaning they had been making them for 30 years by the time The King of Kings came along. It was DeMille's 51st film, and incredibly whilst today his name is synonymous with the biblical epic, at this point in time he was known mainly for melodramas and westerns. Only one of his previous 50 films had been biblical.

The film itself was written by one of DeMille's most trusted collaborators, Jeanie MacPherson. In contrast with the majority of Jesus films both before, and, indeed, after, it starts neither with Jesus birth, nor his baptism, nor even at the beginning of Holy Week, but instead it begins as Jesus' ministry is already in full flow. In that sense it's different from any of the Gospels, or the earliest creedal confessions found about him in Paul. As a whole the film blends elements of all four gospels together citing each in the various subtitles, though often wildly out of context. It opens quoting its role in the Great Commission from Matthew's Gospel, focuses its portrayal of Jesus as the healer of Luke's Gospel, whilst its lighting emphasises John's "Light of the World" and it depicts a young boy called Mark, with the implication that it is he who will go on to write the earliest gospel. Our first sighting of Jesus is a famous shot which I won't spoil for those of you who don't know it, but is paired with its opposite at the end of DeMille's Samson and Delilah 22 years later.

Another DeMille regular was H.B. Warner who played Jesus here, Mr Gower in It's a Wonderful Life. At 51 he remains the oldest actor to play the lead in a mainstream Jesus film, considerably older than the traditional 33. To us he seems a bit paternal but at the time he was hugely more human and approachable than the film Jesuses that had gone before. DeMille insisted Warner remained in character the entire time he was on set, he knew the damage that bad publicity could do to the film.

The film did cause some controversy, though not for Warner's hardened drinking. Various Jewish organisations were concerned about potential anti-Semitism, for many of the same objections to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. If it's tempting to dismiss such criticisms out of hand then I think it's worth remembering that the two previous mainstream Jesus films released before DeMille's were both from Germany. The Jews were demonised and squarely blamed for Jesus' death. It's sobering to remember that just as people today picture Jesus as Robert Powell or James Caviezel, the German people in the 20s, 30s and 40s pictured those films when they thought of the gospels. Those anti-Semitic movies contributed to a cultural seachange that led to the Holocaust. After some discussion DeMille made changes and avoided most of those pit falls.

As a filmmaker DeMille doesn't get the credit he is perhaps due. He reproduces 300 paintings in the film going to huge lengths to perfect the lighting. The shot of the sandstorm as Jesus dies was technically immensely difficult. We'll be able to appreciate the intricacies of the design on the massive sets and the picture is full of memorable images, the expressionistic approach to the miracles. And the experimental use of two-strip Technicolor.

The film was so successful at the box office that screenings continued for years, well into the sound era. Missionaries took it with them abroad leaving a delighted DeMille to claim that "more people have been told the story of Jesus of Nazareth through The King of Kings than through any other single work, except the Bible itself"

And what about us? It's easy to dismiss the film for its soft-focus piety or moments of over-the-topness, but it's also a chance to see things in a new light. For theologians it's a chance to let the left brain and right brain to work together, for Christians it’s a chance to view the gospels from someone else's perspectives and notice things that might never have occurred to us on our own. For film fans a chance to reconsider the work or the motives of one of the most pivotal characters in the silent film era. And It's a chance for all of us to look back 90 years, to be enraptured, to be entertained, and to connect to those who have gone before us, and their faith, fears, hopes and dreams of a better world.

Jaël et Sisera (1911)

Amazingly this short film from 1911 is the only time any part of the story of Deborah (Judges 4-5) has been filmed in any kind of vaguely significant production. For this reason (and a few others) it's been one I've wanted to see for very many years and last week I happened to be at BFI Southbank -  where you can now access the BFI's digital library - and was able to walk in and watch it for free within a minute or two of arriving. If you're passing that way I very much recommend it. A few other old silent films are there to view as well. (For example, three films about Jephthah's daughter from a similar time period are there also).

Unfortunately, Deborah doesn't get to feature in this film either. Whilst Barak, Sisera, Jael and her husband Heber all get a part, Deborah not only remains off screen, but doesn't even get a mention in the intertitles. In some ways that's not entirely surprising, at only 10 minutes long the film has to trim the story right down and given the success of the biblical-women-slaying-Israelite-enemies-whilst-they-sleep genre (OK,mainly Judith) it's not that hard to see why Pathé and director Henri Andréani prioritised Jael.

The film starts outside Jael's tent. Things are a little unclear, but Sisera has seemingly conquered the camp because a group of Israelites are chained up, Jael is somewhat subdued and a minute or two into the picture Heber, previously described by an intertitle as being "friendly with Sisera", is brought in seemingly under a certain amount of duress. When nobody is looking Jael gesticulates towards the skies, and then breaks the chains of some of the Isarelites. They then flee to tell Barak about Sisera's location and his army marches our to battle. This opening shot, and indeed most, if not all of the film, is all filmed on location outdoors (as with Andréani's 1911 Caïn et Abel and a number of his other films).

On hearing the news of Sisera's location, Barak and his troops attack Sisera's camp in various locations, including the scene of the opening shot and one particularly pleasing shot as the Israelites chase Sisera's men up and over a hill. Another scene takes place on what looks like a beach though the intertitles describe God sending a "Kishon Torrent" to help Barak in an interesting dovetailing of Judges 4 verses 13 and 15. The torrent looks more like a lake or a sea, but the location does provide Andréani with a sizeable rock for Sisera's man to scramble upon in a fashion similar to Francis Danby's Painting "The Deluge" (c.1840), which also found its way into Darren Aronfsky's Noah (2014).

Sisera survives however, and creeps away somewhat stealthily, but Barak nevertheless manages to hunt him down. So it is that Sisera arrives back at Jael's tent and begs her to shelter him. In an echo of the first scene Jael gives Sisera water and he then collapses in exhaustion.Whilst he lies there unconscious she pulls up a large tent peg and drives it through his head (pictured above). The moment is surprisingly brutal. Whilst there's no blood and the action takes place in mid-shot, the repeated violent hammering is rather shocking.

Moments later Barak's army arrives, only to find Jael has done their work for him. Barak kneels besides Sisera's lifeless body and kisses the hem of her garment in tribute.

The quality of the print of the film is pretty impressive. I don't know enough about restoration and transfer to be able to tell whether this has been simply transferred to mp4 format or whether some restoration work has been done, but I should point out that the image above was taken rather hastily on my phone from the computer screen and so doesn't at all do it justice. The colour is quite striking, and consistent with Andréani's David et Goliath from the previous year. Particularly memorable is the shot panning up the hill as Sisera's troops seek to escape. As early biblical films goes it's an interesting mix of reliance on the text combined with the odd bit of dramatic licence when it suited the filmmakers, but perhaps most interesting is the use of somewhat shocking violence. Biblical films are well known for sword play, but rarely until the present century have they been quite so violent. Still, if ever a source text justifies such an approach, it's this.

Quo Vadis? (1913)

At the time, Enrico Guazzoni's Quo Vadis? (1913) was called "The most ambitious dramatic work ever seen in cinema" (New York Times). Today it remains overshadowed by it's 1951 Hollywood remake, a product of Hollywood, though that too was shot in Rome, in the Cinecittà studios. Both films and the 1902 (Pathé) original were based on Henryk Sienkiewicz's (Polish) novel, itself dating only as far back as 1890.

The film's creation, produced by the Rome-based company Cines, marks the coming together of a number of interconnected trends. Even at this early stage in cinema history there had been numerous adaptations of 19th century epic novels pitting Romans against early Christians from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834, adapted in 1908 and again in 1913) to Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" (1880, first adapted in 1907). Then, in terms of Italian output, the epic film was very much emerging. If Arturo Ambrosio and Luigi Maggi's 1908 Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, an adaptation of Bulwer-Lytton's novel, can be seen as the first true epic film then just a year after the release of Guazzoni's Quo Vadis? (1913) was it's silent era high point - Giovanni Pastrone's still impressive Cabiria. Watch those three films back to back and suddenly much of the credit given to Griffith's Intolerance seems a little misplaced.

But the enduring impact and impressiveness of Quo Vadis? and Cabiria masks the level of turmoil that was present in the Italian industry at the time. Despite the acclaim for Quo Vadis? Cines hit a downward spiral plagued by poor business decisions and a failure to conquer America and was sold off just a year or two later (Tomadjoglou 108). By the time Christus was released in 1916, it was very much a different company.

The popularity of the epic film was itself part of a broader movement in Italian filmmaking around this time. Naturally there was a strong emphasis on Roman history. From Carthage (Cabiria) and Spartacus (1913's Spartaco), to the loose Shakespearean adaptations Anthony and Cleopatra (Guazzoni, 1913) and Julius Caesar (Guazzoni, 1914), through to Constantine (In hoc signo vinces, 1913), but the subjects covered were far broader, taking in subjects as diverse as Greek myths (L'Odissea,1911), the Crusades (Guazzoni's La Gerusalemme liberta, 1911) and Napolean (Guazzoni's Pro patria mori, 1912). Naturally there were no shortage of biblical titles either. Again Guazzoni was at the fore with Guiseppe ebreo (Joseph the Hebrew, 1991), I Maccabei (1911) and Quo Vadis?, but consider also Milano films' 1910 San Paolo, Luigi Maggi's Giuda (Judas, 1911), and Cines' Christus (1916).

Having said all that, please don't gain the impression from my rather overenthusiastic listing that the Italian film industry of the early 1910s was dominated by such offerings. In fact "historical films did not make up the majority of Italian production but, rather, were considered the flagship product, geared both to the domestic and foreign markets." (Muscio 163) This ties in well with what we know of the American industry at the same time. Many saw the cinema as disreputable so companies like Vitagraph sought to provide a higher quality of output. Historical films, based upon reputable sources like the Bible and Shakespeare were a much favoured route. I guess we could debate - comparing the way cinema is regarded in comparison to other art forms today - whether or not Vitagraph and the Italian film exporters like Cines' George Kleine were successful or not, but perhaps another time.

Nevertheless, the artistry and quality of the Italian films was what set them apart from competition abroad. According to Muscio's research "the most common traits of historical films pertained to the quality of the mise-èn-scene, which included the visual blocking of the masses, the richness of the scenographic details, frame composition, the quality of the lighting, and the use of landscape" (166).

In Italy the historical films were also considered an important medium for those looking "for literary kinships and a strong link with traditional culture" who were typically "wanting to educate the masses by popularizing the classics" (Muscio 166). In this we perhaps find the roots of Roberto Rossellini's later historical works, which were made with very much the same intention. But at home they filled a further role. The unification of Italy had only been completed forty years previously and was still a source of tension in some quarters. Historical epics had a "capacity to glorify history as a nostalgic escape from post-Unification disenchantment and the mounting social unrest of the present" (Muscio 168).

The film itself runs to around 100 minutes, far better paced than the 1951 remake which drags in places. Visually it's typified by the use of tinting and/or toning in almost every scene, and this technique is used to great effect, particularly as Rome burns. My favourite, though might be the way the colours change as the orgy scene progresses. Initially pink, is switches to a more sultry red as things hot up a bit. By the time we reach the last throws of the event the next morning, the colour has changed again to a pale sickly green.

As implied above the sets are certainly impressive as is the size of the various crowds which fill so many scenes, but the fire scenes and those in the Colosseum particularly stand out. It's also noticeable how well Guazzoni uses the available space and the film's depth of field. In the Colosseum scene an unfortunate group of Christians wait in the deep background for a pride of lions who emerge at the front of the shot and prowl terrifyingly towards them

The film opens by introducing us to each character in turn as one shots are alternated with intertitles giving us the names of each character and their actor in turn. Vincinius' arrival in the city is somewhat muted, as his attempted courtship of Lyggia is kept short. Less than nine minutes passes before she is arrested and then dragged to Nero's orgy. Once there, Vincinius' attempt to seduce Lyggia is far more uncomfortable viewing than the 1951 version. Things start off pleasant enough, but it seems like it might have ended in rape had not Ursus stepped in to whisk Lyggia away.

It's a surprise then when Lyggia so quickly decides to marry him, and he decides to convert. The two head off to find Peter in the first of many scenes in the catacombs. Peter is seemingly much more involved with the everyday goings on in the Christian community. He is far more hands on and less remote than Finlay Currie's take in the 1951 version. Later we also meet Paul and then, of course, Jesus. Peter's vision on the Appian way occurs right at the end of the film. By this point Nero has already burned Rome, blamed the Christians and murdered them in the amphitheatre by various grisly means. The Roman "games" scene features a Ben-Hur style chariot race (not found in the novel).

Jesus' appearance is shot using double exposure, a ghostly figure with hair that reaches down to his chest. Peter barely gets back to Rome before the legions have revolted and Galba has been declared emperor. Nero flees but dies shortly afterwards and an intertitle declares that "from the rain of strife and blood sprang a new life: the life of Christianity, in the sign of love and peace". The film's closing image, featuring a green tint, is Jesus stood in front of a glowing cross in the background, being worshipped by his followers. 

For Bible films fans there are appearances by Peter, Paul and Jesus, quite possibly the first production to do so. It seems unlikely the original adaptation would have had time to include the Paul scenes, and whilst one of the early films about Paul might have included both the apostle's brushes with Peter and a lifelike vision of Jesus on the Damascus road it's hard to imagine they had the running time either.

For everyone else, Quo Vadis? is rightly celebrated as a landmark film.It may not have a claim to fame for a historic first, but it's impressive sets, crowds, use of colour and set it above the films that were being made across the Atlantic and in neighbouring France.

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Muscio, Giuliana (2013) "In Hoc Signo Vinces: Historical Films", in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) (2013). Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (New Barnett: John Libbey Publishing), pp. 161-70

Tomadjoglou, Kimberly (2013) "Rome's Premiere Film Studio: Società Italiana Cines", in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) (2013). Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (New Barnett: John Libbey Publishing), pp. 161-70

Der Stern von Bethlehem (1921)

(The above screen-grab is from Reiniger's 1956 film The Star of Bethlehem)
One of the lost biblical films that I dearly hope will turn up in someone's attic one day is Lotte Reiniger's 1921 Der Stern von Bethlehem. For years I laboured under the mis-apprehension that the 1956 film The Star of Bethlehem which I reviewed here, was essentially just the 1921 film re-released with narration. Sadly I've now found out enough about this to make this appear highly unlikely. For one thing most of Reiniger's pre-WWII films were lost during the bombing of Berlin, though thankfully her classic The Adventures of Prince Achmed - made five years later in 1926 -  has survived and enjoyed a couple of recent restorations. The European Lost Films Archive officially lists this as lost.

Another key factor is that the 1921 film appeared so early in Reiniger's career that it seems unlikely her style would have developed to the level of sophistication on display in the 1956 film. The layering on the backgrounds, the use of colour and just the smoothness of the movement all suggest an artist at the top of her game. Prince Achmed is considered a masterpiece, but even with that it's plain to see the development in her technique.

That said Reiniger always gave the impression that she was just doing what came naturally to her. In a rare interview with her in 1976, she talked about how she was able to cut-out intricate figures from card from almost as soon as she was able to hold a pair of scissors.(1) You can see her at work in the 1970 documentary, The Art of Lotte Reiniger, and the speed with which she works is certainly impressive. She also included an animated version of her scissors cutting out the figures at the start of another of her surviving early films Cinderella (1922). The intricacy of these cut outs, the sleeves on the dresses here for example - in a hand-cut moving image - are incredible. Furthermore "Reiniger’s great strength as an animator is her inclusion of delicate little motions that imbue her creations with life".(2)

Reiniger started her career as an animator working on Paul Wegener's Der Rattenfänger von Hameln (The Pied Piper of Hamelin, 1918) aged just 17. The film was a live action movie, but when Wegener was struggling to get his rats to follow his piper he turned to Reiniger to produce an animated sequence instead. The year after Hameln's release she directed her own short film Das Ornament des verliebten Herzens (The Ornament of the Enamoured Heart, 1919) making her work more or less contemporary with the women featured in Kino Lorber's Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers box set, released last month.

Der Stern von Bethlehem was only her third film then (following Amor und das standhafte Liebespaar) both of which were produced by the Institute for Cultural Research in Berlin.(3) Whilst the Institute Around the same time she began to work for advertising exec Julius Pinschewer and it's thanks to this partnership that we have her oldest surviving work Das Geheimnis der Marquise (The Marquise’s Secret, 1921/2).(4) The film tells of a woman who woos her lover thanks to her skin which is "as white as snow". When the Marquis begs to know which god gave her such radiance she tells him it was all down to her Nivea cream.

Whilst the plot and dialogue are hardly extraordinary it's an interesting reference point. For one thing Reiniger's art and creativity is plain to see. In particular the moment when she is applying her cream and her face appears in the mirror opposite is especially striking. It's also notable that the figures here are white on a black background, rather than the dark figures in the foreground that came to typify Reiniger's style.

Interpolating between Marquise and Cinderella gives us a fair idea of what might have been in Der Stern von Bethlehem. It's unlikely to have been as long as the 1956 film and the background would probably have been plain, rather than the striking, multi-planed backgrounds of the latter work.(5) The style may have been slightly different from all three films.

Reiniger and her husband and life-long collaborator Carl Koch eventually fled Nazi Germany and for many years moved from place to place including Egypt, Greece and Italy. Eventually they had to return home and were pressed into making work for the Nazis. After the war the couple moved to London where they enjoyed their most productive period, creating 22 films in just ten years between 1949 and 1958. Many of these films were based on German fairy tales including a remake of Cinderella so the 1956 remake was something of an exception.

Sadly, it seems likely we'll never get to see the original, but the 1956 version an be viewed on the Gospel Film Archive's Christmas Collection DVD, on YouTube, or on this DVD/Bluray release of  The Adventures of Prince Achmed which also includes her 1974 film The Lost Son based on the parable of Jesus.(6) If you would like to find out more about Lotte Reiniger there are a range of good podcasts or you could have a read of Whitney Grace's new book "Lotte Reiniger: Pioneer of Film Animation".

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1 - Kenneth Clouse Collection, Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Available online - http://uschefnerarchive.com/project/lotte-reiniger-recording/
2 - Kramer, Fritzi (2018). Cinderella (1922) A Silent Film Review March 18, at Movies Silently - http://moviessilently.com/2018/03/18/cinderella-1922-a-silent-film-review/
3 - Guerin, Frances and Mebold, Anke (2013) "Lotte Reiniger." In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, Web. July 6, 2016 https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/lotte-reiniger/
4 - ibid
5 - Seemingly it was Reiniger, not Walt Disney, who invented the multi-planed camera, though he developed the design and patented it. Indeed, quite a lot of Reiniger's leagcy appears to have been consolidated into the Disney myth. Snow White (1937) is often credited as the first feature-length animated film, but of course this appeared a full eleven years after Prince Achmed which at between 66 and 81 minutes certainly qualifies as being feature length.
6 - The BFI have posted an excerpt of the film on YouTube and it's clear that this version of the film contains a male narration track which also features some singing in contrast to the voice of Barbara Ruick who provides the narration on the Cathedral Films version released by Gospel Films.