The Ancient World in Silent Cinema

In the first four decades of cinema, hundreds of films were made that
drew their inspiration from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Bible.
Few of these films have been studied, and even fewer have received the
critical attention they deserve. The films in question, ranging from
historical and mythological epics to adaptations of ancient drama,
burlesques, cartoons and documentaries, suggest a fascination with
the ancient world that competes in intensity and breadth with that of
Hollywood’s classical era. What contribution did antiquity make to the
development of early cinema? How did early cinema’s representations
affect modern understanding of antiquity? Existing prints as well as
ephemera scattered in film archives and libraries around the world
constitute an enormous field of research. This extensively illustrated
edited collection is a first systematic attempt to focus on the instru-
mental role of silent cinema in twentieth-century conceptions of the
ancient Mediterranean and Middle East.

pantelis michelakis is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the

University of Bristol. His research interests are in Greek theatre,
literature and culture and in their ancient and modern reception.
He is the author of Achilles in Greek Tragedy (2002), Euripides’
Iphigenia at Aulis (2006) and Greek Tragedy on Screen (2013). He
has also co-edited Homer, Tragedy and Beyond: Essays in Honour of
P. E. Easterling (2001) and Agamemnon in Performance, 458 BC to
AD 2004 (2005).
maria wyke is Professor and Chair of Latin at University College
London. Her research interests include the reception of ancient
Rome, especially in popular culture. In both Projecting the Past:
Ancient Rome, Cinema and History (1997) and The Roman Mistress:
Ancient and Modern Representations (2000), she explored cinematic
reconstructions of ancient Rome in the film traditions of Italy and
Hollywood. She won a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship to
investigate the reception of Julius Caesar in Western culture, since
published as Caesar: A Life in Western Culture (2007) and Caesar in
the USA (2012).
The Ancient World in Silent Cinema

Edited by pa n t e l i s m i c h e l a k i s and
m a r i a w y ke
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of

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© Cambridge University Press 2013

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

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no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2013

Printing in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The ancient world in silent cinema / edited by Pantelis Michelakis & Maria Wyke.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-107-01610-1 (Hardback)
1. Historical films–History and criticism. 2. Silent films–History and criticism.
3. Civilization, Ancient, in motion pictures. I. Michelakis, Pantelis. II. Wyke, Maria.
PN1995.9.H5A545 2013
791.430 658–dc23 2013000786

ISBN 978-1-107-01610-1 Hardback

Additional resources for this publication at www.cambridge.org/9781107016101

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of

URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

List of illustrations [page vii]

List of colour plates [xiii]
List of contributors [xv]
Acknowledgements [xx]

1 Introduction: silent cinema, antiquity and ‘the exhaustless

urn of time’ [1]
pantelis michelakis and maria wyke

part i theories, histories, receptions

2 The ancient world on silent film: the view from the archive [27]
bryony dixon

3 On visual cogency: the emergence of an antiquity of moving

images [37]
marcus becker

4 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs [53]

antonia lant

5 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’: representing ancient Egypt and the

Middle East in film theory and criticism of the silent period [74]
laura marcus

6 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world [91]

david mayer

7 Ancient Rome in London: classical subjects in the forefront of

cinema’s expansion after 1910 [109]
ian christie

8 Gloria Swanson as Venus: silent stardom, antiquity and the

classical vernacular [125]
michael williams

9 Homer in silent cinema [145] v

pantelis michelakis
vi Contents

part ii movement, image, music, text

10 Silent Saviours: representations of Jesus’ Passion in early
cinema [169]
caroline vander stichele

11 The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907) [189]

jon solomon

12 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal [205]

judith buchanan

13 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film: the example

of Cabiria (1914) [229]
annette dorgerloh

14 Peplum, melodrama and musicality: Giuliano l’Apostata

(1919) [247]
giuseppe pucci

15 ‘An orgy Sunday School children can watch’: the spectacle of

sex and the seduction of spectacle in Cecil B. DeMille’s
The Ten Commandments (1923) [262]
david shepherd

16 Silent laughter and the counter-historical: Buster Keaton’s

Three Ages (1923) [275]
maria wyke

17 From Roman history to German nationalism: Arminius and

Varus in Die Hermannschlacht (1924) [297]
martin m. winkler

18 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ [313]

ruth scodel

19 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age [330]

margaret malamud

General bibliography [347]

Index of films discussed [369]
General index [373]
Illustrations

3.1 Herbert Schmalz, Zenobia’s Last Look upon Palmyra, oil on

canvas, 1888. By permission of the Art Gallery of South Australia,
Adelaide. [page 39]
3.2 A. H. Payne after Lipsius, Greek Room in the Neues Museum at
Berlin, steel engraving, 1850s. [41]
3.3 Berlin, underground station Klosterstraße, southern entrance
hall. Photograph, 2011 (Marcus Becker, Berlin). [44]
3.4 The Gate of Imgur Bel: four images from D. W. Griffith’s
Intolerance (1916). Screen captures from DVD © absolut
Medien, 2008. [47]
6.1 The exterior walls of Babylon. D. W. Griffith’s set for Intolerance
(1916). Private collection. [94]
6.2 The courtyard of Belshazzar’s palace thronged with dancers and
spectators in D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916).
Private collection. [95]
6.3 Cover to souvenir programme: Imre Kiralfy’s The Fall of
Babylon, Boston, 1891. Private collection. [98]
6.4 Triumphant procession as depicted in souvenir programme for
Imre Kiralfy’s The Fall of Babylon. Private collection. [99]
6.5 Maud Allan performing The Vision of Salomé, from a posed
photograph, c. 1907. Private collection. [105]
6.6 Gertrude Hoffman as Salomé, in imitation of Maud Allan,
c. 1909. Private collection. [106]
7.1 British distributor’s 1911 advertisement in The Bioscope for
Itala’s The Fall of Troy, claiming that its superior scale and
realism would guarantee commercial success for
exhibitors. [115]
7.2 By 1915, lavishly produced ancient world subjects, such as Cines’
Julius Caesar, were an established attraction, as evidenced by this
trade show advertisement intended to enthuse local
exhibitors. [118]
8.1 Sketch of Gloria Swanson entitled ‘Gloria Victis’ in Photoplay,
October 1921. [128] vii
viii List of illustrations

8.2 Postcard featuring Gloria Swanson, released to publicise Her

Husband’s Trademark (1922). Personal collection. [129]
8.3 Photograph of Gloria Swanson, published in the magazine
Picture-Play, September 1922. [130]
8.4 ‘Ideals of Beauty’, Photoplay, July 1926. [140]
9.1 Odysseus’ arrival in Ithaca in T. Angelopoulos’ contribution to
the film collection Lumière & Company (1996). Screen capture
from DVD © Fox Lorber, 1998. [146]
9.2 French poster for Manfred Noa’s film Helena (1924), released in
France as Le siège de Troie. From the collections of the
Cinémathèque française – Bibliothèque du Film, Paris. [148]
9.3 Odysseus’ ship and its encounter with Scylla in Francesco
Bertolini, Giuseppe de Liguoro and Adolfo Padovan’s Odissea
(1911). Screen capture from the restored print held at the George
Eastman House, Rochester, NY. [149]
9.4.1 Calypso and her female companions find Odysseus asleep
outside her cave in Georges Méliès’ L’île de Calypso: Ulysse et
le géant Polyphème (1905). Screen capture from DVD © Fechner
productions, 2008. [156]
9.4.2 Odysseus faces the threatening hand of giant Polyphemus.
Screen capture from DVD © Fechner productions, 2008. [156]
9.4.3 Odysseus blinds Polyphemus. Screen capture from DVD ©
Fechner productions, 2008. [156]
9.5 Homer in performance at the beginning of Luigi Romano
Borgnetto and Giovanni Pastrone’s The Fall of Troy (1911).
Screen capture © British Film Institute. [160]
9.6 A stemma providing the genealogy of the surviving film prints for
Luigi Romano Borgnetto and Giovanni Pastrone’s The Fall of Troy
(1911), after Marotto & Pozzi 2005: 111. [163]
10.1 Gustave Doré, The Last Supper, woodcut, 1866. By permission,
from Gustave Doré, The Doré Bible Illustrations (New York:
Dover Publications, 1974). [178]
10.2 The Last Supper: Jesus announces that someone will betray him in
Pathé’s The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905). Screen capture
from DVD © Image Entertainment, 2003. [178]
10.3 The Last Supper in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Leaves from Satan’s
Book (1921). Screen capture from DVD © Image Entertainment,
2005. [183]
11.1 Kalem advertisement for Ben-Hur (1907) in Moving Picture
World, December 1907. [190]
 List of illustrations ix

11.2 Pain’s Last Days of Pompeii, Manhattan Beach, card,

c. 1900. [194]
11.3 Intertitle from Ben-Hur (1907). Screen capture from a film print
in a private collection. [198]
11.4 Photo of Ben-Hur (1907) exhibition. Unknown
provenance. [201]
12.1 The inspiring angel appears to strengthen Judith’s resolve
in Giuditta e Holoferne (1908, dir. M. Caserini). Screen capture ©
British Film Institute. [212]
12.2 The strategic construction of Judith (Renée Carl) as seductress
in Judith et Holopherne (1910, dir. L. Feuillade). Screen capture ©
British Film Institute. [216]
12.3 Judith the widow in still and cloistered seclusion in Judith et
Holopherne (1910, dir. L. Feuillade). Screen capture © British
Film Institute. [217]
12.4.1–5 Blanche Sweet as Judith in emotional turmoil over
Holofernes’ sleeping form in D. W. Griffith’s Judith of
Bethulia (1914). Screen captures from DVD © Bach Films,
2010. [221]
12.5.1–2 Judith and her maidservant’s liturgical rite of self-cleansing in
D. W. Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia (1914). Screen
captures from DVD © Bach Films, 2010. [224]
12.5.3 Judith and her maidservant gesturally aligned. Screen capture
from DVD © Bach Films, 2010. [224]
12.5.4 Judith breaks from alignment with her maidservant. Screen
capture from DVD © Bach Films, 2010. [224]
12.5.5 Judith exults in her own desires and desirability. Screen
capture from DVD © Bach Films, 2010. [224]
12.5.6 The maidservant’s ongoing piety serves as the reminder of the
identity Judith has left behind, prompting her guilt. Screen
capture from DVD © Bach Films, 2010. [224]
12.6.1 Judith is feted in the streets of Bethulia as a conquering hero
in D. W. Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia (1914). Screen capture from
DVD © Bach Films, 2010. [226]
12.6.2 Judith reeled back in to her position looking out on the world
through a mediating window. Screen capture from DVD
© Bach Films, 2010. [226]
12.6.3 Judith recommits herself to an ongoing life of secluded piety.
Screen capture from DVD © Bach Films, 2010. [226]
13.1 Cover of the programme for Cabiria. Private collection. [231]
x List of illustrations

13.2 Film advertisement, France 1932, Imp. Jules Simon S.A., Paris.
Published in Alovisio & Barbera 2006: 55. [236]
13.3 Entrance to the temple of Moloch in Carthage. Illustration from
the programme for Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914). Private
collection. [240]
13.4 Palace in Carthage, Cabiria (1914). Screen capture from DVD ©
Kino Video, 2000. [242]
13.5 Elephant pillar in the palace of Carthage in Giovanni
Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914). Published in Alovisio & Barbera 2006:
314. [242]
13.6 Egyptian forms for the palace of Cirta in Giovanni Pastrone’s
Cabiria (1914). Production still published in Alovisio & Barbera
2006: 13. [244]
14.1 Guido Graziosi as Giuliano in Giuliano l’Apostata (1919,
dir. U. Falena). Cambellotti Archive. Istituto Nazionale per la
Grafica, Rome, Inv. P2208. [255]
14.2 Ileana Leonidoff as Eusebia in Giuliano l’Apostata (1919,
dir. U. Falena). Cambellotti Archive. Istituto Nazionale per la
Grafica, Rome. Inv. P2226. [256]
14.3 Silvia Malinverni as Elena in Giuliano l’Apostata (1919,
dir. U. Falena). Cambellotti Archive. Istituto Nazionale per la
Grafica, Rome. Inv. P2221. [257]
14.4 Ignazio Mascalchi as Costanzo in Giuliano l’Apostata (1919, dir.
U. Falena). Cambellotti Archive. Istituto Nazionale per la
Grafica, Rome. Inv. P2222. [258]
15.1 Aaron at work on the calf while Miriam collects gold from a
besotted Dathan in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments
(1923). Screen capture from DVD © Paramount Pictures,
2006. [267]
15.2 Miriam remains devoted to the Golden Calf and tantalisingly out
of Dathan’s reach in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments
(1923). Screen capture from DVD © Paramount Pictures,
2006. [268]
15.3 Miriam finally kisses the Golden Calf in Cecil B. DeMille’s
The Ten Commandments (1923). Screen capture from DVD
© Paramount Pictures, 2006. [270]
15.4 Orgiastic and fetishistic revelry in the Israelite camp in Cecil
B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923). Screen capture
from DVD © Paramount Pictures, 2006. [270]
 List of illustrations xi

15.5 Dathan looks with horror at Miriam’s leprous arm in Cecil

B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923). Screen capture
from DVD © Paramount Pictures, 2006. [271]
16.1.1–3 Keaton as ‘the Worshipper of Beauty’ imagines how to
improve the racing ability of his team, from a Roman episode
of Three Ages (1923). Screen captures from DVD © mk2,
2005. [282]
16.2.1–2 ‘Beauty’ and her family watch with amazement the victory of ‘the
Worshipper’ and his team of huskies in the snow-bound arena,
from a Roman episode of Three Ages (1923). Screen captures
from DVD © mk2, 2005. [282]
16.3 ‘The Worshipper’ beneath the rubble of a Roman villa he has
destroyed, in a Roman episode of Three Ages (1923). Publicity
still courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library. [288]
16.4 ‘Beauty’, ‘the Worshipper of Beauty’, his rival ‘the Adventurer’,
and Beauty’s parents, in a Roman episode of Three Ages (1923).
Publicity still courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library. [292]
17.1 Mutual defiance: Arminius (left) and Varus (centre) in Die
Hermannschlacht (1924, dir. L. König). Screen capture from
DVD © LWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen, 2009. [300]
17.2 A fate worse than death: Ventidius menacing a German
virgin in Die Hermannschlacht (1924, dir. L. König). Screen
capture from DVD © LWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen,
2009. [303]
17.3 The assembly: Arminius, sword raised, in Hermannsdenkmal
pose, in Die Hermannschlacht (1924, dir. L. König). Screen
capture from DVD © LWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen,
2009. [307]
17.4 Varus shortly before his suicide in Die Hermannschlacht
(1924, dir. L. König). Screen capture from DVD ©
LWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen, 2009. [311]
18.1 Betty Bronson as Mary in Fred Niblo’s Ben-Hur (1925).
Screen capture from video © MGM/UA Home Video,
1988. [321]
18.2 Gospel intertitle over papyrus roll in Fred Niblo’s Ben-Hur
(1925). Screen capture from video © MGM/UA Home Video,
1988. [322]
xii List of illustrations

18.3 The ‘Senate’ building as it teeters in Fred Niblo’s Ben-Hur (1925).

Screen capture from video © MGM/UA Home
Video, 1988. [326]
19.1 Director Alexander Korda, in the role of Paris, gives the winner
of the Helen of Troy Beauty Contest, Alice Adair, an apple. Film
still 93–42, Paper and Photographic Collections, Motion Picture
Department, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. [335]
19.2 Helen (Maria Corda) wearing a new Trojan gown looking with
pleasure at herself in the mirror. Film still 93–14, Paper and
Photographic Collections, Motion Picture Department, George
Eastman House, Rochester, NY. [338]
19.3 Helen (Maria Corda) insists she must go to the theatre. Menelaus
(Lewis Stone) looks both irate and resigned. Film still 93–50,
Paper and Photographic Collections, Motion Picture
Department, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. [338]
19.4 Helen (Maria Corda) and Paris (Ricardo Cortez) flirt while
Eteoneus (George Fawcett), the gatekeeper, warns Menelaus
to pay attention to what his wife and guest are up to.
Film still 93–90, Paper and Photographic Collections, Motion
Picture Department, George Eastman House, Rochester,
NY. [339]
19.5 The ‘generals’: Ulysses (Tom O’Brien), Achilles (Bert Sprotte)
and Ajax (Mario Carillo). Film still 93–43, Paper and
Photographic Collections, Motion Picture Department,
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. [344]
19.6 Helen (Maria Corda) gazes in rapture at her reflection as her
Trojan dressmaker (Charles Puffy) dresses her in dazzling new
outfits. Film still 93–22, Paper and Photographic Collections,
Motion Picture Department, George Eastman House, Rochester,
NY. [346]
Colour plates

1 Le Festin de Balthazar (Balthasar’s Feast, Gaumont, France, 1910, dir.

Louis Feuillade). Still frame from original 35mm stencil colour
nitrate print held at the BFI National Archive.
2 Shot following the shot in Plate 1, showing the legendary ‘writing on
the wall’, Le Festin de Balthazar. Still frame from original 35mm stencil
colour nitrate print held at the BFI National Archive.
3 Giuditta e Holoferne (Judith and Holofernes, Cines, Italy, 1908).
Still frame from an original nitrate tinted print held at the BFI National
Archive.
4 Giuditta e Holoferne (Judith and Holofernes, Cines, Italy, 1908).
Still frame from an original nitrate tinted print held at the BFI National
Archive.
5 King Midas entertained by Pan in La Légende de Midas (The Legend of
King Midas, France, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade). Still frame from
original 35mm stencil colour nitrate print held at the BFI National
Archive.
6 King Midas allows his barber to see his donkey ears in La Légende
de Midas (The Legend of King Midas, France, 1910, dir. Louis
Feuillade). Still frame from original 35mm stencil colour nitrate print
held at the BFI National Archive.
7 King Midas ashamed of his donkey ears in La Légende de Midas
(The Legend of King Midas, France, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade).
Still frame from original 35mm stencil colour nitrate print held at the
BFI National Archive.
8 Moïse sauvé des eaux (Moses Saved from the Water, France, 1911, dir.
Henri Andréani). Still frame from original 35mm stencil colour nitrate
print held at the BFI National Archive.
9 ‘Pharaoh, who does not know that God has chosen the child as Israel’s
liberator, gives his daughter his consent to accept it under the name of
Moses’, Moïse sauvé des eaux (Moses Saved from the Water, France,
1911, dir. Henri Andréani). Still frame from original 35mm nitrate
print held at the BFI National Archive.
xiii
xiv List of colour plates

10 Moïse sauvé des eaux (Moses Saved from the Water, France, 1911, dir.
Henri Andréani). Still frame from original 35mm nitrate print held at
the BFI National Archive.
11 Herbert Schmalz, Zenobia’s Last Look upon Palmyra, oil on canvas,
1888. By permission of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
(Also appears as Figure 3.1.)
12 Berlin, underground station Klosterstraße, southern entrance hall.
Photograph, 2011 (Marcus Becker, Berlin). (Also appears as
Figure 3.3.)
13 Cover to souvenir programme: Imre Kiralfy’s The Fall of Babylon,
Boston, 1891. Private collection. (Also appears as Figure 6.3.)
14 Triumphant procession as depicted in souvenir programme for Imre
Kiralfy’s The Fall of Babylon. Private collection. (Also appears as
Figure 6.4.)
15 French poster for Manfred Noa’s film Helena (1924), released in
France as Le siège de Troie. From the collections of the Cinémathèque
française – Bibliothèque du Film, Paris. (Also appears as Figure 9.2.)
16 Odysseus’ ship and its encounter with Scylla in Francesco Bertolini,
Giuseppe de Liguoro and Adolfo Padovan’s Odissea (1911). Screen
capture from the restored print held at the George Eastman House,
Rochester, NY. (Also appears as Figure 9.3.)
17 The Last Supper: Jesus announces that someone will betray him in
Pathé’s The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905). Screen capture
from DVD © Image Entertainment, 2003. (Also appears as
Figure 10.2.)
18 Pain’s Last Days of Pompeii, Manhattan Beach, card, c. 1900.
(Also appears as Figure 11.2.)
19 Film advertisement, France 1932, Imp. Jules Simon S.A., Paris.
Published in Alovisio & Barbera 2006: 55. (Also appears as
Figure 13.2.)

Colour plates can be found between pages 202 and 203

Contributors

marcus becker is an art historian at Berlin’s Humboldt University. He

is Research Fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Transformations
of Antiquity’ and at a research project on set design and set designers
in the Babelsberg film studios. He has published numerous articles on the
reception of antiquity around 1800 as well as on cinematic scenography
and is co-editor of a volume on Prussia and King Frederic II in film
(Preußen aus Celluloid: Friedrich II. im Film, 2012).

judith buchanan is Professor of Film and Literature in the Depart-

ment of English and Related Literature and Director of the Humanities
Research Centre at the University of York. Publications include the
monographs Shakespeare on Film (2005) and Shakespeare on Silent Film:
An Excellent Dumb Discourse (Cambridge University Press, 2009), the
edited volume The Writer on Film: Screening Literary Authorship (2013)
and numerous articles on film and literature in the silent era. Current
projects include work on the Bible and silent film, painting and early
cinema, myths and fairy tales in film and literature and The Tempest in
performance.

ian christie is a film historian, curator, broadcaster and consultant.

He has written and edited books on Powell and Pressburger, Russian
cinema, Scorsese, and Gilliam, and worked on many film-related exhib-
itions. From 2003 to 2005, he was director of the AHRC Centre for British
Film and Television Studies and in 2006 Slade Professor of Fine Art at
Cambridge University. A Fellow of the British Academy, he is Professor
of Film and Media History at Birkbeck College, director of the London
Screen Study Collection and president of Europa Cinemas, of which he was
a co-founder. Current research includes the early motion picture industry
in Britain; film in the digital era; the history of production design, on which
he published The Art of Film: John Box and Production Design (2009); and
audienceship, about which he has edited Audiences (2012).

bryony dixon is a curator at the BFI National Archive with particular

responsibility for silent film. She has researched and written on many xv
xvi List of contributors

aspects of early and silent film and co-directs and programmes the annual
British Silent Film Festival (now in its sixteenth year) as well as program-
ming for the BFI and a variety of film festivals, conferences and events
worldwide. She is the author of 100 Silent Films in the BFI Screen Guides
series (2011) and is most recently lead curator on the BFI silent Hitchcock
restoration project.
annet te d orgerloh is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art
History at Humboldt University, Berlin and member of the Collaborative
Research Centre ‘Transformations of Antiquity’, working on the project
‘Brave Old World: Sites, Programs, and Materials around 1800’. Since 2011
she has been the head of a research project in the history of production
design in German cinema. She is the author of a book on tomb and
memorial monuments in early German landscape gardens (Strategien
des Überdauerns: Das Grab- und Erinnerungsmal im frühen deutschen
Landschaftsgarten, 2012); co-author of a book on the Berlin Wall in film
(Die Berliner Mauer in der Kunst: Bildende Kunst, Literatur und Film,
2011) and co-editor of a volume on Prussia and King Frederic II in film
(Preußen aus Celluloid: Friedrich II. im Film, 2012).

antonia l ant is Professor of Cinema Studies, New York University.

She is the author of Blackout: Reinventing Women for Wartime British
Cinema (1991) and editor of The Red Velvet Seat: Women’s Writings on the
First Fifty Years of Cinema (2006). She is a member of the National Film
Preservation Board, Library of Congress, and is founding director of the
MA Program in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation at New York
University. Her active research interests are in silent cinema, women’s film
history and egyptomania in the arts. In addition, she is currently inter-
national research partner in ‘Texture Matters: The Optical and Haptical in
Media’, a project supported by the Austrian Science Fund and based at the
University of Vienna.

margaret mal amud is Professor of Ancient History and Islamic

Studies at New Mexico State University. She is the author of Ancient Rome
in Modern America (2009), and co-editor of Imperial Projections: Ancient
Rome in Modern Popular Culture (2001). She is currently working on
Classics as a Weapon: Debating Slavery and Liberty through Classical
Exempla, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
l aura marcus is the Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature at the
University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow of New College Oxford. Her
research and teaching interests are predominantly in nineteenth- and
 List of contributors xvii

twentieth-century literature and culture, including life-writing, modern-

ism, Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury culture, contemporary fiction,
and literature and film. Her book publications include Auto/biographical
Discourses: Theory, Criticism, Practice (1994), Virginia Woolf: Writers
and their Work (1997, 2004), The Tenth Muse: Writing about Cinema in
the Modernist Period (2007) and, as co-editor, The Cambridge History of
Twentieth-Century English Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
She is on the editorial boards of a number of journals and is one of the
editors of the journal Women: a Cultural Review. She is currently complet-
ing a book on writers and the cinema, from the beginnings to the present.

dav id mayer Emeritus Professor of Drama and Research Professor,

University of Manchester, studies British and American popular entertain-
ment of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Recent writings
explore links between the Victorian stage and early motion pictures. He
is co-founder of The Victorian and Edwardian Stage on Film Project, a
contributing member to The [D.W.] Griffith Project developed between Le
Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, the British Film Institute and the
US Library of Congress. His books include Harlequin in his Element:
English Pantomime, 1806–1836 (1968), Henry Irving and The Bells
(1984), Playing Out the Empire: Ben-Hur and other Toga-Plays and Films
(1994) and Stagestruck Filmmaker: D. W. Griffith and the American
Theatre (2009).

pantelis michel akis is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University

of Bristol. His research interests are in Greek theatre, literature and culture,
and in their ancient and modern reception. He is the author of Achilles in
Greek Tragedy (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Euripides’ Iphigenia at
Aulis (2006) and Greek Tragedy on Screen (2013). He has co-edited Homer,
Tragedy and Beyond: Essays in Honour of P. E. Easterling (2001) and
Agamemnon in Performance, 458 BC to AD 2004 (2005). He has also
published articles on Greek tragedy and Greek literature, and their recep-
tion on stage and screen. He is currently continuing his collaborative
research project on silent cinema with his co-investigator Maria Wyke.

giuseppe pucci is Emeritus Professor of Greek and Roman Art and

Archaeology at the University of Siena, Italy. He has been Getty Scholar
(1995–6), Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the
Visual Arts, Washington (2000) and visiting professor in many leading
universities in Europe and the USA. He is Fellow of the Deutsches Archae-
ologischen Institut and of the Società Italiana di Estetica. He has devoted a
xviii List of contributors

number of papers to the cinematic fortunes of Caesar, Cleopatra, Agrip-

pina, Zenobia and other characters of Roman history.

ruth scodel is D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek

and Latin at the University of Michigan. Her publications include The
Trojan Trilogy of Euripides (1979); Sophocles (1984); Lysias, Orations I and
III (1986); Credible Impossibilities: Conventions and Strategies of Verisimili-
tude in Homer and Greek Tragedy (1999); Listening to Homer (2002);
Whither Quo Vadis? (2008; with Anja Bettenworth); Epic Facework: Self-
presentation and Social Interaction in Homer (2008) and An Introduction
to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge University Press, 2010). She was President of
the American Philological Association in 2007 and Leventis Visiting
Research Professor at the University of Edinburgh in 2011.
dav id shepherd is Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at the University
of Chester. His research interests include the reception and interpretation
of the Bible in its ancient and modern contexts. His publications in relation
to the representation of biblical narratives in the cinema include Images of
the Word: Hollywood’s Bible and Beyond (2008). He is currently co-chair of
the ‘Bible and the Moving Image’ programme unit of the International
Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.
jon solomon Novak Professor of Western Civilization and Culture, and
Professor of the Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
received his Ph.D. (Classics) from the University of North Carolina in 1980.
He publishes in a wide range of disciplines including the classical tradition
in opera and the cinema, ancient Greek music theory, ancient Greek poetry,
Greek mythology, ancient Roman cuisine, pedagogical computer applica-
tions, and The Three Stooges. He has published the first of three volumes of
Boccaccio’s Genealogy of the Pagan Gods (2011), a translation and com-
mentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics (2000), The Ancient World in the Cinema
(1978 and 2001), and co-authored Up the University: Re-Creating Higher
Education in America (1993). His works in progress include a book on
Ben-Hur and opera and the ancient world.

caroline vander stichele is Lecturer in Biblical Studies at

the Department of Art, Religion and Culture, University of Amsterdam, the
Netherlands. Her research and publications focus on hermeneutics and the
reception history of biblical texts and characters, representations of gender in
Early Christian literature, and the Bible and modern media, especially film.
She is co-author of Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse:
Thinking beyond Thecla (2009) and co-editor of several volumes, including
 List of contributors xix

most recently Text, Image, & Otherness in Children’s Bibles: What is in the
Picture? (2012). She is currently working on a book about Herodias.

michael w illiams is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University

of Southampton. His monograph Film Stardom, Myth and Classicism: The
Rise of Hollywood’s Gods, exploring the use of antiquity in the creation of
Hollywood stardom, was published in 2012. He is also author of Ivor
Novello: Screen Idol, a contextual study on Britain’s first major film star
(2003), and co-editor of the collection British Silent Cinema and the Great
War (2011). Other work includes: queer readings of the heritage film;
Belgian filmmaker Bavo Defurne; film adaptations of Highsmith’s The Tal-
ented Mr. Ripley; Anton Walbrook; and the relationship between stars and
antiquity in Ben-Hur (1925) and 300 (2006). He is an editorial advisor for
The Velvet Light Trap and continues to research the relationship between
stardom, classicism and sexuality.

martin m. w inkler is University Professor and Professor of Classics

at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. His books are The
Persona in Three Satires of Juvenal (1983), Der lateinische Eulenspiegel
des Ioannes Nemius (1995), Cinema and Classical Texts: Apollo’s New Light
(Cambridge University Press, 2009) and The Roman Salute: Cinema,
History, Ideology (2009). He also edited the anthology Juvenal in English
(2001) and the essay collections Classics and Cinema (1991), Classical
Myth and Culture in the Cinema (2001), Gladiator: Film and History
(2004), Troy: From Homer’s Iliad to Hollywood Epic (2006), Spartacus:
Film and History (2007) and The Fall of the Roman Empire: Film and
History (2009). He has published articles, book chapters, reviews, etc., on
Roman literature, on the classical tradition and on classical and medieval
culture and mythology in film.

maria wyke is Professor and Chair of Latin at University College

London. Her research interests include the reception of ancient Rome,
especially in popular culture. In both Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome,
Cinema and History (1997) and The Roman Mistress: Ancient and Modern
Representations (2000), she explored cinematic reconstructions of ancient
Rome in the film traditions of Italy and Hollywood. She won a Leverhulme
Major Research Fellowship to investigate the reception of Julius Caesar in
Western culture, since published as Caesar: A Life in Western Culture
(2007) and Caesar in the USA (2012). She continues now to work on the
Antiquity in Silent Cinema project, investigating in particular representa-
tions of Roman history in the film industries of the USA, France and Italy.
 Acknowledgements

We are most grateful to University College London and the University of

Bristol for their continuous support throughout our work on the ongoing
research project Antiquity in Silent Cinema, from permitting us periods of
leave to pursue our investigations to funding public screenings, with live
accompaniment, of some of the most rarely seen films. Thanks to a grant
from the British Academy (and warm support for our proposal from
Professor David Mayer), we were able to visit film archives in the UK,
the USA, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, and to consult with
their archivists. The material we gathered has provided a significant part of
the foundation for this volume’s introduction and helped shape the direc-
tion of our future research in this new field of study.
The Collaborative Research Centre Transformations of Antiquity at the
Humboldt University of Berlin was instrumental in organising and pro-
moting a conference on ‘Antiquity in Motion’ that enabled many of the
contributors to this volume to come together and confer with each other
about their respective investigations into silent film. Helpful discussion was
also stimulated by the public screenings held in Berlin (Deutsches Histo-
risches Museum), London (The Bloomsbury Theatre), Bristol (Wickham
Theatre), Los Angeles (The Getty Villa) and Anaheim (The American
Philological Association Conference), and we remain indebted to all those
who were involved in the organisation of those events. We would also like
to express our thanks to Mariann Lewinsky, programmer for the Cent’Anni
fa (‘One hundred years ago’) section of the Cinema Ritrovato film festival
held annually in Bologna, for the opportunity she has given us to write and
talk about the importance of antiquity films to silent cinema, as an
accompaniment to the screening of several beautifully restored examples.
To assist this project, Professor Jon Solomon and the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign very generously shared with University
College London the cost of digitising a selection of the many antiquity
films that survive in the Joye Collection of the British National Film
Archive. Those digitised copies have since been housed in the libraries of
UIUC and UCL for further consultation by students and academics.
xx
 Acknowledgements xxi

In all this activity, we are deeply indebted to Bryony Dixon, Senior

Curator of Silent Film at the British Film Institute. She took time to
provide us with access to and understanding of the Joye collection. She
oversaw the process of digitising a suitable sample of its antiquity films and
kindly agreed to write about that collection, and the importance of film
archives more broadly, in this volume. Also at the BFI, Kathleen Dickson
and Jo Botting organised our viewings and undertook some preliminary
research in the archive on our behalf. In addition, we would like to thank
the BFI for granting us permission to reproduce in this volume selected
frames from films in the Joye collection.
Production of this collection of essays has been greatly facilitated by the
support of Michael Sharp at Cambridge University Press, Elizabeth Davey
and Martin Thacker. The index was efficiently accomplished by Luke
Richardson and Helena Hoyle.

Pantelis Michelakis and Maria Wyke

1 | Introduction: silent cinema, antiquity and
‘the exhaustless urn of time’
pantelis michelakis and maria wyke

Historical accounts of the relation between silent cinema and antiquity

often focus on a handful of feature-length blockbusters such as Enrico
Guazzoni’s Quo Vadis? (Italy, 1913), Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (Italy,
1914), D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (USA, 1916), Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten
Commandments (USA, 1923) and Fred Niblo’s Ben-Hur (USA, 1925).
However, fascination with the worlds of the ancient Mediterranean and
the Middle East as a ‘classical’ and ‘singular’ antiquity (a privileged site of
power and contestation)1 has been a distinctive feature of cinema right
from its emergence in 1896. Within a few months of the first public shows
of moving images, George Hatot brought Nero onto the screen trying out
poisons on his slaves (Néron essayant des poisons sur des esclaves), Thomas
Edison filmed the Leander Sisters dancing as Cupid and Psyche, and Marc
Klaw and Abraham L. Erlanger made more than fifty film strips of biblical
scenes (The Horitz Passion Play), including ‘Adam and Eve’, ‘The Flood’,
‘The Crucifixion’ and ‘The Resurrection’. By the time of the arrival of
sound in the later 1920s, more than eight hundred short-, medium- and
feature-length films had been made that drew their inspiration from the
Bible, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome.
With the exception of a few of those films which have been restored and
released on DVD, and a few more which have been briefly brought out of
the archive for screening at specialist festivals, the films in question are
largely ignored. For example, apart from the handful of celebrated silent
epics, they seem to have left scarcely any visible traces on the institutional
and cultural memory on which later film practitioners have drawn to screen
their own versions of the ancient world. Similarly, film histories and data-
bases have usually been limited to the reproduction of their titles as disem-
bodied and decontextualised entities, devoid of subject matter, cultural
context and historical significance.2 While the strong cinematic interest in
the ancient Mediterranean since the 1950s has resulted in a steady flow of

1
On the ‘classical’ as a site of competition and conflict, see Porter 2006, Settis 2006 and
Kermode 1983.
2
See, for instance, Solomon 2001a and Dumont 2009. 1
2 Introduction

articles, monographs and edited volumes in recent years, the breadth and
persistence of fascination with ancient civilisations so evident in the first
few decades of cinema has been almost totally ignored despite its central
importance to the development of early cinema and to modern, popular
understandings of a past celebrated and debated as ‘classical’.3 And yet,
hundreds of these films still survive, some of them in multiple prints with
individual variances, in archival collections from Montevideo to Tokyo
and from Moscow to Wellington.4 The large number of existing prints, as
well as production stills, posters, screenplays, press books, trade press and
newspaper ads, reviews, and other ephemera scattered in film archives and
libraries around the world constitute an enormous field of material that
awaits exploration and analysis.
The significant presence of antiquity in silent cinema opens up a number
of research questions that are pertinent not only to film history and its
processes of archivisation but also to classical and religious studies, Egypt-
ology and Middle-Eastern studies, as well as to broader cultural studies.
Why did a medium so closely and self-consciously linked with modern life
develop such a strong interest in antiquity from its very beginning? How
should antiquity films be situated within silent cinema and in relation to
later and more dominant forms of cinema such as classical Hollywood?
What interrelationships do they have with more familiar representations
of the ancient world in nineteenth-century art forms, such as the novel,
painting and the stage? Do they constitute a rupture with what came before
and what followed, or continuity? How do the films in question relate
to other conceptualisations of classical antiquity between 1896 and 1928?
What contribution did the worlds of antiquity make to early film? How did
perceptions of those ancient worlds change upon their encounter with the
new art form? What contemporary aesthetic and political interests did
cinema’s ancient civilisations serve? Beyond their archival and historical
significance today, in what other ways do they matter? While future studies
might probe these questions in detail, our interest here is to sketch out with
broad strokes some key issues and possible directions for research in what is
a virtually unexplored yet densely fertile field of knowledge.

3
Notable exceptions include Cosandey, Gaudreault and Gunning 1992 and Lindvall 2001 on
the Bible; Uricchio & Pearson 1993 and Buchanan 2009 on the Bible and on Shakespeare’s
Graeco-Roman world; Lant 1992, 1995a, 1995b and 2006 on Egypt; Mayer 1994 and Wyke 1997
on early toga films.
4
For a comprehensive but somewhat outdated list of silent film holdings of film archives from
around the world, see the database of ‘Treasures from the Film Archives’ compiled by the
International Federation of Film Archives, available in electronic format from Ovid.
 Introduction 3

In early cinema, the spatial and temporal span of the West’s ancient
worlds ranges from the Bible and Pharaonic Egypt to Mesopotamia,
Greece, Rome and late antiquity. The films in question, varying from
historical, religious, and mythological epics to adaptations of literature
and drama, suggest a preoccupation with antiquity which competes in
intensity and breadth with that of Hollywood’s classical era. The diverse
manifestations of the impact of antiquity on silent cinema are evident not
only in historical, mythological and biblical epics but also in comedies,
parodies, animated cartoons, trick films, archaeological documentaries,
travelogues and newsreels. Both the span and the generic range of this
cinematic antiquity are useful as a reminder that terms such as ‘historical
costume films’, ‘sword-and-sandal films’ or the ‘peplum’ cannot capture the
diversity of the material in question adequately or accurately.
The ancient subject-matter covered by early cinema is not all predict-
able. More than a dozen films were made about Sappho and, under the
collective title ‘Aesop’s Fables’, an animated cartoon series ran to hundreds
of episodes (even if their ‘sugar-coated pills of wisdom’, as their closing title
had it, did not always derive from Aesop’s stories).5 Despite the fact that
the cinematic interest in historical epics is very well developed by the time
of the arrival of sound, there are no silent films on figures such as
Alexander the Great. Today Pompeii may be perceived as the most obvious
archetype of the doomed cinematic city, but until the 1920s it competed
with other ancient cities such as Troy, Carthage, Babylon and Nineveh as
well as with modern cities such as fire-devastated Chicago or earthquake-
stricken San Francisco (‘no dead ruins’ claims a relevant advertisement in
1906).6 Epic films set in antiquity begin to be parodied on the screen as
early as the Austrian King Menelaus at the Movies in 1913 (König Menelaus
im Kino, dir. H. O. Löwenstein),7 and cinema’s fascination with Egyptian
mummies led to the production of dozens of films, including comedies,
from as early as 1910.8
A large number of silent films set in the ancient Mediterranean and the
Near East were produced in just three countries: Italy, France and the USA.
This is not surprising given their leading position in filmmaking for most
of the silent period. However, numerous other countries – from Russia to

5
On Aesop’s Film Fables, see e.g. Bendazzi 1994: 57–8.
6
The advertisement is reprinted in Bergsten 1971: 243.
7
Fritz 1992. On film comedies set in antiquity and on their parodying of epic films, see Wyke in
this volume.
8
For which, see Lant in this volume.
4 Introduction

Australia – were more sporadically involved in the production of films

related to these ancient worlds. Moreover such films achieved wide and
rapid circulation in urban, suburban, small-town, and sometimes even
rural environments across Europe, North America and Australia as well
as in parts of Asia, Africa and South America. Although not the first
medium for the mechanical, mass reproduction of classical antiquity in
the modern world, cinema disseminated its representations right across
the world.
The significance of silent cinema is difficult to overestimate when
looking forward to later types of filmmaking and their conceptualisations
of antiquity. First, early films allow us to trace some of the artistic, stylistic,
thematic, ideological and technological developments that made possible
the emergence of the cinematic traditions of the Hollywood epic and of the
Italian peplum. For example, one cannot understand how the so-called
‘classical Hollywood narrative’ became ‘classical’9 without considering the
emergence and consolidation of narrative cinema in the silent era and its
strong preoccupation with both history and neo-Aristotelian aesthetics.
Nor can one understand why Aristotle’s Poetics became a foundational
text for commercial scriptwriting for feature films, as well as for television
drama and even computer games,10 without considering the systematic use
of Aristotelian principles in screenplay manuals of the 1910s. ‘The photo-
play must have a beginning, a middle and an end’, we read as early as 1913
in J. Arthur Nelson’s guide The Photoplay: How to Write, How to Sell.11
Secondly, the experimentation and diversity of early cinema illustrate
both the potential of the medium that later mainstream narrative cinema
developed only selectively, and the significance of ‘roads not taken’12 for
other conceptualisations of antiquity, such as those associated with art-
house, experimental, underground, low-budget and world cinema. The
aesthetic richness and ideological complexity of silent cinema’s antiquity
films demonstrate the limitations of attempts to impose on film history
evolutionary schemes that condemn early cinematic production, exhibition
and reception as primitive and naïve.13 If these films shed light on omis-
sions, regressions and bifurcations in the history of cinema, they also help
put the focus on discontinuities. For example, the burial in archives of

9
On the classicism of Hollywood cinema and more broadly of narrative cinema, see especially
Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson 1985 and the perceptive analysis in Williams 2000.
10 11
See Hiltunen 2002; Tierno 2002. Nelson 1913: 76; see further Thompson 1998.
12
Gunning 1983: 366.
13
On the debate about the ‘primitivism’ of early cinema, see Gaudreault 2006 and Strauven 2006.
 Introduction 5

most of these films explains why film directors who turned to the aesthetics
and technologies of early cinema to articulate their vision of the classical
world in opposition to commercial cinema failed to recognise and exploit
early cinema’s fascination with antiquity. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Tony
Harrison and Theo Angelopoulos would be three such examples of direct-
ors who sought to conceptualise the ‘classical’ origins of Western culture
by means of the origins of cinema14 without being able to engage directly
with any of the numerous films on Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Bible
made in the silent era.
Silent cinema is important not only when looking forwards towards
classical Hollywood cinema and its alternatives, but also when looking
backwards to the emergence of cinema out of, and in competition with, the
art forms of the nineteenth century. While the story of the relation between
early film and other art forms is often told as one of slavish imitation or
emancipatory rejection, the ancient world of early cinema suggests much
more complex, diverse and dynamic forms of interaction between cinema
and nineteenth-century arts, commercial entertainment and optical media.
Early cinema sought cultural legitimisation by flirting with the canonical
status of the ancient world in painting, sculpture, dance, theatre and opera.
By 1909, advertising such sources ‘had become sound business practice’
and ‘an index of “quality”’,15 as is demonstrated by the publicity that year
for Vitagraph’s Life of Moses (dir. Charles Kent and J. Stuart Blackton)
whose painterly sources were said to include ‘Tissot, Gerôme, Gustav-Dorè
[sic], Edwin Austin Abbey, Briton Reviere, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema,
R. A. Joseph Israel and Benjamin Constant’.16 Equally important, however,
is that, in the process of seeking cultural and aesthetic legitimisation, early
cinema sought to outperform and redefine other arts as well as other media
and modes of popular entertainment (the ancient worlds of some of which
are as under-researched as those of silent cinema). In cinema, neo-classical
statues could be animated, famous paintings could be inhabited, the
conventions of proscenium theatre could be violated, and opera could be
rendered more accessible, while at the same time still photography could
be set in motion and vulgar amusements could be refined and made
respectable. For example, the animated statues that feature so often in

14
On Pasolini, see Viano 1993: 163–5. On Harrison, see his own discussion of his filmmaking in
Harrison 1998: xxiii–xxvii. On Angelopoulos, see Michelakis in this volume.
15
Christie 2005: 711.
16
Vitagraph Bulletin 204, January 1910, quoted and discussed in Uricchio & Pearson 1992: 205–6
and in Christie 2005: 494.
6 Introduction

early cinema – to the extent that they become ‘a metaphor for the new
medium and its representational powers’17 – do not simply engage with
classical and neo-classical sculpture. They also revisit and challenge what
makes such sculpture familiar to early-cinema spectators: statuesque fig-
ures in the paintings of academic classicism, poses (often risqué) based on
classical sculpture assumed by theatre actors, dancers and photographers’
models, but also engravings, lithographs and, increasingly, photographic
reproductions of the sculpture itself, tableaux vivants of nineteenth-
century popular theatre and museum display and ‘living pictures’ of
contemporary vaudeville.18 Moreover, multi-media spectacles could pro-
vide models for exchange between cinema and other art forms based not
on imitation or appropriation but on genuine interaction. Early examples
of such interaction include The Horitz Passion Play (USA, 1897) and the
Australian Salvation Army’s Soldiers of the Cross (1900), where film strips
were combined with lantern slides, lectures, organ music and the singing of
hymns to create inter-active, inter-medial religious events.19 Another
example is Alexander Scriabin’s colour symphony Prometheus, The Poem
of Fire which included as part of the orchestra an instrument that projected
coloured lights on a screen (and was first performed with colour lighting
in 1915).20
While looking forward to the future of the silent era’s antiquity films
highlights questions about film history, and looking backwards to the
past highlights questions about cinema and its interrelationship with other
more established or familiar art forms and media, looking at the present
of their production and dissemination raises another important set of
questions about late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history and
culture. What is it about the worlds of the ancient Mediterranean and the
Middle East that makes them such a popular topic for silent cinema?
Antiquity helped legitimise cinema as an autonomous and competitive
form of mass culture artistically, aesthetically and culturally. It provided
filmmakers with sanctioned and canonical subject matters and with the
licence to use them in a variety of ways that could blur the distinction

17
Nead 2007: 4.
18
On films featuring living statues and moving images and their prehistory, see Nead 2007:
45–104 with bibliography. On sculptural poses in dance, see Macintosh 2010b: 6–7 and
Albright 2010. See also Dixon in this volume.
19
On the film strips of The Horitz Passion Play, see Musser 1993 and Stichele in this volume.
On the Soldiers of the Cross, see Kozlovic 2011: 39–40.
20
On Scriabin’s colour symphony, see Peacock 1988: 402–3. On the intermedial relationships of
early cinema see, for instance, Gaudreault 2000.
 Introduction 7

between education and entertainment. On a very basic level, early

cinema turned to classical antiquity as a source for ethical, political or
sexual models to be emulated, but also antitypes to be confronted. Films
such as Louis Feuillade’s Roman Orgy, produced in France in 1911,
indulge fantasies about antiquity that break down the world of the
spectators and reassemble it as a spectacle of absolute power at once
transgressive and circumscribed. An effeminate emperor, a Senate of
women, oriental opulence, and gratuitous acts of violence including a
disruption of a banquet by lions provide a spectacle of excess carefully
framed both historically and in political and ethical terms: the first title
card locates the spectacle within a historically specific, and safely distant,
place and time (Rome, 218), while the final couple of minutes restore
political and ethical order as the Praetorian guard, disgusted, plunge
their spears into the body of the grovelling emperor. But even as excess
and transgression are condemned and closure is achieved, the film
cannot resist a last-minute display of Heliogabalus’ severed head.
Another Italian film from 1911, Luigi Maggi’s The Queen of Nineveh,
offers a similarly complex taste of the otherness of antiquity. The Book
of Jonah had described Nineveh (the capital of the ancient empire of
Assyria) as a wicked city fit for destruction. Where better to perform
modern concerns about marital relations, the authority of fathers,
the vulnerability of masculinity, and the defiance of women? Location
shots of simple pastoral innocence are juxtaposed with the adultery of
the exotic royal court and the dark mysteries of its temple rituals. In the
end, frustrated by the cowardice of her lover, the queen pulls off her
pretty collar of pearls and decorative headband to take up helmet and
breastplate. Only she is man enough to fight her husband’s avenger.
Her necessary punishment with death receives less attention than her
transgressions of gender.
However, it is not only the huge number, diversity and topicality of films
set in antiquity that demonstrate its appeal to early cinema. Its persistent
presence in various discourses around early cinema is equally striking.
In the 1920s, some of the earliest attempts to theorise cinema through
a focus on issues of the aesthetic and artistic value of the new medium
explicitly identified cinema as a Muse – the tenth Muse.21 Already in the
1910s, comparisons between cinema and popular art forms of the classical
past such as Greek theatre were at the forefront of attempts to narrow the

21
Marcus 2007.
8 Introduction

gap between mass and elite culture.22 Around the same time, hieroglyphics
were also seen as a precursor of the cinematic image and were used to
challenge the cultural domination of printed and spoken words over visual
images.23 The elaborate architecture of some of the early cinemas was even
designed to suggest that the very activity of film spectatorship was defined
by entry into a past world. Given that critical discourses of the silent film
era commonly conceived ‘of entering the cinema theatre as entering an
Egyptian tomb’24 or a cave (be it of Ali Baba, of primitive humanity, or of
the Platonic prisoners), it is not surprising that cinema architecture would
seek through orientalism and classicism to give concrete shape to the visual
seductiveness and aesthetic pedigree of the new medium. Here is a descrip-
tion, for example, of the standing set of the Strand on Broadway,
New York, generally considered to be ‘the first palace cinema’:25
The setting suggested the interior of a Greek temple, marble-like pillars supported
an airy graceful roof, while to the right and to the left, one looked out from the
sides of the temple upon hazy landscapes which made one think of woodland and
of meadows. The green garlands wound about the top of the pillars, the profusion
of flowers in front of the temple, the harmony of the Greek type of architecture
suggest[ed] even in its ruins – all combined to make a noble and striking habitation
for the screen.26

The combination of the elements of classicism, nature and a window-on-

the-world is not the only template for film projection settings in the 1910s,
but it certainly articulates an influential vision of cinema as an antique
window through which the audience might gaze back upon ‘all the
wonders of the world’.27
It was not only architectural practice and theoretical discourses about
cinema that turned to antiquity but also cultural and institutional dis-
courses more broadly. From Apollo Pictures and Argus Enterprises to
Venus Film and Vesuvio Films, the names and places of classical antiquity
could be found in almost every letter of the alphabet of silent film com-
panies. And huge studio publicity campaigns accompanied the first
blockbusters of 1910 and 1911 that were set in antiquity. For instance,
the American promotion of the Italian Odyssey directed by Francesco
Bertolini, Giuseppe de Liguoro and Adolfo Padovan in 1911 claimed to have

22
See Canudo [1911] 1988 and Delluc 1921 (quoted in McCreary 1976: 17) discussed in
Michelakis 2013: 1–3.
23 24 25
See Lant and Marcus in this volume. As Lant in this volume. Paul 2005: 575.
26
Quoted in Paul 2005: 575.
27
S. Rothapfel (‘Roxy’) quoted and discussed in Paul 2005: 575.
 Introduction 9

included no less than ‘twenty million pieces of printed matter’ ranging

from editions of Homer’s Odyssey to posters, postcards, lectures and pro-
grammes.28 Film fan magazines fashioned their images of film stars on
sculptural representations of Apollo and Venus throughout the late 1910s
and the 1920s, thus illustrating the mobility of ideas about the perfection
of the classical body from high art to popular culture and consumerism.29
The word ‘cinematograph’ itself, a word adopted by the Lumière
brothers in 1895 but coined by Léon G. Bouly in 1892,30 follows the long
nineteenth-century tradition of naming new optical devices with the help of
neologisms derived from the classical languages: from Joseph Plateau’s phe-
nakistoscope and Simon Stampfer’s stroboscopic disc (both invented in 1832)
to Étienne-Jules Marey’s chronophotographs (1882–1904) and Thomas
A. Edison’s kinetoscope (1891–5). ‘Cinematograph’ was not abbreviated
as ‘cinema’ until after the etymological implications of the word (‘writing
in movement’) had begun to be appreciated more widely and the adoption
of the ‘correct’ spelling with a ‘k’ had helped give the new medium a more
elevated status – as for instance when the British trade journal Optical
Lantern and Cinematograph was renamed Optical Lantern and Kinemato-
graph in 1906 and Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly in 1907.31 Even
the legal and regulatory framework for film copyright in use in much of
the world today originates in a drawn-out battle over intellectual property
rights regarding the first film adaptation in 1907 of the novel Ben-Hur.32
Silent cinema gained cultural capital from its engagement with antiquity
while also developing out of it models for thinking about its own modern
workings and processes. In what ways then, in turn, did silent cinema have
an impact on understandings of antiquity? Early cinema was not just one
among other art forms or perceptual technologies of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century. Until the rise of television, cinema was ‘the
single most expansive discursive horizon in which the effects of modernity
were reflected, rejected or denied, transmuted or negotiated’.33 By virtue of
applying its new technologies to bring antiquity to life and make it move,
silent cinema bestowed on it a modern edge and remained for decades the
single most influential medium for its celebration.
The worlds of classical antiquity which cinema disseminated across the
globe were inhabited by living human bodies, set in physical landscapes or
in landscapes filled with increasingly three-dimensional, purpose-built (and

28
The Moving Picture World, 10 February 1912, 504. See further Michelakis in this volume.
29 30
Williams in this volume. Soulard 1963; Mannoni 2005: 34.
31 32 33
Bottomore 2005. See Solomon in this volume. Hansen 1995: 365.
10 Introduction

spectacularly demolished) sets, projected both on a large scale and in close

detail. Cinema disseminated an animated antiquity, moving in real time. The
intensity of the experience was further enhanced by music; silent cinema was
almost never silent as the projection of films was accompanied by recorded
or live music varying in ambition from phonographically reproduced sound
effects to single-piano improvisations to full-scale orchestras performing
specifically commissioned scores.34 The intensity of the cinematic encounter
with antiquity could also be enhanced by colour: the silver screen was not
always silver as, from the very beginning, various methods of colouring were
employed to convey the sensory experience of a colourful antiquity, from
tinting to hand colouring.35 Cinema, then, could bring back to life what was
thought to be dead, set in motion what was thought to be immobile, and
present in all its glory what was thought to be in ruins and decay. It could
offer a sense of being in history, an engagement with the past that is sensorial
rather than cognitive.36
Thus, by 1915, B. L. Ullman (classicist and editor of the Classical
Weekly) could argue for the benefits of cinema not only in support of a
broader role for the ancient world in the modern but more specifically for
Classics as a discipline: ‘Moving pictures are an excellent means of showing
that the Classics are not dead . . . As classical teachers, let us seize an
opportunity . . . the cause of the Classics will be greatly benefited, for the
people as a whole will become familiar with classical life and history.’37 The
huge educational potential of cinema was exploited by the Church even
earlier: films with appropriate biblical themes were projected in many
countries as part of religious services from around 1910, if not earlier.38
The accumulation of hundreds of titles in the hands of a single cleric
(the Abbé Joye) who then used them regularly as teaching tools in a Swiss
seminary provides a measure of the spread of such practices during the
period.39 But the educational potential of cinema was recognised and
eagerly anticipated as early as 1897. ‘That is what the Biograph or its
successors will assuredly do’, proclaims an article in New York Mail and
Express with enthusiasm and conviction:
It will abolish the past, or rather, the past will speak through it to the present, and a
thousand years will be unto this marvellous device of man’s brains as a single day.

34 35
Cf. Pucci in this volume. See Dixon in this volume.
36
As Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes and Vivian Sobchack have argued in relation to the genre of
the historical film: see Burgoyne 2011a: esp. 3.
37 38
B. L. Ullman, quoted in Winkler 2001: 5. Lindvall 2001.
39
On the Joye collection, see Dixon in this volume.
 Introduction 11

What a lesson there would be taught if the great scenic events of antiquity were
thrown upon the stage as nightly the events of this time are thrown before the
audiences of the town’s theatres! 40

Excitement about the cinematic antiquity to come was also conveyed

succinctly and aptly in that 1897 newspaper article: ‘To see a Roman
triumph – commander, chariots, and captives – trailing through the
streets of the ancient capital would be as if the flood of ages had
been arrested and were returning into the exhaustless urn of time.’41
Less than two years after the first public shows of moving images, the
article heralds what would become cinema’s longstanding association
with the spectacular. And it does so by turning to the Roman triumph
which symbolises and encapsulates the new medium’s promise to
capture ‘the flood of ages’ and to return them into ‘the exhaustless urn
of time’.
However, early films also help conceptualise an alternative, and similarly
persistent, way of thinking about the past, associated with what cannot,
should not or must not be represented. ‘Yesterday I was in the kingdom of
the shadows’,42 claims Maxim Gorky in his well-known response to the
Lumière films in 1896. ‘It is terrifying to watch but it is the movement of
shadows, mere shadows. Curses and ghosts, evil spirits that have cast whole
cities into eternal sleep come to mind.’43 As Laura Marcus points out, ‘for
many of cinema’s first spectators, the realism of “indexicality” of early
films, combined with their unlifelike absence of sound and color, seems to
have provoked, in the film historian Yuri Tsivian’s words, “the uncanny
feeling that films somehow belonged to the world of the dead”’.44 Trick
films, disaster films, sensational melodramas, slapstick comedies, horror
films, adventure and fantasy films, and animation would capitalise on
film’s elusive and spectral materiality to construct an antiquity associated
with magic, ghosts, mummies, miracles, demons, angels, gods, terrestrial
and cosmic catastrophes, and human bodies tortured, dismembered
and put on display. Even early religious films would find cinema’s
‘absence of presence’ liberating in their fight against the accusation
that they degraded religion and irreverently displayed actors playing

40
Unattributed article entitled ‘Where the Past Speaks’, New York Mail and Express, 25 September
1897, quoted in Bergsten 1971: 28.
41
‘Where the Past Speaks’, New York Mail and Express, 25 September 1897, quoted in Bergsten
1971: 28.
42 43
Gorky [1896] 1988: 25. Gorky [1896] 1988: 25.
44
Marcus 2010: 196 quoting Tsivian 1994: 6.
12 Introduction

the role of Christ.45 Reviews of The Horitz Passion Play exhibited in the
autumn of 1897 praised its film strips for being ‘instinct with life and
physical movement but with an entire absence of flesh and blood and
vocal concomitants’.46 Cinema’s ancient worlds, then, could be brought
back to life again and again, but their presence on the flickering screen
was momentary, fragmentary and discontinuous.47 On the one hand,
cinema was associated with the triumph of realism and invested with the
ability to bring the past into the present. On the other hand, it was
associated with the uncanny and the abject, taking the present back into
the past, giving unnatural access to a world of death and the supernatural.
The moving image brought into sharp focus dimensions of an encounter
with antiquity related not only to sensual pleasure, sexual desire and
humour but also to suspense, shock and horror.
What justifies the separation of films related to the worlds of the ancient
Mediterranean and the Middle East from films related to other historical
(or even prehistoric) periods or from films treated under the more general
label of ‘historical film’? And, conversely, what justifies the grouping
together, under the banner of antiquity, of films with different thematic
preoccupations and arguably distinct generic histories such as, say, films of
the New Testament, of Pharaonic Egypt, and of a Graeco-Roman history
that might even be mediated through Shakespeare? Urban filmgoers would
have been familiar with an antiquity that was marked off by a distinctive
and ‘powerfully recognisable visual iconography’48 that silent cinema was
expected to evoke, pay tribute to or appropriate. Nonetheless, silent cinema
also drew on the visual novelty and shock value of new archaeological
discoveries around the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Those discov-
eries could be understood paradoxically as both modern49 and, at the same
time, pre-classical, archaic, or primitive. They became a great source of
inspiration for film practice and theory but also themselves needed the
authentication as history that cinema’s reconstructions could give them.
The widespread recycling of plots, motifs, sets, costumes, and even actors,
directors and production houses across silent films set in the ancient
Mediterranean and the Middle East often collapses the differences between
ancient cultures into a singular and undifferentiated antiquity. It is pre-
cisely this blending of different eras and cultures and their transformation
into a discrete (and versatile) style, oscillating between classicism and

45
See Musser 1993 with further bibliography and Stichele in this volume.
46 47
From the Boston Herald, quoted in Musser 1993: 438. See Becker in this volume.
48 49
As Lant puts it in this volume. See Marcus in this volume.
 Introduction 13

orientalism or antiquarianism and modernism, that sets silent cinema’s

antiquity apart. Cinema is not the first medium to aspire with the help of
antiquity to a totalising aesthetic that blends, among other things, classi-
cism and orientalism. Consider, for instance, similar practices in the
literature and the pictorial and performing arts of the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, or Richard Wagner’s influential concept of the
total art work in the not-so-distant prehistory of cinema.50 Yet cinema is
arguably the first to show how such an aesthetic – through its combination
of different arts, styles, cultures and historical periods – can claim for itself
a role within a larger discourse of popular culture.
In Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (to take one of the most celebrated
antiquity films of the silent era), barbaric Carthage becomes an oriental
counterpoint to the classical settings of civilised Rome. Yet, propelled by
a nationalist ambition for a modern, Italian empire in the Mediterranean,
this drive to separate out the cultural identity of different ancient civilisa-
tions is simultaneously accompanied by the converse practice of stylistic
hybridity.51 The Carthage of Cabiria is exclusively defined by its oppos-
ition to the hyper-classical world of Rome, combining motifs and styles
from various ancient cultures as well as from their modern traditions
of visual representation (including those of Assyria, Mesopotamia and
India) in order to support a stridently colonialist narrative of rescue –
the eponymous young girl must be courageously stolen back by her fictive
Roman hero (‘Fulvius Axilla’) from foul Carthaginian imprisonment.
Cabiria thus draws on a familiar antiquity of cultural conflict, stylistic
hybridity and narrative causality that facilitates a focus on individual
characters and allows an imperialist ideology ‘to work, all the more
effectively, underground’.52 In contrast to this style of film-making which
paves the way for later, more mainstream forms of epic narrative, in
films such as D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance or Buster Keaton’s Three Ages,
distinct historical periods and parts of the world (ancient and modern) are
narrated in parallel, in a way that foregrounds the heterogeneity of
different ages and cultures while also inviting unsettling reflection on
how to compare or contrast them.53 The presence within these latter
film narratives of a classical antiquity that operates in continuous inter-
play with different periods, cultures and styles invites a particularly
complex viewing experience, one based on a ‘web of possible, often

50
On Wagner and the history of media, see, for instance, Packer & Jordan 2001.
51 52
As Dorgerloh argues in this volume. Hansen 1991: 137.
53
See Wyke in this volume.
14 Introduction

overdetermined, often indeterminate, ambiguous, and contradictory

relations, a many-layered palimpsest’.54
While later, commercial cinema is often associated with theories focus-
ing on the spectator’s passivity and scopophilia, in early film the mobilisa-
tion of the visual image was tightly bound to the mobilisation of the
viewer.55 One can debate whether the mass-produced and mass-consumed
antiquity of silent cinema encouraged or paralysed ‘the viewer’s associ-
ational and interpretative competence’,56 whether its emancipatory poten-
tial ever materialised, or whether it was contained by forces of social
control, censorship and propaganda.57 A more productive question to
address, however, is how the sensorial antiquity of a medium that aspired
to commercial success on an unprecedented scale and flirted with patri-
archal, nationalistic, elitist and racist values, could at the same time invite
audiences to search for elements of subversion, critique or at least self-
awareness.58 The representation of antiquity in early cinema often assists
in marking out emerging, new and/or troubling forms of gender, class and
ethnic identity in terms of orientalist excess while nonetheless offering to
viewers a time and a place where it is possible to act differently.59 It can
also serve as a catalyst for the shaping of new forms of community and
solidarity: whether one considers Italian immigrant audiences in New York
watching Caesar’s Gallic conquests during the First World War, the
modern woman of the 1920s watching the consumer-oriented appeal of
Helen of Troy,60 or regional and state elites around the Mediterranean
watching documentary footage of themselves as theatre spectators watch-
ing stage revivals of classical drama or dance.
There are three sets of factors that make possible and indeed necessary
the re-evaluation of early cinema at this particular historical juncture. First
is the resurgence of cinema at the beginning of the new millennium,
following anxieties about its death around its hundredth birthday. Closely
linked with that resurgence is cinema’s renewed interest in antiquity which
was triggered by the release of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator in 2000 and Mel
Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in 2004 after a whole generation during
which antiquity was lost in the wilderness of cable and network television.
Second is the emergence of the digital age and its impact on the study of

54 55 56
Hansen 1991: 136. Nead 2007: 173. Hansen 1991: 140.
57
Hansen 1991: 140.
58
On early cinema spectatorship, see Hansen 1991 and more recently Cooper 2005, Cratton 2005,
and Grieveson 2005 with further bibliography.
59
See Wyke 1997: 90–7.
60
See also Buchanan in this volume on Judith and Lant on Cleopatra.
 Introduction 15

film. Digital technologies have created new possibilities for the storage,
retrieval, dissemination, analysis and restoration of early cinema. Equally
importantly, they have made it conceptually possible to imagine early
cinema not as an archaic, obscure or naïve medium but as one that was
technologically, culturally and aesthetically experimental and dynamic. We
can say that we are ‘looking at the origins of the cinema with eyes and
minds sharpened by current issues of software and hardware, data-storage
and industry-standards’.61 And, at the same time, we can see ‘the new
electronic media across a moment in time when the optico-chemical media
of photography and film were “new”’.62 Third is the consolidation of both
film studies and reception studies. Various ideas and practices regarding
the study of film and the reception of antiquity have come to be organised
into what are currently discrete disciplines. The two disciplines need to
address not only the question of what the study of cinema and of antiquity
is or ought to be but also the question of why an important and complex
chapter in their joint history has been neglected for so long.
The modernity of antiquity has been anchored to different periods
and stages associated with ideologies such as colonialism, socialism and
fascism, movements such as literary or artistic modernism, and disciplines
such as historiography, psychoanalysis and anthropology. At issue is not
just the choice of focus on this period or that stage but also the status
of such competing, overlapping, or intersecting versions of antiquity.63 The
absence of silent cinema from this competition needs to be analysed, and
the positions it can occupy in it need to be debated. The persistent presence
of antiquity in silent cinema raises questions about the modernity and
popularity of a media culture that flirts with classicism and orientalism,
and through them competes with more sanctioned art forms such as
theatre, opera and the pictorial arts, while nonetheless pursuing the thrills
of amazement and shock that make cinema’s antiquity so modern.
This collection of essays is a first step in addressing the importance
of antiquity to silent cinema and of silent cinema to antiquity. Drawing
extensively on archival research, the contributions to the volume examine a
wide range of films and film-related materials and propose specific critical
models for further research. The contributors engage with disciplines
ranging from film history and theory to classical reception studies, literary
criticism, art history, architecture, religious studies, archaeology, gender
studies and musicology. The result of these disciplinary frameworks is a

61 62
Elsaesser 2006: 15. Elsaesser 2006: 15.
63
Cf. Hansen 1995: 363 on the choice of focus on different periods and stages of modernity.
16 Introduction

double focus on film analysis (issues of narrative structure, technique,

technology and style) and on contextual issues of production and exhib-
ition (Christie, Solomon), spectatorship (Malamud, Williams, Michelakis,
Scodel), national, religious, or gender identities (Stichele, Buchanan,
Dorgerloh, Pucci, Wyke, Winkler, Shepherd, Scodel), film criticism (Lant,
Marcus, Becker), history and historiography (Dixon, Winkler, Wyke), and
of exchanges between cinema and other art forms (Mayer, Dorgerloh,
Becker, Pucci). While in some ways still exploratory and tentative, the
work undertaken in this volume draws on and applies to antiquity films in
their specificity the rich seam of academic research on silent cinema which
includes studies of the history of film (Musser, Usai), national cinemas
(such as Abel on France), cinema architecture (Lant), Shakespearian adap-
tation (Uricchio & Pearson, Buchanan), relations to nineteenth-century
theatre (Brewster, Mayer), sound (Altman), race, gender and sexuality
(Higashi, Gaines, Kuhn) and spectatorship (Hansen) as well as broader
studies of historical representation in film (White, Rosenstone).
Silent cinema is far from homogeneous, including as it does a wide range
of modes of production, distribution, exhibition and reception – from early
cinema’s preoccupation with spectacle to the emergence and consolidation
of the so-called ‘classical narrative’, and the simultaneous development of
alternative modes of filmic representation in Europe and elsewhere. While
always retaining a focus on antiquity, this volume nonetheless reflects
silent cinema’s heterogeneity. The first half of the volume (Theories,
Histories, Receptions) consists of contributions that take a broadly thematic
approach to a variety of key issues, whereas the second half (Movement,
Image, Music, Text) consists of contributions on specific films arranged
roughly in the chronological order of their production (with some glances
back, forward and sideways in time). All together they invite the reader to
reflect on the ways in which a history of antiquity in silent cinema might
be configured in terms of the development of (as well as the discontinu-
ities, ruptures and paradigm shifts in) specific cinematic conventions, the
broader cultural formation of cinema, and the rich traditions for the
representation of classical antiquity in other media.
Our starting-point is the film archive and the earliest history of cinema.
Bryony Dixon argues for the importance of understanding the business
practices of the industry prior to 1914 – the point at which the production
and distribution of feature films became routine. Few scholars are familiar
with the first wave of antiquity films which were made before then and
largely remain buried in film archives (after arriving there often by the
most esoteric of routes). Hundreds of these shorter films have survived in
 Introduction 17

multiple but, frequently, damaged prints. Industry catalogues and trade

publicity reveal that they were exhibited as part of variety programmes
(like those of vaudeville or the music-hall). Dixon makes a strong case for
the full restoration of these very many cinematic ancient worlds – that is,
not just their duplication for access, but their proper identification,
cataloguing, editing, cleaning and recolouring. Such restoration is neces-
sary in order to do full justice to silent cinema’s reconstructions of
antiquity as aesthetically rich and technologically innovative (as well as
intriguing in historiographic terms).
The next three chapters investigate the interrelationship of early cinema
with other more traditional media for engaging with antiquity, and
examine how its distinctiveness has been and should be theorised. Marcus
Becker explores these issues in terms of previous mechanisms for ensuring
the power of visual images of antiquity over viewers. Their cogency
mattered greatly because classical antiquity was so frequently called upon
by European societies to shape national self-conceptions. Cinema’s images,
he argues, made a drastic intervention into the mutually legitimising
network of nineteenth-century historical painting, panoramic spectacle,
drawing, engraving, photography, and the museum display of archaeo-
logical finds. These media sought validity for their representations by
virtue of their stasis and the contemplative mode of perception it invited.
Cinema, however, offered an evanescent, discontinuous and fast-changing
sequence of images to its spectators at the same time as it took away the
control over viewing audiences experienced in the theatre. Thus cinema
created a radically new representation of the ancient world in motion
wholly suited to modern, urban living.
In counterpoint, according to Antonia Lant, Egyptian antiquity gave
to cinema a perfect platform on which to play out the new medium’s
temporal flexibility. At the beginning of the twentieth century, ancient
Egypt was cast as the remotest recorded culture (seemingly eternal yet only
freshly understood), the birthplace of human society and home to the
migration of souls. Silent cinema’s multiple dimensions of time (in shoot-
ing, storytelling, editing, projection and consumption) could thus be viv-
idly disclosed through a whole catalogue of Egyptianate narratives, such
as time-travelling optical tricks with artefacts or mummies, reanimations
of Pharaonic characters into contemporary life or into modern erotic
dreams, trans-millennial love, or even ancient objects casting curses upon
their modern possessors. The dimensions of time past and present that are
so dislocated and transgressed are both external (material objects and the
documentary record) and internal (individual memory and erotic desire).
18 Introduction

Cinema’s new, revolutionary idioms merge with Egyptology not only

within film narratives but also within early film theory and criticism. Film
was understood to be both utterly modern and archaic – a new
hieroglyphics or universal picture-language waiting to be deciphered.
Laura Marcus explores these suggestive convergences through the
writings of a poet-artist and an Egyptologist, both of whose investigations
into film’s aesthetics were further stimulated by the opening of
Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. The slow, spectacular revelation of its
treasures was observed, in turn, as if caught on film.
The next three chapters exemplify the pioneering directions that
research on silent cinema’s ancient worlds can take and the contribution
it can make towards understanding how antiquity’s reconstructions sub-
stantially affected early cinema in most of its aspects, from production to
consumption. David Mayer is concerned to investigate the integral role
art dance played in the spectacular ancient world mises-en-scène of early
cinema. While decorative dancing might occasionally be glimpsed in
Hollywood’s later epics, silent cinema regularly offered to its spectators
dances that were atmospheric, narrative-driven (at least in part) and
conspicuous. Modern or ‘art’ dance sought to break away from the strict
formalities of ballet and frequently did so, paradoxically, by adopting the
postures to be found in classical art (under the impetus of investigations
by classicists and anthropologists into ancient Greek and Near Eastern
dance as ritual). Mayer traces the migration of such dance and its practi-
tioners from the stage to ancient world film. There art dance enhanced
the vaunted historical authenticity of the sets in which it was performed,
while its expressive movements, attitudes and gestures, accompanied by
appropriate music, added erotic and exotic colour, as well as emotion, to
early cinema’s ancient worlds.
The persistence of critical disdain for popular representations of classical
antiquity, in Ian Christie’s view, has resulted in a failure adequately to
engage with the admiration and sheer excitement that such early film
reconstructions aroused. Evidence from Britain and elsewhere would sug-
gest, moreover, that antiquity films played a decisive part in the transform-
ation of film production, distribution and exhibition in the period from
1910 to 1915. From around 1910, distributors began to sell exclusive rights
to the exhibition of longer, prestige films in progressively larger and more
luxurious cinemas, at higher ticket prices and for extended runs. A number
of influential films took, particularly, Romano-Christian antiquity for their
subject and repeatedly offered to audiences by that means the simultaneous
appeal of stunning spectacle, eroticism, the decline of empire and the
 Introduction 19

apparent triumph of morality – a winning combination of ‘high-class’

entertainment and a lively education. While Christie delves into the early
trade press and local cinema programmes and newspaper reports to
disclose antiquity films at the centre of changing industry practices (the
scale, the look, the place and the audience of cinema), Michael Williams
analyses studio press books and film-fan magazines to reveal a classical
vernacular articulating the concept of stardom from the 1910s into the
late 1920s. Through the close examination of promotional photographs,
Williams demonstrates the fluency with which critics and film fans read
such manufactured images in terms of an actor’s acculturation into
Graeco-Roman myth and art. Carefully composed as a sculpted Venus, an
American film actress could accrue radiance, divinity, desirability and
a European sophistication. Yet such publicity also worked to imply the
superior power of cinema’s mute performers over classical sculpture: more
radiant, complete, modern, democratic and alive.
Research on the role of antiquity in silent cinema should belong,
Williams argues, not just to film history but also to classical reception
studies. Rounding off Part I of this volume, Pantelis Michelakis provides an
example of how such research can challenge some of the assumptions held
in both disciplinary areas. Exploring how the new art form approached
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (the earliest works in the canon of Western
literature), Michelakis compiles a catalogue of the many respects in which
early film adaptations might not always conform to the conventions that
have been recognised for film epic (including the triad of monumentality,
antiquarianism and ethical judgement): casual play with their source
materials, optical tricks, mundanity, internationality, fantasy, parody,
burlesque. The assorted grouping of early ‘Homer’ films also sets a chal-
lenge to the perceived primacy and distinction of the epic poems’ textual
receptions. Early cinema’s totalising aesthetic could claim to embrace as
one the textuality of written epic, the visuality of pictorial representations,
and the orality of performance. When Michelakis returns us at the end
of his chapter to Dixon’s opening concern with the conditions of early
cinema’s survival, we find that the issue of preservation is complex. Like
the Homeric poems, silent cinema’s antiquity films are not fixed but fluid
entities. Widely exhibited across Europe and North America, they experi-
enced repetition, variation and a precarious transmission. It is not always
possible or appropriate to seek after single, definitive ‘master’ copies.
The second half of the volume comprises closer readings of individual
silent films. The first three chapters of this kind explore some of the less
well-known shorts produced in the 1900s as well as looking on to and
20 Introduction

beyond the rise of the celebrated epic reconstructions of classical antiquity

that emerged in the following decade. Films concerning the life of Christ
were so popular throughout the silent era, Caroline Stichele observes, that
they were frequently recycled, recoloured, fragmented, expanded or
remade. She compares sequences from the Passion narrative of two such
films made in France and Denmark that, respectively, almost top (1905)
and tail (1921) the output of Christ films in the silent era. Their reverential
tableaux vivants are obviously dependent on the gospels as source material
but also draw on the New Testament’s reception in Western art, photog-
raphy, drama and devotional imagery. Promoted as both cinematic attrac-
tions and quasi-religious experiences, the two films diverge from each
other as a result of technological change and the differing confessional
traditions in which they were produced and consumed. One single,
thirteen-minute antiquity film made in 1907, Jon Solomon argues, stimu-
lated several years’ worth of legal debate about cinema as a new art form
and established copyright law in the United States thereafter for adapta-
tions of literature to screen. In order to judge whether an early film version
of the novel Ben-Hur infringed copyright guidelines, the courts had to
decide if it constituted an exhibition of still photographs in sequence,
a dramatic performance, some form of written narrative, or an entirely
new (and therefore exempt) artistic product. As Solomon picks through
the details of the complex case, he also demonstrates the grave difficulties
in documenting even the most basic data about silent film production and
gives a flavour of the practicalities attached to the cinematic reconstruction
and exhibition of antiquity. Like Stichele, Judith Buchanan compares a
selection of biblical films (Italian, French and American) that span the
divide between shorts and features. The apocryphal story of Judith –
the pious widow who transforms into murderous vamp and triumphant
general before returning to the confines of home – was a more explosive
story to capture on film than the life of Christ. Buchanan discerns an
intense burst of interest in Judith across the arts of the early twentieth
century, propelled by urgent ‘real-world’ debates about public roles for
women. She argues that cinema, under growing pressure from its twin
concerns to edify as well as thrill, developed techniques of psychological
narration that were able subtly to express the gender subversions of
Judith’s story (such as stop-motion special effects, interpretative sets,
costumes and colours, a closer focal length for the camera and acting that
was, correspondingly, more facially expressive).
Set in a long period of conflict between the Roman and Carthaginian
empires for control of the Mediterranean, Cabiria (1914) was acknowledged
 Introduction 21

at the time of its international distribution and in subsequent histories as

a – or even the – film that finally lifted cinema to the level of ‘high’ art.
Adding to the already substantial scholarship on this Italian epic, Annette
Dorgerloh contends that its colonialist narrative was played out not just
through scale, plot, performance, costume, camera movement, location
shooting, and the use of enormous three-dimensional sets, but also
through its decor. In the silent era, decor (that is spatial layout and design,
furnishings and properties) was a particularly significant mechanism by
which to create a credible ancient world and to shape its interpretation.
Thus, working against the scant archaeological record, Cabiria’s designers
purged its ancient North African cities of any Graeco-Roman features and,
instead, deliberately orientalised them through an exotic mix of Assyrian,
Indian and Egyptian motifs. Giuseppe Pucci explores a later Italian epic
of 1919 concerning the life of the emperor Julian that (unlike Cabiria) is
little known. Yet, in many respects, this epic works intriguingly against
the conventions for reconstructing ancient worlds on screen that were
by now both established and celebrated. Like Dorgerloh, Pucci draws
attention to the importance of film decor, in this case an audacious
interpretation of late antiquity that blends the style of ancient mosaics
and Art Nouveau. And, like Buchanan, he finds that the film’s narrative
focus and its topicality can be better understood as part of a whole
network of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century representations
(in novels, plays, paintings, poetry and even, here, in scholarship). Yet,
above all, the film is striking for the degree to which it integrates music
with image and word. An original score containing parts for both a
soprano and a chorus was composed to accompany its projection. Captions
were sung or lyrics visualised to give greater emotional intensity to the epic
film’s recreation of an intense struggle between paganism and Christianity,
Church and State.
David Shepherd’s chapter returns us to the more familiar territory of
lavish, big-budget Hollywood epics and to Cecil B. DeMille’s silent version
of The Ten Commandments (1923) as obvious precursor to the sound
version the director released during the Cold War. Yet, Shepherd argues,
the earlier film’s opening prologue based on Exodus, and its Golden Calf
sequence in particular, demonstrates a nostalgic return to the dominance
of spectacle over story that had been favoured earlier in the century.
In comparison to the style of the rest of the film, the flashback prologue
utilises for the creation of thrilling spectacle a primarily static camera,
slower editing, frequent long shots, fewer intertitles, and colour processing.
As the sister of Moses dances erotically and self-consciously for the Calf,
22 Introduction

the cinema spectator is coaxed into the ‘perverse’ pleasures of the show.
The sequence playfully endorses the original cinematic hierarchy of image
over word when each commandment (the divine Word) is visualised
hurtling towards the film viewer from out of the sky. Also made in
Hollywood in 1923, Buster Keaton’s Three Ages exhibits an equally sophis-
ticated sense that a history of its own now attaches to historical film-
making. But here there is reverence neither for antiquity nor for its
modern representations. Maria Wyke explores the comic strategies by
which Keaton insistently parodies and renders absurd the dominant his-
toriographic forms of monumentality, antiquarianism and ethical judge-
ment. While American film directors often set the ancient alongside the
modern world within a single film narrative in order to tell a cautionary
tale, Keaton disturbs such moral ambition by violating period consistency
across his ‘Stone’, ‘Roman’ and ‘Modern’ ages, and by rendering the distant
past as merely the present in laughable disguise. Antiquity once again
provides a playground in which to explore and challenge contemporary
social relations and gender expectations (here slapstick, as well as parody
and anachronism, unsettles old-fashioned, heroic masculinity). Wyke sug-
gests that silent cinema’s comic antiquities should be further excavated
as sites of satiric reflection on the modern world’s representations of
distant pasts.
The last three chapters in this volume all explore ‘the present tense’ of
silent cinema’s antiquity films. That is, they examine the ancient world
reconstructed on screen in relation to the modern world of the 1920s in
which the films in question were produced and consumed. Their focus is
on questions of identity, whether national, religious, cultural or gendered.
Martin Winkler’s analysis of a little-known German film from 1924 which
depicts the victory of its ancient tribes over Roman invaders provides
a useful reminder that Hollywood did not have a monopoly over the
production of antiquity films in the 1920s (nor did it, in fact, at any other
time). Small in scale and impact, and forgotten soon after its release, the
German film nonetheless invites attention for its use of an apparently
authentic location (one marked since the mid nineteenth century by a
colossal statue of the victorious German chieftain Arminius), its focused
appeal to the provincial community living near the historic battle site, and
its inter- and extra-filmic devices to stimulate intense emotion. Embedded
into the programme notes, a poetic prologue declaimed at the regional
premiere, and many of the film’s intertitles, were terms of extreme nation-
alistic currency during a time of French occupation, such as Germanic
‘resistance’, ‘unity’, ‘leadership’ and ‘freedom’. While Solomon explores
 Introduction 23

the first film adaptation of the novel Ben-Hur from the point of view of
film production and exhibition, Ruth Scodel provides a socio-political
context for evident modifications made to the novel’s narrative when it
was transferred again to screen in 1925. Although authorised by moment-
ary glimpses of gospel text, Christianity in this Hollywood epic is rendered
broadly inclusive and undogmatic. In casting, costume and action, no clear
cultural, racial or religious distinctions are made between first-century
Jews and other peoples oppressed by the cruel Romans. In clear contrast
to the strategies of the novel, all are equally exotic and equally available to
spectators for identification. Scodel imputes these changes to a deliberate
policy on the part of the film’s Jewish producers wishing to maximise
profit from ticket sales and to protect the reputation of present-day Jews
(who were now experiencing greater visibility in American culture than
in the late nineteenth century but also greater vulnerability). Finally, like
Scodel, Margaret Malamud investigates the adaptation to screen of a novel
set in classical antiquity. But where Buchanan and Wyke had found gender
subversions at play in silent cinema’s ancient worlds, Malamud discloses
the relative conformism of Alexander Korda’s comedy The Private Life of
Helen of Troy (1927). Whereas the source novel published in the previous
year depicts Helen as a passionate woman emancipating herself from
the social and sexual restraints of middle-class, small-town American life
(thinly disguised as ancient Sparta), the film constructs a vain, fashion-
conscious coquette posing in a variety of gorgeous sets. The scriptwriter’s
apparent attempt at political critique is overwhelmed by the material
spectacle and the witty, colloquial dialogue of the intertitles which together
reduce the film to a form of bedroom farce. The significant commercial
success of this sex comedy (at the very close of the silent era) can be put
down to the irresistible invitation it offered to its American spectators. By
now predominantly female, they were seemingly eager to participate –
however vicariously – in the joys of a consumer age.
The final chapter, like many chapters in this volume, also draws atten-
tion to the difficulties that attend research on silent cinema (only a third of
Korda’s film remains for viewing). Antiquity films, many of which were
first exhibited more than one hundred years ago, often survive only in part
or in poor condition. They, and documents about them, sit in archives and
libraries scattered all over the world. These difficulties have had inevitable
consequences in the preparation of this volume. Since high-quality stills
are frequently inaccessible or non-existent, many of the illustrations here
included are, by default, screen captures. Such images, unfortunately,
cannot do full justice to the aesthetic richness of the cinematic ancient
24 Introduction

worlds as they were originally witnessed. Across this volume, readers will
also spot discrepancies in, for example, the titles of films or the dates of
their production. This is because the same film might be released under
different titles at different times in different countries, but also because
current cataloguing of silent films does not permit complete accuracy.
Until a comprehensive, detailed database can be collated from all the
archives in which silent cinema’s antiquity films now reside, it is not
possible to provide a reliable filmography. The Antiquity in Silent Cinema
research project holds this as one of its next goals. Finally, we should clarify
that, throughout the volume, films have been identified primarily by their
directors for the sake of consistency. In the silent era, however, films were
often understood as the product of the studios which made them and the
stars that appeared in them, rather than the directors whose personal
vision they might have been.
part i

Theories, histories, receptions

2 | The ancient world on silent film: the view from
the archive
bryony dixon

Now that early cinema has become antique, it is acquiring the patina of age
and the value that accrues to anything over one hundred years old. It is a
good moment, therefore, to reflect on the relationship of historical film
to film history. The ubiquity of antiquity, if you’ll pardon the expression,
made the incidence of classical stories or interest in the lands of the ancient
civilisations inevitable in early film. One of the aims of the The Ancient
World in Silent Cinema project is to ask: is the portrayal of the ancient
world in silent film essentially trivial, or can we find deeper relationships
between the two than the purely incidental? Is the representation of the
ancient world reduced to cut-down Bible stories for children, just another
setting for situation comedies, or a pretext for yet more travelogues filmed
among the ruins of ancient Egypt? Film historians and archivists can
supply context to the films in regard to their creation and position within
popular culture and to observe the aspirations of their producers and
audiences (for example we know that the treatment of classical subjects
in silent film was part of a long-term strategy on the part of producers to
upgrade the audience), but it will be the task of classical scholars to assess
whether the representation of antiquity in these films tells us more.
Nowadays general awareness of films concerning the ancient world will
be confined to Hollywood blockbusters like Gladiator (2000) or 300 (2006).
Some individuals may have seen the films of previous generations – going
back perhaps to Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Land of the Pharaohs
(1955) or Ben-Hur (1959). Silent film enthusiasts will have heard of, if
not seen, Quo Vadis? (1913), Cabiria (1914) or the earlier Ben-Hur (1925).
Fewer people still will have heard of, let alone seen, the first wave of films
concerned with antiquity made in the 1900s. This is largely the result of the
general inaccessibility of early film, a lack of attention (even within film
studies) to films outside the feature-length form, and a set of particular
problems that beset archivists and prevent such early films from being
restored and becoming better known and understood.
In this chapter, I will confine myself mainly to the films of this earlier
period and (from the perspective of the archivist) give some of the reasons
why these films have been difficult to see and study, the arcane routes by 27
28 Bryony Dixon

which many early films that are set in antiquity have arrived in the vaults
of the British National Film Archive, and how we now have an opportunity
to restore these films to view. Aside from film history, this chapter will
also discuss some of the archival issues that arise with film of this age. First,
how we can reintroduce some of the original aesthetics through careful
restoration (particularly by bringing back the colour), leading to greater
appreciation of these early films, and, secondly, how the fruitful collabo-
ration of academia and the archives can open up this little jewel box of
early film treasures by giving us back some of the understanding of the
stories of antiquity that earlier generations may have taken for granted.

Finding the films

More than three hundred titles relating to the ancient world have been
identified by the project so far in the film archives (see the introduction to
this volume for details). The vast majority of early films on the ancient
world were made, unsurprisingly, in France and Italy. It was natural that
these Catholic countries with well-developed film industries would be
interested in Bible stories and, for Italian producers, ancient Greece and
Rome were very much part of the national iconography and as such were
promoted through film as part of Italy’s international image. In other
countries the production of films on such subjects was more occasional.
For instance, the USA made a few, catering perhaps primarily for the
domestic immigrant and international markets. Britain produced almost
none at all – the odd ‘Mummy’ story, or Roman drama if it came via
Mr Shakespeare. It may seem slightly surprising, therefore, that a great
number of the prints of these antiquity films should survive in Britain at
the British Film Institute’s National Archive.
To understand the current, seemingly counter-intuitive, distribution
of the films of the 1900s and 1910s in the world’s archives, it is necessary
to understand a little of the nature of the film business in those years.
Before the development of the ‘cinema’ as we know it (that is a network of
exhibition halls served by distributors and producers), films were produced
by a variety of individuals and companies for direct sale to exhibitors.
Many of these showmen were peripatetic, fitting in their touring shows
with a centuries-old circuit of seasonal fairs, but film exhibition became
increasingly urban and settled as time went on. It was only when it settled
absolutely in purpose-built cinemas that the business model changed, and
it became customary to hire film prints and return them to a distributor,
 The view from the archive 29

rather than buying them outright.1 The earlier system encouraged the
production of large numbers of prints – made on demand – which were
left in the hands of the exhibitors or sold on to collectors. It is for this
reason that the films of this period are sometimes found in caches that
appear to us quite random in terms of their content. We are used to film
collections being the product of a studio or having a collecting principle
(perhaps a genre of filmmaking or an individual filmmaker).Yet, although
there are some collections which are the legacy of the early studios
(such as the Pathé-Gaumont Archives), others have only the date of their
production in common.
Among the latter type of collections, two substantial caches are the Joye
Collection at the BFI and the Desmet collection held at the Eye Film
Institute, Amsterdam. The Dutch collection contains over nine hundred
titles as well as accompanying business records from the film distributor
Jean Desmet. The Joye collection of 1128 titles was assembled by a Swiss
cleric, the Abbé Josef Joye, and the films were used, in part, for teaching
at the Basel seminary for boys where he worked in the 1900s. There are no
accompanying paper records, so we do not know enough (and probably
never will) about the pedagogical use to which the films were put by the
Abbé Joye in his teaching, and there is no collecting philosophy to the
material as there would be with, say, the curated collection of an art-house
distributor or the collections of specialist interest groups that contain, for
example, experimental films or films relating to war. Where the collection
is unique and informative is in the fact that it was assembled at a very
specific time in history. It thus represents a snapshot of the distribution of
film during the belle époque (1900 to 1914) and can probably claim to be
the first film archive in the world. There are a few hints as to the use to
which Joye put the films, including some of his own material interventions.
That he combined scenes from different film versions of the life of Moses,
for example, suggests that he was using films with religious themes to
lecture on passages from the Bible.
These collections are of enormous significance in telling us about the
nature of the film industry in this early period – an industry quite different
from that in the era of the feature film. They illustrate the internationalism
of the film business before the dominance of national blocs. During the
course of the typical film programme of that era, one could be watching a
French colour travelogue filmed in a far-flung part of the world together

1
See, for example, Christie in this volume on the early history of film distribution and
exhibition in the United Kingdom and its bearing on the production of films set in antiquity.
30 Bryony Dixon

with a British comedy, a German hunting film, an American drama and an

Italian variety film or any other combination thereof. Intertitles were
translated into the local language, which is why the majority of the Joye
films have German titles. So, films from different producing countries were
exported all over Europe and the United States, with many of the early
catalogues offering films from different producers. Major companies like
Pathé, Gaumont or Urban had agency offices in Paris, London and New
York. As a consequence of this distribution pattern, early films set in
antiquity are found in collections all over the world despite many archives
having collecting policies that focus on their own national production.
Almost every archive has some of these early works and many hold
prints or fragments of the same titles, particularly the popular ones such
as Gaumont’s Life of Christ (La vie et passion du Christ, 1906), which was a
prestige production that sold in huge numbers and was made available as a
whole film or as a kind of pick-and-mix of the twelve scenes or ‘tableaux’.
The Gaumont ‘Elge’ catalogue of 1904, in a category called ‘Serious
Subjects for Sunday or School Exhibitions – Religious, Pathetic, Moral’,
describes the film thus:

The following series of eleven pictures, illustrating well-known incidents of the life
of our Saviour, are taken from a celebrated Passion Play, inspired by pictures by
the great masters. They are quite new, having never hitherto been published and
the incidents have each been treated with the reverence and delicacy they deserve.
Trouble and care have been lavished on the costume and arrangement, with the
result that the pictures are veritable and realistic works of art.

The Manger at Bethlehem

The Flight into Egypt
The Entry into Jerusalem
The Last Supper
The Garden of Olives
Jesus before Pilate
The Scourging
The Way of the Cross
The Crucifixion
The Descent from the Cross
The Resurrection
Total length 550ft Price £13 15s.

This description is quite revealing about how the Gaumont film was
constructed and the fact that the episodes were separated – that is, they
were moving representations of famous illustrations rather than an
 The view from the archive 31

adaptation of a written narrative. The emphasis on reverence and deli-

cacy reveals an awareness of the sensitivities of representing Christ on
screen. That this was quite a real concern is indicated by the first British
censorship guidelines in 1912 which forbade the ‘materialisation of the
conventional image of Christ’. We can assume (censors being generally
conservative in their views) that this ruling was in reaction to a widely
held position that had existed for some time in Britain. But, crucially for
the film archivist, the description also reveals that the film consisted of
autonomous parts likely to have become separated over time or confused
with the many other very similar versions produced over a decade. Films
on the life of Christ and the Passion abound during this period – a rival
version by Pathé was produced in the same year, 1906, with a very similar
collection of scenes.
Perhaps predictably, cataloguing by archivists of these unusually struc-
tured films has been muddled in the past, so the original catalogue entry
above is helpful in explaining both the nature of the production and giving
us the correct sequence. A characteristic of the surviving fragments of
early films is that they tend to lose their beginnings and endings (or ‘heads’
and ‘tails’ as we know them in the trade); they get damaged in handling
and projection and so often lose their identifying main titles. There will
be many cases where early films set in antiquity are yet to be properly
identified and are listed with assigned titles. A case in point would be a film
I acquired recently that, from an initial check on a winding bench, appears
to be a one-reel comedy about an ancient Roman soldier liberated from a
tomb by a pair of bumbling archaeologists into the traffic-filled streets of
modern Rome. I have described it temporarily as ‘Cines comedy c. 1910s’
pending further research. With digital databases equipped with keyword
search facilities to capture words in the film’s synopsis, the subject matter
would be revealed, but searches restricted to titles would conceal it. Many
film archives are only just now arriving at the point of having digitally
searchable databases, as they have been badly under-resourced in this
area for years.
So, both the academic and the archive community need to educate
themselves in the peculiarities of film and the distribution of film during
this early period in order to understand where the films set in antiquity
might be held, how they are likely to be described, and in what condition
they may be. It is common for several archives to have different, incom-
plete parts of the same films that are often not well identified or described
with respect to their individual version. It is, ironically, the fact that
these films survive in significant numbers that has, on the whole,
32 Bryony Dixon

prevented them from being restored and made available; the task is too
daunting. It is fortunate, then, that ancient historians are well accus-
tomed to dealing with fragmentary evidence.
Aside from the surviving films themselves, there is other evidence of the
early film industry of use to the historian of the ancient world. Catalogues
produced in the days when films were still sold outright, rather than
rented, are revealing about where films concerned with themes of antiquity
fit in the greater production context. A ten-minute flip through such a
catalogue will probably be of more use to the scholar unfamiliar with early
film than hours of reading the secondary sources. Here you will find
the listings of films on offer grouped into categories. Remembering that
films of this period were all short and tended to follow the programming
structure of the music hall (which was the dominant popular mass enter-
tainment at that time, and was made up of short, varied acts or turns) helps
in understanding the range of categories. There were actualities, such as
royal and state occasions, ship launches, sporting fixtures, social events.
There were ‘interest’ films, such as travelogues from exotic locations,
panoramas and phantom rides, industrial films and ethnographic films.
On the fiction side, there were novelty acts and performances, animation,
trick films, comedies of all sorts and short drama. Really, not unlike an
evening’s television programming today. The strategy of filmmakers
was primarily commercial – to attract an audience and sell the product.
One tactic would inevitably have been to include content that might feed
the audience’s interest in the classics, but over time, as producers began
to chase more sophisticated patrons, that tactic developed into an attempt
to elevate their products by association with refined literary works and
classical antiquity. Generally the preserve of only the educated and profes-
sional classes, classical subjects could stamp the kite-mark of quality on
any film.
An illuminating example of how this association with ‘the classics’ was
used by film producers is the marketing puff for Milano’s 1911 super
production, Dante’s Inferno, which heralded a whole series of prestige
films that promoted longer running times and high production value,
and gave rise to the feature film as we know it today. Although, strictly
speaking, the Inferno does not fall into our ancient world category, it is
related through the story’s guiding figure of Virgil. In any case, the
principle of appealing to aspirational tastes for classical literature holds
good for all these prestige productions. It is worth quoting in full from
a page in Bioscope for 19 December 1912, when it was being heavily
promoted to exhibitors in Britain.
 The view from the archive 33

MILANO’S ‘DANTE’S INFERNO’ (5000 feet)

Beware of imitations!
Inset
The Cinema
Arundel Street, Portsmouth
The only genuine and original production, by Milano

This masterpiece is 5000 feet long, and the proprietors of “The Cinema” have
secured the sole right of showing this Divine Comedy in moving pictures for the
whole of Portsmouth and Gosport, A treasure for six hundred years, known to but
a few scholars, now placed in unsurpassable beauty before all mankind; presented
by the filmmakers just as conceived by the immortal Poet, occupying about two
hours, telling in a most artistic and realistic manner the great story of DANTE like
animated paintings of living Statuary.

The pictures give you in a few hours all the pleasure and knowledge it takes
months to acquire through books, consequently the CHANCE OF A LIFETIME.

Special Afternoon Matinees at 2.30, 6d, 1s. and 1s. 6d.

Evenings at 6.30 and 8.30, 6d and 1s.

Warning: on account of the universal attraction this film is creating many

showmen have rushed on the market inferior imitations of 1000 and 2000 feet.
THE PUBLIC MUST NOT BE DECEIVED, as ‘Dante’s Inferno’ by ‘Milano’ 5000 feet
is THE ORIGINAL PRODUCTION.

Book your seats at once

P.O. Tel. 1,024.
Children under 16 will not be admitted

Immediately noticeable is the repeated quotation of the unusually long

running time ‘5000 feet’ as the production’s defining attribute. It becomes
clear further down that this is to differentiate the advertised version from
several other shorter versions that were circulating at the same time. This
was a feature of the years 1911 and 1912, when there was widespread
imitation of productions by different companies. Although this was not a
new phenomenon – it was commonplace in the early days of film when
producers and showmen would jump on a bandwagon as a matter of sound
business strategy – it became much more conspicuous with the larger pro-
ductions and publicity on a national scale. So the emphasis on long running
time as a positive is reinforced by the impressive entrance fee, and the rest of
the piece underpins the value-for-money message by hammering home
the film’s educational credentials. The idea that you could acquire a working
knowledge of such an important literary work, putting you in the same league
as Oxbridge dons, lawyers and doctors, must have been an attractive notion
34 Bryony Dixon

for those knocking on the glass ceiling of the class divide. Those patrons
who were less attracted by such pretensions may have been intrigued
by the implications of the ban on admission for the under-sixteens. Classical
art and literary sources had been used as a justification to push the boundaries
of censorship for many years over reference to sexual licentiousness, and
nudity in particular, and Dante’s Inferno is full of it.

Making the films available – the job in hand

It is necessary to understand that, unlike museum artefacts or books, films

must nearly always be duplicated before they become accessible for study
or entertainment. The number of early films that are fully ‘restored’ is very
few. Many more are available as straight copies of the original print or
negative, whether in celluloid, video or digital formats. That is to say, they
are mere duplicates of original film materials – they may not have been subject
to curatorial research or cataloguing; they may not have been edited into
the correct sequence or had their original colours restored let alone scanned
or cleaned up digitally. The photochemical and digital processes of copying
film are expensive and, with limited resources, archives have to prioritise
which films to make accessible. Funding tends to come from the public purse,
at least in part, and it is often the case that a particular government funding
agency sees its first duty to be to the filmic production of its own country.
There is a certain logic in this approach: each national archive would
(in theory) look after its own films rather than have to experience a chaotic
system where multiple archives might be preserving the same films and
duplicating effort. However, in practice, it means that films not produced by
the country in whose archive they are held tend not to get prioritised for
expensive work. In the rare cases where these films are prioritised for
some cultural output (such as a DVD, a festival programme and so on) the
organisation may well be put off a title if it is not a unique holding, that is, if
copies are held in more than one collection. This means that large-scale
restoration of the films of the 1900s will have to rely on international collabor-
ations, which are notoriously difficult to find funding for. Interest from
festival programmers, broadcasters and academic projects may well be useful
in this respect, although one should be careful not to over-exaggerate its effect.
One of the other major attractions of the films of the 1900s for modern
audiences, apart from the opportunity to see the world one hundred years
ago, is colour (see the plates in this volume). About 80 per cent of the
original prints in the Joye collection were in colour. This is not natural
 The view from the archive 35

colour as we understand it today, but tinting and toning (used to suggest

various lighting effects) and stencil colour (an elaborate system of applying
a variety of vivid colours to the prints). The restoration of colour to these
prints is important in communicating to audiences today that these early
films were prestige products. Seen in black and white, and in jerky, poor-
resolution copies, these films become just so much inexplicable footage;
seen in subtle tints or bright jewel colours like a stained-glass window, the
films take on the attributes of artefacts (not least because they draw on the
aesthetics and colour palette of Victorian tinted photographs or magic
lantern slides). The nineteenth-century publishers of toy theatres (model
theatres of cardboard with cut-out characters and accompanying scripts
designed for children to make and perform their own plays) issued them
in ‘penny plain or twopence coloured’ – a marketing strategy that was
adopted by twentieth-century film producers as a similar enhancement.
The associations of quality brought by the addition of colour are trans-
formative. Film producers of the 1900s were well aware of the added value
of these associations, and films were often adapted from sources via their
illustrations rather than their text. The most famous example relevant here
is the aforementioned Life of Christ produced by Alice Guy at Gaumont
that comprised scenes taken from James Tissot’s Bible illustrations. The
same strategy was employed for an early Alice in Wonderland (1903) based
on John Tenniel’s illustrations, adaptations of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas
Carol’ based on images by John Leech, versions of Dante’s Divine
Comedy taken from Gustave Doré’s engravings, and a plethora of fairy
tales based on book illustrations in editions of the brothers Grimm or
Charles Perrault. Equally there are instances of well-known fine art paintings
informing the aesthetic of films with ancient subject-matter2 and arguably
classical tableaux and statuary find their way into film via the stage and
music halls as a means of excusing nudity, or in the form of a range of
comedy gags to do with living statues.3
If colour contributed materially to the value of early films at the time
they were released, then it can also do so today. Increasingly archives are
concerned not only to preserve and reproduce the content of these films
but also to give a better flavour of their aesthetics. This is something
the BFI National Archive has been trying to do with selected films from
the Joye collection. The entire collection was duplicated for preservation
when we acquired it in the 1970s. The preservation copies were only in

2
See, for example, Buchanan in this volume on early film versions of Judith and Holofernes.
3
See Dixon 2010.
36 Bryony Dixon

black and white (the standard archival method at the time); colour restor-
ation is a long-term and somewhat distant goal due to the costliness of this
type of work. The original colour nitrate prints were in poor condition in
1977 when the BFI took them in and inevitably some further deterioration
has taken place since that time, but work to restore colour using the
original nitrate prints has commenced. This is the case particularly for
stencil colour which doesn’t render well using photographic processes
but can be scanned digitally, thus making it possible to capture a more
representative range of colour and compensate for fading.
Repositioning early cinema as aesthetically significant and as a medium
at the cutting edge of the new technology of its day, rather than as one that
is archaic, obscure or naïve, will be a key part of building projects that
can return these early films set in antiquity to our screens.
3 | On visual cogency: the emergence of an antiquity
of moving images
marcus becker

Every image aims for visual cogency. In a laconic yet disturbingly profound
remark, Leonardo da Vinci warned potential viewers about a picture behind
curtains: ‘Do not unveil if you love your freedom, for my face is the dungeon
of love.’1 What lies behind such a warning is the power of the image that is
unleashed upon contact with the viewer. Pictures are human creations, but,
after the act of their unveiling, their creator becomes a sorcerer’s apprentice
incapacitated by his or her own deed. Conceived as visual cogency, this power
depends on the inherent logic of an image which postulates instantaneously
that it does make sense. In the case of pictorial representations of ancient
worlds, this is even more important if we bear in mind the fundamental role
that references to antiquity have played for the self-conception of European
societies. Since visual representations are imaginative reconstructions of
ancient worlds that quite often – in the act of their creation as well as in the
course of culturally established practices of their reception – stand in for
the actual referential object, their validity claims must be carefully checked.
Studies on early film set design have shown how the pictorial tradition of
academic history painting, in its iconographical and iconological aspects,
found a new lease of life in depictions of ancient worlds in cinema. On the
other hand scholars have stressed how set designers had been eagerly
embedding new archaeological finds – along with older and more familiar
ones – into their designs. In Intolerance, D. W. Griffith’s epic masterpiece
from 1916, the Babylonian story features a ‘Babylonian Marriage Market’
scene set in 539 BCE. As any of the frequently published production stills
reveals, the setting was a faithful adaptation of Edwin Long’s history
painting with the same title from 1875 that had already been deep-rooted
in the iconographical tradition of Western orientalism.2 The most

1
‘Non iscoprire se libertà / t’è cara ché ’l volto mio / è charciere d’amore’ – quotation after
Bredekamp 2010: 337 (translation mine); see ibid. 17–20.
2
Edwin Long, The Babylonian Marriage Market, 1875, oil (1875) on canvas, Royal Holloway and
Bedford New College, Surrey. See Hanson 1972: 493–508 and Heilmann 2004: 31, 93. For a
general background, Bernstein 1997; Solomon 2001a: 225–57; Heilmann 2004; King 2010; Weir
2011. Griffith released a revised version of the Babylonian story of Intolerance in 1919: see
Hansen 1991: 133. 37
38 Marcus Becker

significant alteration in the film was, however, the prominent position of a

doorway on the right side that opened the view onto a brilliantly orna-
mented wall. It reproduced the glazed brick façade of the throne room that
faced the courtyard of Babylon’s Southern Fortress. The wall’s remains
(today exhibited in the Berlin Pergamon Museum) had been excavated by
the German archaeologist Robert Koldewey only a few years earlier.
Griffith and his team probably knew and utilised Koldewey’s relevant
publication from 1912, whose English edition, The Excavations at Babylon,
had been issued in the USA only two years later.3 As producer and
director, Griffith employed a whole ‘research department’ that provided
archaeological details for the conception and realisation of the film’s sets
and assembled them in a scrapbook as illustrations cut out mostly from
academic volumes. Long’s painting, with its iconographically traditional
image of Babylon, was also easily accessible through its reproduction in a
popular edition of Babylonian and Assyrian literature published in 1901.
Reproduced in this publication as the frontispiece, it did not simply
accompany the texts included in the volume but also put them in
perspective.4
Set design conceptions such as the film’s ‘Babylonian Marriage
Market’ belong to a long tradition of reconstructing classical complexes
and ancient urban contexts in their entirety.5 For the eighteenth cen-
tury, for instance, Piranesi’s approach to Rome’s Campus Martius could
be considered paradigmatic in this regard, with its horror vacui that did
not leave any undefined blanks.6 Under the aspect of visual cogency,
though, the combination in early cinema of material from the two major
sources for its designs must not be misunderstood as simple ‘updating’
of the pictorial tradition by new archaeological finds. Recently dis-
covered archaeological finds reconfirmed the older concepts by enhan-
cing authenticity, but they themselves also needed legitimisation that
could only be achieved if they were merged smoothly with long-
established elements and conventions. Visual cogency, therefore,
depended on the dynamics of mutual legitimisation of pictorial tradition

3
See Heilmann 2004: 90.
4
Wilson 1901: frontispiece. Solomon 2001a: 235 suggests Louis Martin’s fashionable New York
restaurant with its Babylonian decor as a further location where Griffith could have become
acquainted with Long’s painting.
5
See Kockel 2010: 96–113.
6
See Piranesi’s Il Campo Marzio dell’Antica Roma from 1762 (Ficacci 2000: 394–431); for
Piranesi’s approach see, for instance, Baumgartner, Dostert and Heiser 2010: 191–222.
 On visual cogency 39

Figure 3.1 Herbert Schmalz, Zenobia’s Last Look upon Palmyra, oil on canvas, 1888.

and new finds both of which fed the hermeneutic circle of the audi-
ence’s imagination. In this regard, visual cogency must not be confused
with claims for historical probability which could – but did not need
to – be part of the visual argumentation.
By the time of the emergence of cinema, this strategy of mutual legitimisa-
tion was well established not only through Piranesi’s imaginative etchings
but also through history painting in general. For instance, if we stay with
oriental depictions of antiquity, Herbert Schmalz’s painting Zenobia’s Last
Look upon Palmyra from 1888 depicts the queen of Palmyra in chains after
40 Marcus Becker

her defeat by the Roman emperor Aurelian in 272–3 CE (Figure 3.1).7 The
scene seems to refer to a corresponding passage from the Augustan History:
Zenobia, then, conquered, fled away on camels (which they call dromedaries), but
while seeking to reach the Persians she was captured by the horseman sent after
her, and thus she was brought into the power of Aurelian. And so Aurelian,
victorious and in possession of the entire East, more proud and insolent now that
he held Zenobia in chains, dealt with the Persians, Armenians, and Saracens as the
needs of the occasion demanded.8

Schmalz (who achieved success with orientalist paintings of ‘fair women’)9

designed a spatially and dramaturgically traditional setting to meet the
expectations of his Victorian audience, but he enhanced it archaeologically
by incorporating the almost pedantically accurate rendering of a relief
that Heinrich Schliemann had discovered in 1872. Yet Schliemann, as is
well known, had not been excavating in Syrian Palmyra but in what he had
considered to be Troy, a site several hundred miles away.10 So the pictorial
presence of the hitherto unknown archaeological find depicting the Greek
sun-god Helios in his chariot was being authenticated, paradoxically, by its
appropriation for the traditional narratives of Zenobia’s story.
Since the spectacular and momentous success of Robert Wood’s opu-
lently illustrated publication on the Ruins of Palmyra from 1753, the city’s
main temple had been known as the Temple of the Sun. In Schmalz’s
version from 1888, the (feminine) Palmyrene sun of his Victorian heroine
Zenobia was setting both melancholically and ominously on the horizon,
while a triumphant Roman (and masculine) Sol Invictus – depicted as a
sculptural feature of the hapless queen’s own palmy capital – besieged the
swarthy desert beauty mercilessly. The source of inspiration for this solar
battle was obviously ancient allegorical scenes such as the one depicted on
the reverse of an Aurelianic coin, struck at Rome in 274–5 CE, that depicted
Sol Invictus trampling down the Palmyrene enemy.11 Although the visual
nucleus of Schmalz’s staging of a Victorian third-century CE drama
derived therefore from authentic material, it was only the compositional
economy of comparatively modern history painting and its narrative logic
that authorised an efficient utilisation of Schliemann’s Hellenistic relief.

7
For Schmalz, see Blakemore 1911.
8
Aurelian, 28.3–4 (i.e., Historia Augusta 1932: 251).
9
The title of Schmalz’s London solo exhibition at the Fine Art Society in Bond Street
in 1900 was A Dream of Fair Women.
10
The Hellenistic marble relief is a metope from the Temple of Athena at Troy; it belongs
to the Collection of Classical Antiquities in Berlin; see, for instance, Andreae, Hirmer and
Ernstmeier-Hirmer 2001: pl. 18–19.
11
See Webb 1927: 54; Cohen 1886: 192, no. 159.
 On visual cogency 41

Figure 3.2 A. H. Payne after Lipsius, Greek Room in the Neues Museum at Berlin,
steel engraving, 1850s.

It might have claimed greater archaeological credit than all the other
elements of architecture, fashion and attitude in the painting, but it did
not have anything to do with Palmyra, neither topographically nor chrono-
logically nor, in a strict sense, iconographically. It may be left open whether
the Trojan provenance of the relief offered to a learned viewer an additional
layer of meaning by linking suggestively the fall of Zenobia’s city to the sack
of Troy.
Even nineteenth-century museums institutionalised similar strategies of
merging conceptual and pictorial traditions with new archaeological finds
for their collections of original pieces or authenticated plaster casts. The
Greek Room of Berlin’s then cutting-edge Neues Museum, inaugurated in
1855, exemplifies the nexus between plaster casts of classical sculpture and
murals that offered a vibrant version of ancient Greek sites (Figure 3.2).
These murals visualised conceptions of antiquity that resulted from anti-
quarian and archaeological studies as well as from immanent traditions
of art history. Perspective construction, technical and conceptual point of
view, the visual relation of essential and negligible or merely circumstantial
42 Marcus Becker

elements, respectively, and the socio-functional tradition of murals in

public spaces were all aspects of a whole visual culture that had developed
both independently from, and in connection with, the preoccupation of
Western civilisation with its postulated antiquity. New finds had to be
attuned to this preconditioning context.
In order to diminish any semantic ambiguity that might have been
created by the juxtaposition of different media for the representation of
antiquity, musealised finds and accompanying frescos had to legitimise
each other. While the presence of authentic ancient works of art (or
authenticated plaster casts, respectively) helped validate the depiction of
ancient works on modern murals, the murals themselves authorised the
items of the collection by implying that they had originally been part of
and had been taken from exactly this depicted version of an ancient world.
A view of the Acropolis in Athens, for instance, featured a vast number of
votive statues that corresponded with the number of isolated statues on
display in the museum room. The effect was a conspicuously harmonious
conspectus of antiquity that enhanced the validity claims of this and many
other nineteenth-century museums.12
As the examples of both Schmalz’s depiction of Zenobia’s fate and the
setup of Berlin’s Neues Museum illustrate, traditional visualisations of clas-
sical worlds obtained validity by organising and harmonising the elements
of their concepts in a static way, irrespective of whether it was the compos-
itional logic of pictorial space in a history painting or the elaborate frame of
museum display. This seemed to guarantee cogency by the sheer perman-
ence of the arrangement. If we focus on the relationship between the image
and its viewer, a second closely related aspect that has to be emphasised was
the virtually unlimited time the audience had for viewing these static images
and arrangements. The unrestricted temporal accessibility of ancient worlds
underlined, confirmed and increased their validity claims.
Strategies of perception are embedded into cultural practices. For
instance, a visit to a museum called for contemplation or a leisurely
conversation like those of the figures depicted on the steel engraving of
the Greek room of the Neues Museum. While a solitary visitor stands apart
and holds his top hat in his hand, a bourgeois couple in their holiday
clothes is immersed in studying the exhibited plaster casts. The model
situation is, of course, conventionally gendered: when the gentleman is

12
For this aspect of the murals of the Neues Museum see, for instance, Kockel 2010: 108–11
(with an illustration of a watercolour after the fresco of the Acropolis); Nerdinger, Eisen and
Strobl 2010: 390–2, cat. no. 6.10 (V. Kockel).
 On visual cogency 43

explaining Greek art and civilisation to his lady in leisurely fashion he

points with his right arm at the casts and straightens his back both
energetically and domineeringly. There is no evidence that these modes
of perception would have ever questioned the validity of the antiquity thus
on display.
The same effect was utilised at the spatially stunning exhibitions
of panoramic paintings with their great public appeal that placed the
visitors right in the centre of their circular pictorial spectacles. When,
in 1888, the monumental Munich panoramic painting of Rome with
Constantine’s Entry in the Year CCCXII opened to the public daily from
8 a.m. until dusk, visitors with their kith and kin could scrutinise this
allegedly authentic École des Beaux-Arts representation of urban Roman
glory for as long as they liked.13 Here, too, unrestricted temporal accessi-
bility was a precondition for the appropriation of the ancient city by
visitors whose fascination grew the longer they looked and the more details
they discovered. All together, the process enhanced the validity claim
of this version of Rome by the amount of time available for it to engage
the visitor’s attention.
And yet there was something different in the wind. The underground
station at Klosterstraße in the city centre of Berlin was designed in 1906
by Alfred Grenander, architect of the engineering company which was in
charge of the construction of the underground system. The station was put
into operation on 1 July 1913. Its entranceways were decorated with glazed
tiles in shiny orange, blue and white (Figure 3.3) which had been manu-
factured by the Royal Workshops of the east-Prussian town of Cadinen.14
The lavish decor reproduced the same ornamentation of Babylon’s throne
room façade that had been excavated only recently by Koldewey, and was
to be embedded soon into Griffith’s rendering of Long’s Marriage Market
in his film Intolerance.15
Throughout his 1912 publication entitled Babylon Rising Again (Das
wieder erstehende Babylon), Robert Koldewey appears as an author

13
See Kockel 2010: 100–3; Nerdinger, Eisen and Strobl 2010: 395–9, cat. no. 6.13 (V. Kockel)
(with further reading; the advertising bill announcing opening times as ill. on p. 395).
14
See, for instance, Bohle-Heintzenberg 1980: 84.
15
Both the underground and the Intolerance version of trees with two rows of volutes depended
on the pre-First World War reconstruction of the façade by the Royal Museums’ experts that
differed from the final one (three rows of volutes) which has been on display in Berlin’s
Pergamon Museum since its opening in 1930. Cf. Koldewey [1914] 1990: 110–15 (the older
reconstruction illustrated on p. 111); Karstens 1995: 57–81; Martin 2000: 23–4; von Eickstedt
2000: 25–6.
44 Marcus Becker

Figure 3.3 Berlin, underground station Klosterstraße, southern entrance hall.

expounding the archaeological record soberly and conscientiously. Yet

when he tried to give his impression of the throne room he had excavated
in 1900–1, he could only voice his enthusiasm by drawing once more on
the power of the textual and visual tradition of representations of Babylon:
‘If one wants to locate [or: wants to imagine the location of] the tale of
Belshazzar’s ominous feast at any place, one can certainly do it most
justifiably in this colossal chamber.’16 The biblical tale of Belshazzar had
nothing to do with the architectural structures Koldewey had excavated,
yet he obviously felt impelled to imagine the traditional story unfolding
within them.
However, Babylon’s glittering walls were not exhibited in Berlin (an
imperial capital and one of the world’s major cities immediately before the
First World War) for contemplative museum visitors or for viewers who
might half-heartedly condemn Belshazzar’s feast while at the same time
dreaming of participating in it. The underground station was inaugurated
in an era when the German Kaiser’s geopolitical ambitions made him
promote the construction of the Baghdad Railway – a project that was
funded by the Deutsche Bank and was meant to catapult Mesopotamia into

16
Koldewey [1914] 1990: 110 (translation mine).
 On visual cogency 45

the modern age. At the same time, Koldewey’s Babylonian enterprises found
their context in the imperialistic struggle of the European nations for
archaeological supremacy. In this respect, the underground station appeared
for the capital’s inhabitants as a miniature model of a close connection
between politically expedient archaeology and a system of transportation
that could be labelled one of the crucial paragons of modernity.17
The Berlin underground could boast fifty-seven million passengers over
the course of the year 1910:18 large numbers of them passed daily through
Klosterstraße Station which was situated in Berlin’s then commercial and
administrative centre and thus linked the newly discovered Babylonian
finds with the imperial city’s system of mass transportation. In a Berlin
lawsuit of 1884–5, suspicion was aroused when it came to light that the
defendant had not bothered to spend the hour and a half it took to walk
across the entire urban space ‘ . . . from the farthest southwest to the
extreme north of the city . . .’19 The underground system of 1910 now
connected with hitherto unprecedented speed a much larger area and
embraced social classes from the well-to-do New West End to the working
people’s districts of the northeast. Before the Klosterstraße Station became
a rather forsaken place as a result of the Second World War and of changes
in urban development in the years of the division of Germany and after the
fall of the Berlin Wall, its entrance halls were heavily frequented spaces of
transition that offered a display of Babylon’s splendours for the hasty
glances of workers and clerks rushing through in order to arrive at their
workplaces or homes just in time.
The individual panels, with their depictions of stylised Trees of Life in
orange and light blue against a deep blue neutral backdrop, were framed by
the architectural context of a neo-classical revival (which had become
fashionable about 1910) and were, therefore, not only static in themselves
but embedded into an architectural system that alluded to stable aesthetic
and moral values. Yet the mode of perception of these tokens of antiquity
had been changed drastically. Whilst the panels themselves retained their
static character, the cultural practice of entering or leaving an underground
station set in motion an ‘audience’ eager to catch their trains. The setup of
the entrance halls allowed people hurrying along only side glances and was

17
For the general process of ‘Babylonising’ the city of Berlin in the early twentieth century,
see Polaschegg 2011: 504-21 with further bibliography.
18
1903: 29.6 million; 1910: 56.9 million; 1920: 100.9 million. See www.chronik-berlin.de/bvg_u-
bahn-3.htm, accessed 6 March 2011.
19
See Lindau 1990: 43–4, quotation from page 44.
46 Marcus Becker

certainly no place for a leisurely conversation. The solemn array of trees

that had been designed in Nebuchadnezzar II’s time to accord with the
rhythm of processions, and of envoys approaching to be received at court,
was now transformed into a flickering sequence of moving images out of
focus. The effect of this way of incorporating Babylon into the speed of
modern life was comparable to the effect of the old tree-lined avenues that
had once segmented the countryside into a series of classical landscape
paintings. Since faster automobiles had replaced the horse-drawn carriages
for which the distance between the trees had been calculated, the rural
picture gallery had become a jumpy motion picture.
But even after office hours, time for scrutinising visual representations of
ancient worlds (or modern ones for that matter) had become scarce. Walter
Benjamin, born in 1892, recalled in his not exclusively autobiographical
memoir Berlin Childhood around 1900 how the changing of stereoscopic
pictures in a so-called Kaiserpanorama had created an emotional tension for
the child avid for the visual promises of such an apparatus:

. . . there was a small, genuinely disturbing effect which seemed to me superior.

This was the ringing of a little bell which sounded a few seconds before each
picture moved off with a jolt, in order to make way first for an empty space and
then for the next image. And every time it rang, the mountains with their humble
foothills, the cities with their mirror-bright windows, the railroad stations with
their clouds of dirty yellow smoke, the vineyards down to the smallest leaf, were
suffused with the ache of departure. I formed the conviction that it was impossible
to exhaust the splendours of the scene at just one sitting. Hence my intention
(which I never realised) of coming by again the following day. Before I could make
up my mind, however, the entire apparatus, from which I was separated by a
wooden railing, would begin to tremble, the picture would sway within its little
frame and then immediately trundle off to the left, as I looked on.20

When the shows of a Kaiserpanorama became outdated soon afterwards,

people went to see films. The empty and dark space between static frames
was no longer perceptible, and the variety of changing images had been
transformed into a sequence of frames that created the illusion of a single
moving image: cinema had been born.
The consequences for the representation of ancient worlds may be
illustrated once more by an example from Griffith’s Intolerance. As one
of the stunning features of Babylon, the film presents what one of the
intertitles identifies as ‘The gate of Imgur Bel which no enemy has ever

20
Benjamin 2006: 43; for the history and functional principle of the Kaiserpanorama,
see Lorenz 2010.
 On visual cogency 47

Figure 3.4 The Gate of Imgur Bel: four images from D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916).

been able to force’ (Figure 3.4). It is an imposing structure (its wings are
elaborately decorated with multi-figured reliefs), but it is accessible to the
view for barely a minute: announcing intertitle – long shot of the gate –
medium long shot with camera panning upwards presenting the reliefs –
long shot again: the wings of the gate open, a ceremonial procession comes
out while the reliefs become perspectively distorted and disappear from
view – intercut – intertitle – long shot with open wings – medium long
shot with reliefs distorted and blurred by burning incense – long shot
again.21 Far more interesting than, say, the obvious resemblance of the
frenetically dancing girls of the procession to devotees of the early
twentieth-century ‘Life Reform’ movement (Lebensreform), is the problem
of an adequate mode of perception. How was the spectator supposed to
engage with the film’s version of antiquity when the cinematographic
presence of the Babylonian gate was intentionally identical with its

21
Using the DVD edition of Intolerance released by absolut Medien and Windows Media
Player, the scene lasts from 00:24:59 to 00:25:48.
48 Marcus Becker

transitory presentation in the moving pictorial space of the film (irrespective

of the fact that the sets of Intolerance could not be torn down for years
in the aftermath of Griffith’s financial bankruptcy and thus became objects
for conventional sightseeing)?22
Benjamin’s ‘ache of departure’ at the Kaiserpanorama derived from his
inability to control the succession of images by himself as had been the
norm in cultural practices such as, say, the sociable viewing of drawings,
engravings and photographs after dinner. Lytton Strachey describes for the
1830s the rules of this (not exclusively) royal custom in his biography of
Queen Victoria:
When all the guests had been disposed of, the Duchess of Kent sat down to her
whist, while everybody else was ranged about the round table. Lord Melbourne sat
beside the Queen, and talked pertinaciously – very often à propos to the contents of
one of the large albums of engravings with which the round table was covered –
until it was half-past eleven and time to go to bed.23

Those present assumed responsibility for the selection and sequence of the
pictures that quite often illustrated antique works of art and architecture, the
process of browsing to and fro, the focusing on or disregarding of detail, and
the amount of time spent viewing and talking about each of them.
While the audience had already learned to fall silent in the dimmed lights
of nineteenth-century theatres, it became more and more obvious at the
cinema – especially when the camera learned to move and the art of editing
evolved – that the eye of the camera was not identical to the eyes of any
member of the audience. Despite any changes of scenery, the theatre stage
offered a sense of totality defined by the proscenium arch, and enabled the
audience to focus on the stage design and on the to and fro of the characters
as they desired. A consequence of the emergence of cinema, however, was
the striking reduction of temporal access to the moving image that was
inevitably related to a general ‘omission of spatiotemporal continuity’.24
The parameters of such an anti-theatrical kaleidoscopic fragmentation of
the world for a viewer now unable to control his or her point of view are
defined by Gilles Deleuze: ‘The image no longer has space and movement as
its primary characteristics but topology and time.’25

22
See, for instance, Weihsmann 1988: 65–6.
23
Strachey 1937: 62 (following the memoirs of Charles Greville).
24
Rudolf Arnheim described this effect in 1932, marking its difference from the
spatiotemporal discontinuities of the theatre stage: Arnheim 2008: 34–41 (translation mine).
25
Deleuze 1989: 121. For the aspect of the temporal accessibility of the moving image,
see also, for instance, Rothschild 2006: 52–61.
 On visual cogency 49

As early as 1912–13, the metaphors of cinematic perception had even

begun to influence scholarly discourse on antiquity and its reception.
When Aby Warburg (an early intellectual cineaste) delivered his famous
lecture on ‘Italian Art and International Astrology’ at Rome in 1912, the
wealth of material made him apologise for the hastiness and compactness of
his argumentation ‘if one cannot even illuminate calmly [ruhig beleuchten]
but only spotlight cinematographically [kinematographisch scheinwerfen]’.26
Thus, the argumentation of his slide show resembled (as he coined it in
another lecture of 1913) a ‘swift [eilig] cinematographic attempt to track
[verfolgen]’ the historical processes he was talking about.27
Similarly, students of early film set design and other early film enthusi-
asts often regret the evanescence of the moving image that, projected on
the cinema screen, offers tantalisingly partial, quickly changing or out-of-
focus glimpses of the lavish representations of – in our case – ancient
worlds. Critical studies like the volume at hand fix the permanently
moving representations by displaying film stills and frozen images or
contemporary photographs of ephemeral buildings taken at shooting loca-
tions. This procedure not only utilises fixed images as a medium of analysis
but also satisfies a curiosity that necessarily remains unfulfilled by the film
itself. What is more, it unconsciously assuages the anxiety about the loss of
the moving image that Benjamin recalled so painfully.
The vertical pan of the camera that presented a closer view of Griffith’s
Gate of Imgur Bel transformed its decoration into a rhythmic sequence of
pictures. The multi-figured reliefs emerged from the upper edge, came into
view, passed the focal point of the frame and vanished from view to the
lower edge. This visual micro-strategy appears to be similar to the classical
narrative technique of ecphrasis. Its authoritative archetype would be the
description of the shield of Achilles by Homer, which occupies 130 lines of
the Iliad that have to be read or listened to in a certain amount of time.28
As the history of the reception of this passage testifies, Homer’s narrative
skills were sufficient to make the reader visualise the rich imagery of the
shield. Its modern visual counterpart, however, was an odd kind of
ecphrasis. The reliefs with their seemingly Mesopotamian warriors, pro-
cessions and chariots came across as authentic, but the swift panning of the

26
Warburg 2010b: 396 (translation mine). The lecture was published only in 1922.
27
Warburg 2010a: 341 (translation mine). It is noteworthy in this regard how Warburg
replaced his concept of the static Pathosformel with the dynamic Dynamogramm in later years –
a term that referred to late nineteenth-century recording technologies for moving images
(for the context, see Didi-Huberman 2002).
28
Homer, Iliad, 18.478–608.
50 Marcus Becker

camera eye deprived the viewer of the chance properly to discern their
subjects, let alone to scrutinise them or to evaluate their precise icono-
graphical significance.
By utilising frozen images (Figure 3.4), it would not be too difficult a
task to identify the more or less ancient sources drawn on for the reliefs of
the Gate of Imgur Bel. To undertake this scholarly procedure would mean
to rewind the production of Intolerance, ending with the sources of
Griffith’s scrapbook. But focusing on the interaction between the moving
image and its audience and bearing in mind that there was no stop button
at the cinema in 1916, one may ask whether this would make much sense.
To make the point more clearly: the spatiotemporal antiquity that Intoler-
ance had created engaged with, and depended on, a distinct mode of
perception. But if, traditionally, the validity claims of representations of
antiquity had been supported by their permanence and static organisation,
how could an obviously magnificent gate be so attractive when it existed
for barely a minute and whose decoration was, consequently, iconograph-
ically indecipherable?
In his paean on the Beauty of the City from 1908, the Berlin architect
August Endell (an apologist of the modern metropolis amongst anti-urban
preachers) deduced the modern urban mode of visual perception phenom-
enologically from the everyday realm of the viewing experience and the
viewing subject. Emphasis, however, was put on the actual urban object
since ‘we are not at all interested in the perceptual image by itself but in its
object that is something completely different and that is only shaped by the
mind out of perceptual images’.29 Based on such a supposition, Endell’s
phenomenological approach turned out to offer, in the study that followed,
an impressionist vision of the city.
Also contemporary with Walter Benjamin and his childish angst was the
philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel, who tried to elucidate the
psychology and physiology of modern urban perception in his essay on
The Metropolis and Mental Life from 1903. Simmel described how
The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the
intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninter-
rupted change of outer and inner stimuli. . . . Lasting impressions, impressions
which differ only slightly from one another, impressions which take a regular and
habitual course and show regular and habitual contrasts – all these use up, so to
speak, less consciousness than does the rapid crowding of changing images, the
sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the unexpectedness of

29
Endell 1984: 26–7 (translation mine).
 On visual cogency 51

onrushing impressions. These are the psychological conditions which the metro-
polis creates. With each crossing of the street, with the tempo and multiplicity of
economic, occupational and social life, the city sets up a deep contrast with small
town and rural life with reference to the sensory foundations of psychic life.30

In this context, the swiftly changing images of an antiquity in motion in

early cinema were rooted in the physiology and psychology of metropol-
itan perception. Similar to but far more efficacious than the display of
Babylon in a city’s underground station, Griffith’s presentation of the Gate
of Imgur Bel appeared to be congenial to the metropolitan audience’s
everyday experiences. The ‘rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp
discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the unexpectedness of
onrushing impressions’ which Simmel had emphasised as the physiological
and psychological conditions of metropolitan life could have been a
description of cinematic experience. It was not by chance that, in Theory
of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, Siegfried Kracauer chose
metropolitan street life as paradigm for the category of coincidence in
early cinema in particular. Fortuity as a result of the cinematographic loss
of spatiotemporal continuity and as a ‘characteristic of camera-reality’
correlated with an experience of urban (street) life that replaced ‘destiny’
with ‘accidents’.31
It may be inferred that the appeal of early film reconstructions of
ancient worlds depended not only on pictorial or dramatic elements
which can be traced back to the practices of history painting or theatre
but also on perceptual modernity. With the help of a strategy that
invoked the authenticity of evanescence, cinema challenged the visual
cogency of history painting derived from elaborate static construction
and from the permanence of visual accessibility. The discontinuity of
camera glances with which the audience was confronted, and the rapidly
shifting temporal accessibility of cinematic images, contributed to a
radically new representation of ancient worlds at the beginning of the
twentieth century that appropriated antiquity for metropolitan viewers
with the promise of perceptual cogency.
This was all the more important in an age when a new process of erosion
overtook the claims of a normative antiquity32 to be a source of stable
aesthetic and moral values, and when – to mention just one example –
Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto (published in 1909) declared that the

30
Simmel 2006: 175 (italics are Simmel’s).
31
See Kracauer [1960] 1997: 62–3, quotations from page 62.
32
That is, an antiquity grounded in a long art-historical tradition.
52 Marcus Becker

automobile was more beautiful than the Nike of Samothrace.33 It may be

said that the perceptual strategies of films which linked the ancient worlds
of the cinema with metropolitan life suspended this erosion and gave
antiquity an immense push for modernisation that was due to aesthetical
phenomena rather than to scholarly efforts.
Any reluctance to feast on an iconographical analysis of the Gate of
Imgur Bel which could only be obtained from pausing the film may
eventually be overcome if we compare that cinematic set of images to
expressionist depictions from the same period of, say, the Potsdamer Platz
in Berlin. Their contorted and abstract rendering of buildings does not
enable the art historian to describe the architectural features of the square.
But their pictorial turmoil offered perceptually perfect views of that pre-
war metropolitan focal point, just as the Babylon of Intolerance was the
perfect representation of the ancient city for people hastening across
Potsdamer Platz. As Benjamin puts it, ‘visual access roads into the essence
of the city are opened up only for the film’.34
If ‘video killed the radio star’ around 1980,35 then, at the turn of the
twentieth century, cinema and the visual evanescence of its reconstructed
ancient worlds saved antiquity for a modern metropolitan mass audience.

33 34
See Marinetti 1909: 1. Benjamin 2011: 68 (translation mine).
35
This is the title of a hit song by The Buggles from 1979 that offers a reflection on the advent of
pop music clips.
4 | Cinema in the time of the pharaohs
antonia lant

Ancient Egypt appeared repeatedly on the silent screen. Already in 1897,

filmgoers could marvel at Les pyramides (vue générale), a moving pan past
the Sphinx and pyramids shot by Alexandre Promio for the Lumière
Brothers, or, a few years later, in 1903, at the film of Thomas Edison’s
camera operator Alfred Camille Abadie, Market Scene in Cairo.1 Egyptian
touring was a steady diet of the era’s travel genre. Egypt appeared in
biblical scenes – The Passion Play: Flight into Egypt (Lubin, USA, 1903),
Joseph in the Land of Egypt (Thanhouser, USA, 1914, dir. W. Eugene
Moore) and From the Manger to the Cross (Kalem, USA, 1912, dir. Sidney
Olcott). And in adaptations of classics: Antony and Cleopatra (Vitagraph,
USA, 1908, dir. J. Stuart Blackton) and Marcantonio e Cleopatra (Antony
and Cleopatra, Cines, Italy, 1913, dir. Enrico Guazzoni). Mummy films were
abundant: The Egyptian Mummy (Vitagraph, USA, 1914, dir. Lee Beggs),
or Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled (Ebony, USA, 1918, dir. R. W. Phillips).
The central purpose of mummies to transform into revived, living beings
mirrored cinema’s own power to archive life.
The basic narrative of ancient Egypt was as familiar to audiences as
Grimm’s fairy tales or the Passion Play. A century of excavations, transla-
tions, public mummy unwrappings, and new archaeological installations in
European and American museums had paved the way for this rich seam
of filmmaking – ancient Egypt had become popular entertainment. But
this particular past had a special bond to cinema, although we might well
puzzle as to why the most antique culture coupled so handily to the latest
medium of technology.2 For one, ancient Egypt possessed a powerfully
recognisable visual iconography, transmitted through papyrus imagery,
artefacts and tomb decorations, and numerous guides reproducing and
interpreting these forms. Its readily identifiable vocabulary of giant ostrich
feather fans, two-wheeled chariots, lotus flowers, nemes headdresses,
snakes, a heavy architecture of vulture doorways, bulbous columns and

1
Allan 2008 singles out Promio’s film in his discussion of realism, cinematic time and early
film form.
2
Lant 1992 examines many of the reasons for this bond. 53
54 Antonia Lant

flaring pylons, sphinxes and pyramids, all combined with a garb of bare
chests, corded hair, bra-tops and spathe skirts, was especially effective in a
silent, visual medium lacking scriptural tools.
Secondly, the records of ancient Egyptian history, with their tales of
bold leaders, incestuous ties, queenly power, artistically gifted architects
and scribes (read filmmakers), stories of the crushing of slaves and their
release from bondage, polygamy, gory violence and religious struggle, all
lent themselves to the screen. They allowed male and female nudity (naked
breasts in harem scenes), and even allowed latitude in the rendering of
gendered roles. Cinema was emerging amid the tensions surrounding
the emancipation of women and other groups of low privilege, while the
status of Egypt itself was transforming in its liberation from its colonisers.
Cleopatra, whose story was filmed a dozen times in the silent era, became a
figure through whom to envisage modern female power and physical skill.3
In notes dispersed throughout his script for Cleopatra (USA, 1917, dir.
J. Gordon Edwards), Adrian Johnson indicates the film’s intention of
focusing on Cleopatra’s might, as a politician and as a decisive actor in
history, and of leaving Caesar and Antony to play peripheral characters.4
Johnson writes of the need to establish ‘awe’ for her; she is a ‘many-phased’
woman, and the film needs to show all her sides, rather than reduce her
to the role of seductress.5 In his script, she races her own chariot, urging
‘horses furiously’ to beat the Roman champion, pursues her passion for
love, strategises with her advisers, and summons up mises-en-scène for a
range of occasions beyond the erotic.6 We can speculate that the 1917
version of Cleopatra was especially inflected with the cause of Universal
Suffrage, which California had granted in 1911, and which was to become
federal law in 1920. Indeed, the influence over the production of the star
Theda Bara, one of the earliest film stars, is mentioned twice in Johnson’s
script; when she especially favours a design sketch, observes Johnson, it
should be adopted.
If Cleopatra is physically dynamic on screen, a pharaoh, conversely,
could languish as a paragon of decorative, brooding spectacle. In Ernst
Lubitsch’s Das Weib des Pharao (Germany, 1922; released in the USA as

3
The publication of Buttles’ The Queens of Egypt in 1908 suggests more broadly the importance of
ancient Egypt’s female leaders at this time.
4
Johnson 1917: 20. The film is considered lost, which makes the script (which survives as a
copyright deposit in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division at the
Library of Congress) an especially valuable source.
5
Johnson 1917: 55.
6
Johnson 1917: 10. She commands rugs to be laid down, taken up, camps to be struck, and so on.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 55

The Loves of Pharaoh), Pharaoh wears cosmetics – a servant woman brings

him make-up in trays shaped as scooped-out female forms replete
with delicate applicator brushes, all of which we see in close up. In Die
Sklavenkönigin (Austria, 1924, dir. Michael Kertész/Curtis; released in the
UK as The Moon of Israel), Seti (a scholar in line to be pharaoh) poses as
an odalisque on a day bed tipped with jackal heads while the poet Ana
reads to him in a love scene between men. Following this homoerotic
interlude, the pair stroll through the city together, incognito, observing
slavery as flâneurs. In scene after scene, Seti is the most alluring figure.
When he visits the Hebrew temple, he weaves among the praying Jews in
their drab, raw, loose-fitting robes. Seti’s clothing we recognise by contrast
as bondage gear (with leather, cross-your-heart tops, and wide bangles on
upper and lower arms), or as feminine (with sexy strings of pearls looping
across his smooth biceps). In yet other scenes he sits with legs spread,
displaying elaborate, triangular, leather-tooled codpieces embellished with
swinging chains that draw attention to his groin.
I have written elsewhere of the versatility of the ancient Egyptian milieu
in providing an experimental platform for exploring cinema aesthetics,
and particularly for its support of investigations into spatial presentation.7
This essay takes us in a different direction, towards an inquiry into the
complexity of film’s relation to time. ‘Temporality’, as Mary Ann Doane
tells us, ‘is one of the signifying materials of the cinema, a part of its
experience for the spectator.’8 In his oft-cited review of 1896, Maxim
Gorky reacted to the shocking moment of the initiation of motion, as
still images started to pass before him in time on the screen.9 Ever since,
scholars have remarked on the multiple dimensions of cinema’s reservoir
of time: the time of unspooling in projection; the time of reception, in the
blurring of still frames before the eye of the viewer; the qualities of time
generated in editing; the time of the plot, or diegesis; and the time of the
registration of the image (and sound), in the camera, with its multiple
movements of recorded life.
This chapter concentrates on the latter two areas: it describes five
distinct templates which present differing arrangements of time through
Egyptianising plots; and it explains how ideas about ancient Egypt, and

7
Lant 1995a.
8
Doane 2002: 184. Doane’s study describes the late nineteenth century as a period in which
‘Time was indeed felt – as a weight, as a source of anxiety, and as an acutely pressing problem of
representation’: 4.
9
Gorky [1896] 1960: 408.
56 Antonia Lant

its desert setting, helped to make the process of moving image recording
tangible. Perhaps most intriguingly, it also seems that the time of the
ancient Egyptians provided silent film with a way to gesture towards
those forces of internal, affective history that cannot be directly shown,
and also towards a conundrum: the impossibility of accessing a time
that is past without reviving it in the present; the simultaneous sand-
wiching of times that lies in the motion picture’s act of recording
and preserving an event which is already becoming of the past in the
moment of its capture.
Art directors and scriptwriters of the silent era regale us with lists of
the genuine sources they have drawn on to ensure authenticity in their
renderings of ancient Egypt, and the pedagogical value of their realism.10
They assert their films as works of visual history. But, in the examples
I am analysing, antique material remains adrift from archaeological or
scholarly context; unhistoricised, it floats in a domain convergent with
human drives, more concerned with the psychological dimensions of time
(longing, enduring, seeking) than with its organisation for instruction.
(This is most blatantly the case in two films to be discussed below which
take place in modern Egypt and which reference the ancient past solely
to tap into matters of the soul: Beyond the Rocks (USA, 1922, dir. Sam
Wood), and The Eyes of the Mummy Ma (USA, 1922, dir. Ernst Lubitsch).)
Egypt’s is the remotest culture for which we have such elaborate and
sophisticated surviving detail. In reaching back to it, these films broach a
sort of historical infinity, the point at which history becomes nature.
Flaubert, writing in his journal on his 1849 visit, articulated this fusing
of nature and culture: ‘Everything in Egypt seems made for architecture –
the planes of the fields, the vegetation, the human anatomy, the horizon
lines.’11 His travelling companion, Maxime Du Camp, photographed
Flaubert on the tip of the pyramid Chefren, a pyramid which seemed to
Flaubert, ‘inordinately huge and completely sheer; it’s like a cliff, like a
thing of nature, a mountain – as though it had been created just as it is, as if
it were going to crush you’.12

10
See Bryan 1924 on failures of archaeological authenticity in motion pictures. See also discussion
of the inclusion of a replica of Tutankhamun’s recently excavated chariot in Die Sklavenkönigin,
in Wenzel 2002: 231.
11
Steegmuller 1979: 58.
12
Steegmuller 1979: 57. Hegel’s description of the Sphinx exhibits a similar analysis: ‘The human
head looking out from the brute body exhibits Spirit as it begins to emerge from the merely
Natural’ (Hegel 1899: 199). His account, from The Philosophy of History, was originally
delivered in a lecture in the 1820s, and first published in 1837.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 57

If ancient Egypt stood for a founding human culture, it also, simultan-

eously, signalled a branding of the soul, an initial spur to human emotion.
Many fiction films encode appearances of ancient Egypt with a private,
emotional status, converting the external, archaeological inquiry into an
internal, affective and somatic history. We find this kind of orientation
also in Anthroposophy’s theory of human spirituality’s relation to the
universe, developed by Rudolph Steiner, which places ancient Egypt at
the start of the migration of souls. According to his ‘doctrine of reincar-
nation . . . the same souls are in us which . . . looked up at the gigantic
pyramids and the enigmatic sphinxes’.13 In a parallel development, the
poet and film critic Vachel Lindsay found a kernel of the ancient Egyptian
in all of us.14
There is an interrelation here of two types of understanding of the
arrangement of historical time, one external, carried through the public
events of history proper and documented through artefacts, and the other
internal, carried in the primordial swamp of human feeling. This double
structure echoed a then popular understanding of human development
(since discredited), encapsulated in the pithy bon mot: ‘ontogeny recapitu-
lates phylogeny’. The celebrated theory, most famously unfolded by Ernst
Haeckel, held that the growth of an individual member of the species, from
foetus to adult, replicates the evolutionary journey of the species over
time.15 In such an arrangement, a shorter history (that of the individual,
with his or her spiritual lineage) is nested within, and replays, a longer one
(that of the species, construed here as the duration of human civilisation,
from ancient Egypt to the present). Following the various popular versions
of recapitulation theory in the air in the late nineteenth century, including
those from Anthroposophy and Spiritualism, ancient Egypt summoned
access to the soul as a type of original, primal imprint of humanity. This

13
Steiner 1908: 3.
14
In his projected book, Hollywood Hieroglyphics, Lindsay developed a model of human descent
in which each human generation is formed through a sediment of previous ones: ‘Man’ was
therefore ‘a part of all he has met’, and so ‘first an Egyptian’. See Vachel Lindsay Collection, Box
25, Notebooks on Sixty Characters, unpaginated, for his model of human descent. This theme is
further discussed in Lant 1995b. Anthroposophy held that ‘the human soul continually returns’
(Steiner 1908: 2), on which see further Lant 2006: 95–7.
15
Ernst Haeckel coined the phrase, which is sometimes referred to as the theory of
‘recapitulation’. Haeckel, a zoologist, embryologist, artist and comparative anatomist, became a
celebrity through his lectures and books promoting the theory of evolution. In the second half
of the nineteenth century he named thousands of new species. His most famous work on the
descent of species was Die Welträtsel (1895–99), translated as The Riddle of the Universe (1901).
Haeckel and Steiner were acquainted, and, indeed, Steiner dedicated a book to Haeckel.
58 Antonia Lant

idea carried with it the proposition that we can channel ancient history via
the migration of souls as expressed within ourselves; through ancient
Egypt, we access the serried sedimentation of our own affective history.
As the silent cinema emerged, therefore, ancient Egypt’s civilisation was
provoking multiple understandings of the arrangement of historical time.
It posed the questions: ‘Where does time begin?’; ‘How is it arranged?’
Egypt seemed to be positioned at the origin of time, in that its civilisation
was extremely long-lasting, and the oldest one for which such coherent and
interpreted remains survived. By the same token, its monuments had been
resistant to time, such that it seemed to reach back to eternity, just as its
theological embrace of reincarnation bypassed the terminus of mortality.
Ancient Egypt represented a commitment beyond the limits of human
time in its cultures of death and their massive challenges to the reality of
time. Then again, as both Hegel and Flaubert wrote, Egypt had emerged
from nature, as a way station to the future nobleness of human culture.
And, as Jan Assmann has explained, while ancient Egypt’s endurance
gave it ‘the longest memory’, it gave its own account of its history a cosmic
source, one tied to ‘the conviction that there had been a seamless continu-
ation from creation right through to the present’, and that its kings
and queens were descended from gods. Looking back, Egypt could also
represent the disappearance of historical time into myth.16
This panoply of different kinds of historical axis explains, in itself, the
force of ancient Egypt’s fascination when it came to arranging time on
the silent screen in storytelling. Ancient Egypt was an irresistible substrate
upon which to exercise the temporal flexibility of the new medium’s power.
But add to this the wholesale historical re-evaluation of the Egyptian past
accompanying hieroglyphic decoding and translation. As Assmann again
relates, full details of ancient Egyptian history had only recently begun
to become legible, a process raising the question as to how to connect
an already held, recounted and remembered history with a newly redis-
covered one.17 Excavation re-jigged understandings of both time and history.
Before I move to discuss individual films, I want to point to three other
facets of ancient Egypt’s status in relation to modern time. James Gilbert’s
analysis of the role of ancient Egypt at the Chicago World’s Fair exempli-
fies the first. Here, the Western Electric Company set up its pavilion in the
Electricity Building in the form of an Egyptian temple, and portrayed

16
Assmann 2011: xi; 173. Assmann also notes that ancient Egypt recorded for itself no linear
history, but instead endlessly repeated its own past, in lists of kings and queens.
17
Assmann 2011: xi, xii.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 59

telephone operators as Egyptian maidens ‘while “men of time” laid phone

lines’.18 Gilbert interprets these ‘puns upon the timeless, extinct civilisation
of Egypt, used to display the liveliest of modern business and consumer
products’ as ‘eclecticism in the service of display [that] could call attention
to itself, to the very act of borrowing and unifying incongruities’. In other
words, it is the very combination of the antique and the modern that
signifies the power of new technology, here, to integrate eras and cultures.
As we will see shortly in analyses of specific films, ancient Egypt played
a similar tune on the new technological instrument of cinema.
The second facet relates to the writing system of hieroglyphics. Chiselled
into stone, or recorded on papyrus, hieroglyphics preserved spoken
language and allowed it, and the information it stored, to be transmitted
across time and space.19 Like cinema, hieroglyphics is a system of infinite
expansion, in that more drawings can always be added – it is a representa-
tional as opposed to an alphabetic system, the latter having a limited
number of signs; as a storage medium based in pictures, it echoes cinema.
It is also a system in which an icon may have a literal, representational
meaning, but also symbolic ones. In this sense, it can be thought of as time
thickened. A hieroglyph is not equivalent to the imprint of a moment,
but to the co-existence of one or more meanings, layered, doubled, or
compacted, a quality that caused Lindsay to compare cinema to hieroglyphic
communication, to a sort of picture writing.20
The third and final facet I want to point to has been termed ‘Egypto-
Modernism’, and refers to the inspiration modernist poets, writers,
artists and designers, as well as political figures, derived from the ‘New
Past’ recent Egyptological research offered. As Martha Bryant and Mary
Ann Eaverly explain, this thinking ‘positioned the United States as Egypt’s
cultural inheritor’, naming it successor to new historical territory while
leaving the classical Graeco-Roman era to the Europeans: ‘Ancient
Egypt offered these Egypto-Modernists a new usable past that rerouted
Eurocentric cultural transmission.’ 21 There was a certain logic, then, in
the bond of ancient Egypt to modernity; in letting the younger culture
of the New World assume the legacy of a newly arriving sector of the
archaeological past.

18
Gilbert 1991: 102.
19
Ancient Egyptian seems to have been one of at least four writing systems evolving
independently, the others being Chinese, Mayan and Sumerian.
20
Lindsay 1970: 199–216.
21
Bryant & Eaverly 2007: 435. They refer especially to the literature of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and
H. D.
60 Antonia Lant

Let us now turn to what we can call the time-travel film types of ancient
Egypt. The first way in which silent cinema grazes on the ancient Egyptian
past to feed temporal rearrangement – a way most immediately associated
with the films of Georges Méliès and R. W. Paul – deploys in-camera
editing to make antique objects disappear in puffs of smoke, or mummies
transform instantly into lovely, curvaceous princesses or pokey, rattly
skeletons. Trick films such as Méliès’ Le monstre (The Monster, France,
1903) and R. W. Paul’s The Haunted Curiosity Shop (UK, 1901) entertain
through surprising us with a sequence of sudden and apparently spontan-
eous substitutions of body parts and racial traits, and transformations
between living and dead elements. These films have no plots per se. Instead,
their prescient audiences recognise pharaonic paraphernalia – canopic
jars, banded tunics, asps, falcons – and the ritualistic purposes they connote.
The past, here, is the past experience of urban filmgoers. ‘The Book of
the Dead’, the practice of embalmment, and even the roles of Isis and Osiris
in weighing souls had become household knowledge after almost a century
of Egyptomania in urban entertainments and in literary, philosophical, and
artistic trends, such as the fast-paced fiction of Conan Doyle and Théophile
Gautier, the reproduction of academic paintings of Cleopatra, and the pull
of the spiritualist movement.22
Clear to the early publics of cinema were the civilisation’s hallmark
orientation towards the world of death, its rites of preparing for the
afterlife, and the mummy’s charge of bottling life for future use, of re-
releasing the animate once the journey to the afterlife had been travelled.
In this first type of film, the trick film, the cinematic present taxes the
molecular stability of the preserved past, dislocating its harmonies, and
triggering a rearrangement of its parts in chaotic and unpredictable
ways. The films celebrate the power of the present to animate the inert
objects of the past and redeem their hopeless investment in eternity. In
Paul’s and Méliès’ works, flashes of magnesium powder, or the technology
of electricity, accompany the eruptions of life, or switches of form. It is as
if the forces of industrial technology are so strong – the authority of the
new, moving image – that the excavated, pre-industrial world must give up
its secrets, be putty in the hands of modern masters. Its objects are reduced
to props in the filmmakers’ studio. The desires of the past – to transcend

22
Examples of this could include: ‘Lot No. 249’ (1892), Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale of mummy
reanimation; Théophile Gautier’s ‘Le pied de momie’ (1840); the paintings Cleopatra’s Last
Moments (1892) by D. Pauvert and Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners (1887)
by Alexandre Cabanel.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 61

death – are gratified. In this way, the cinema is a reassuring pleasure, and
a superior device to those oily unguents massaged by the ancients. It is also
erotically potent; revivification brings with it a moistening of desiccated
dry skin and bone, an anti-aging, a filling out of the supple forms of
flowing flesh in a restoration of fecundity and sensuality.
The second type of screen time facilitated through things Egyptianate,
I propose, emerges with longer films of more distinct narrative structure,
and extends the erotic gambit. In The Mummy (Thanhouser, USA, 1911), a
65 year-old Egyptologist, Professor Dix, deciphers hieroglyphics to learn
that an ancient Egyptian princess, Khufu, is not dead but only sleeps.
Simultaneously, his daughter’s suitor, Jack Thornton, purchases a mummy
at an auction sale in order to begin to establish his own credentials as
an Egyptologist, and so ingratiate himself with his sweetheart’s father who
disapproves of his daughter’s choice. Jack brings his mummy back to his
room, where a live electric wire accidentally revives the female royal. Antics
follow – ‘very good trick features are brought in’ comments the Billboard
review – such that eventually Jack is able to marry the daughter while the
Professor marries the three-thousand-year-old princess.23
In films of this type, cinema seems to have the command permanently to
insert an ancient time into contemporary life. This had been imagined in
the novel (in Rider Haggard’s She, for example, first published in 1886),
but here asserts itself with more graphic intensity than heretofore in the
visual arts. The past breathes resolutely in the present, while the chasm
into past ages closes over, bridged by desire in the form of the marriage
of the professor to the revived ancient princess.
In a third type of temporal arrangement all reanimation occurs within
a dream, which thus cordons off the eruption of the past into the present.
In this branch of Egyptomania a central male character – for example
Lord Evandale, the Egyptologist in Le roman de la momie (The Romance of
a Mummy, S.C.A.G.L., France, 1911, dir. Albert Capellani)24 – falls asleep
while in a tomb and dreams of a romance with an ancient Egyptian queen,
although, in Evandale’s case, when he awakens, a modern woman has
entered his life with identical features to that of the ancient ruler. In The
Princess in the Vase (USA, 1908, dir. Wallace McCutcheon), which mixes
references to the funeral practices of several ancient cultures, a cleaning
woman dusts an urn containing the ashes of an ancient Egyptian princess
with too much vigour, causing her to reawaken in a Boston living room,

23
Review in Billboard, 11 March 1911.
24
Based on Théophile Gautier’s short story of the same name.
62 Antonia Lant

but this all happens within the dream of the archaeologist who had first
excavated the urn. In The Dust of Egypt (USA, 1915, dir. George D. Baker),
Geoffrey Lascelles, drunkenly arriving home after a party, falls asleep
and dreams that the mummy he is in charge of (Amenset) revives and
wreaks havoc on his life as she ineptly collides with modern inventions –
telephone, matches – and jealously offends Geoffrey’s fiancée. In all these
examples, the past exists within the schema of the present, but enframed
within the dreams’ brackets, perhaps hinting at an outcome viewers may
subconsciously wish for or fear.
In a fourth type of time-travelling plan, characters already living in the
present have origins in the ancient Egyptian past. In A Modern Sphinx (USA,
1916, dir. Charles Bennett), an Egyptian princess has been in suspended
animation for three thousand years as an act of punishment by her astrol-
oger father. She awakens as a baby in the present, grows up with the
nickname The Modern Sphinx because she cannot know love, has a miser-
able affair, commits suicide, but then finds herself happy and alive and wiser
in the ancient past again.25 Here, it is paternal punishment in the past that
compels the princess to exist in the modern day, rather than an accidental
spark or rash act of cleaning in the present. In other films, reincarnation
rather than suspended animation explains the protagonists’ living out of
their time. In The Undying Flame (USA, 1917, dir. Maurice Tourneur), an
ancient Egyptian princess loves a commoner, a shepherd, but her father,
the pharaoh, forbids her love. The lovers break a scarab ornament in two,
swearing to reunite the halves in death. In the present, at the English
garrison in the Sudan, Captain Harry Paget falls for Grace Leslie, daughter
of the garrison commander; they then both find they are owners of scarab
halves, and that, indeed, they have been reunited, as reincarnations, in the
modern present. The Image Maker (Thanhouser, USA, 1917, dir. W. Eugene
Moore) tells a similar story: a couple in love in modern Florida realise, upon
finding a copy of ‘The Royal Romances of Egypt’, that they are reincar-
nations of thwarted lovers of the ancient past, Prince Isa and Ashubetis
(‘The Image Maker’). Shortly, the girl, an actress, must travel to Egypt to
shoot a film – the ancient ‘Image Maker’ who had moulded clay reincarnates
as a celluloid worker. Her boyfriend follows, and, at the ancient tomb where
he had been buried, five thousand years earlier, they swear eternal love.
In this group of films, ancient Egypt emblematises, and is the site
of, the release and endurance of desire. It provides the framework for

25
Moving Picture World, 19 February 1916: 1189–90.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 63

trans-millennial, extreme love, and suggests that passionate acts of the

present result from buried, past causes, à la psychoanalysis. Unlike the
chase film format, or D. W. Griffith’s suspense melodramas, which wisely
exploit off-screen space, this Egyptianising type exploits ‘off-time’ space, as
it were, sometimes using electricity to bridge the gap, or, as here, closing
the gap between eras via desire across the ages in the re-joining of a couple
falsely separated. Such plots of thwarted past lovers re-finding themselves
in the present also caution stern parents; they celebrate individual love over
the dynastic power of cruel pharaohs, the transgression of class boundaries,
and the embrace of modern American courtship.
The topos of the curse characterises a fifth and final type of cinematic
time supported by Egyptianising narratives. In this type, an event of
the past – often unknown to the present-day protagonists – exerts a force
on the present, in an inversion of type two (in which an event in the
present – the excavation of a tomb, the careless gesture of a housemaid –
exerted a force on the past). In Naidra, the Dream Woman (Thanhouser,
USA, 1914, dir. W. Eugene Moore), a thief steals a mummy’s necklace
but, despite repeated efforts, cannot safely dispose of it. In the serial,
The Silent Mystery (Burston Films, USA, 1918, dir. Francis Ford), the
curse emanating from a mummy’s stolen jewel wreaks havoc upon the
perpetrators. In L’anneau fatal (The Fatal Ring, France, 1912, dir. Louis
Feuillade), a three-part serial set in 1789, 1830 and 1912, a scarab ring
excavated under Napoleon’s supervision carries a curse. An Egyptologist
resolves the plot by returning the ring back to its mummy, causing the
latter’s eyes to glow. 26
In the ten-minute The Egyptian Mystery (Edison, USA, 1909, dir.
J. Searle Dawley), a ‘lady has been given a pendant that has been found
in an ancient Egyptian tomb’.27 It causes everything its wearer’s hands
touch to disappear. Horrified at all that is being lost, the ‘lady’ orders
her cook to discard the pendant, but as the cook gives it to the iceman, he
embraces her, and she vanishes. Next, the iceman’s modern world starts to
disappear: ‘a street car he attempts to board turns into thin air and car and
passengers fall to the street’. The chain of catastrophe (typical of the chase
film, in which a cascade of errors carries the action from one setting to the
next) ends when the iceman touches his mirrored reflection, whereupon
he himself, the mirror and the pendant dematerialise in a scene reflective

26
The revivification of the mummy’s eyes is also a theme of Ernst Lubitsch’s Die Augen der
Mumie Ma, discussed below.
27
‘The Egyptian Mystery’, Moving Picture World, 10 July 1909: 61.
64 Antonia Lant

of the limits of cinema itself – as the film comes to an end, the mirror that
we ourselves were looking into empties, leaving us nothing left to watch.
In the case of this film, the intrusion of an ancient object into a modern
setting generates comedy. The object trespasses the boundaries of time,
persists longer than human flesh, but the temporal incongruity of its
departure from its original context results in a curse that threatens all
in its path. Only through the object’s excision from modern life and
reattachment to the past can city dwellers escape the hex. This admonitory
outcome brings to the fore the vexed question of the illicit sources of
archaeological treasure. The construction of a new past in the accelerating
unearthing of Egyptian artefacts brings with it a violence (expressed in
the deadly force of the jewel), and a question: Should a pendant from
those tombs become private property?
The cinema’s ransacking of ancient Egyptian plots implicates the ran-
sacking of its tombs (a theme aired explicitly in Karl Freund’s The Mummy
[USA, 1932] which advocates greater respect for materials of the past).
The moral dilemmas of modern tomb excavation had grown following
the intensification of European trade and colonial relations with Egypt,
gathering momentum since the Napoleonic occupational expedition of
1798 to 1801. In the films of type five, the curse scolds the coloniser
while also signalling the disruptions caused by excavation, including its
reordering of historical time. The curse-plot film reflects on the contrast
between the fragility of human memory and the robust, mute material of
discourse in stone and metal that allows Egypt to be read. The purloined
object, ripped from its primary context of use, uprooted from its time, is a
messenger from the past, has witnessed past events, but remains silent,
severed from its metadata. Yet, bringing with them the indubitable force
of the past as if they had been buried alive, such objects are the only access
we have to such a remote past, eclipsed from memory by countless
generations. The cursed objects are temporal packets, time missiles. In
Felix Mesguich’s words, observing the activity of digging up the City of
Temples at Karnak: ‘An entire world is being resurrected, revealing the
secret of centuries past. Each stone is a page of history.’28
For all these films, ancient Egypt provides a logic for their exercises
in structures of time, their demonstrations of the elasticity of cinematic
chronos. I have spoken of five kinds of film: the trick; the enlivening of
the mummy in the present; dreaming of past revivification; the anchoring

28
Mesguich 1933: 130.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 65

of present lovers in a past bond; and the curse. None of the tales in
these films follow a linear narrative path, but instead exhibit looping,
open, or circulating patterns of time, ones echoing the temporal options
viewers already associated with tomb stories. They even echo, we might
suggest, the experience of entering a pyramid, soon after which we lose
our bearings, no longer knowing where we came in, or at what level we
now are, above or below ground; staircases and passages wind back and
forth, under and over each other, rendering us disorientated and without
a bead on the exterior. Changes in the weather, or changes in time of day,
or sounds, are all beyond our perception, once inside the tomb.29
These kinds of story-telling structures are a distinctive part of silent
cinema’s repertoire. They are sometimes dismissed as no more than
the typical fare of orientalism, imperialism and racism.30 Yet they are
revealing for their particular inflections of cinema’s investment in
the archiving of time. They propose a Deleuzian wandering, rather
than the capturing of a recorded instant as an expression of cinema’s
modernity, the latter an aspect more frequently emphasised by scholars.31
Egyptianising films did not stress the irreversibility of time, a plague
of modernity according to this line of thinking; their narratives, while
occurring in the linear time of projection, offer numerous modes of
unfolding. Some are even, in terms of plot, haunted by the disruptions
of the past, as in the thwarted-lover and curse-film types. Further, as
I have already suggested, ancient Egypt was never simply the past.
It called up superstition; time travel; escape from mortality; a ‘New Past’
for modernity; the recalibration of historical time; theft’s unlocking of
strata in time; and alternative structures of gender in human power. In
short, just like cinema, Egypt offered new vistas into time. And we could
even suggest, on account of ancient Egypt’s temporal complexity, that
it provided a cultural and philosophical fulcrum around which the new
medium could pivot.
Before concluding with some remarks on ancient Egypt’s relation to
film’s mechanisms of recording time, I will pass to two films not set in
the ancient Egyptian past, but which instead point to it as a way of both
visualising and explaining a mental dimension of time, emotional longing.
I do this to suggest the special role ancient Egypt played on the silent
screen in visually signalling repositories of memory. The first film is Ernst

29
It was common in the silent film era to conceive of entering the cinema theatre as entering an
Egyptian tomb. See discussion in Lant 1992.
30 31
Doane 2002: 2–3. See the emphasis of Doane’s study, for example.
66 Antonia Lant

Lubitsch’s Eyes of the Mummy Ma (title of German original of 1918: Die

Augen der Mumie Ma; released in USA in 1922), in which Radu (played
by Emil Jannings) appears possessed by an interrupted love affair of the
past.32 The second is Beyond the Rocks (USA, 1922, dir. Sam Wood), in
which the denouement occurs in the Egyptian desert through a flashback
to pharaonic times.
We first meet Radu haunting the tumbledown tomb of Queen Ma (as
Bey will haunt a mummy in the Cairo Museum in Freund’s The Mummy).
Modern-day German tourists dare to visit the tomb to see for themselves
the eyes of a mummy case rumoured to open and move – sometimes
then crumpling in madness at the shock of believing that mummification
has actually worked to perpetuate life. A heap of ruined slabs marks the
tomb’s entryway (the remains of a seated pharaoh statue), and, indeed,
the entire plot originates in Radu’s desecration of the original purpose of
the tomb – to honour Queen Ma. The temple has become his hovel – the
ancient Egyptian elements (swollen-based columns, hieroglyphic-covered
walls) are shrouded in Bedouin hangings and smoked from an open
fire pit. Radu inverts the tomb’s function, holding a water girl, also named
Ma (played by Pola Negri), captive there, as if buried alive. He dominates
her in enforced slavery since she will not love him. In this reverse of
mummification, it is Pola Negri’s eyes which move inside the mummy
case in a hideous sort of circus act of the master-slave drama.
Besides his squatting in an ancient tomb, several other traits link Radu
to the Egyptian past. His name shares a beginning with that of a famous
pharaoh, Radames, perhaps also known to audiences as the King in Verdi’s
Aida. Radu sometimes poses with his arms crossed over his chest, an
echo of the arm arrangements of mummification. He prays to Osiris, ‘the
high god’, to help him retrieve Ma once she has fled to Europe with Albert
(a sightseeing artist played by Harry Liedtke).33 Although the plot does
not explicitly state this as the case, we start to infer that Radu may be one
of those ghastly stranded souls who long for the return of their mate of
antiquity. The plot of the film takes place in contemporary Egypt, but
seems to use ancient Egypt to explore the power of past attachments, our
inability to escape them, and their shaping of current erotic choices. We do

32
It seems that Queen Ma is a fictional queen. ‘Ma’at’ is the key term of ancient Egyptian ethics,
meaning ‘truth-order-justice-fairness’, which will allow living in peace in the world. See
Assmann 2011: 47, 65.
33
The original German intertitles of the film note that Radu prays to ‘Osiris, der hohen Gottheit’.
The English translation, however, turns Osiris into a ‘high goddess’.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 67

not know why Radu captures the water girl initially, but once she has
escaped him, his sole goal is to reunite with her, even in death. And, for
her part, we see Ma compelled to return to him, though his gaze will prove
deadly. In a closing scene in a European drawing room, Radu’s look
overpowers Ma, so that while her moving eyes had initially driven tourists
to madness and death, Radu’s staring, unmoving eyes drive her now to
her own end. In the final sequence, these eyes first immobilise her, and
then force her to drop to her knees and serve Radu. Ma dies at the end
of the film, once more in thrall to Radu (who also dies, at his own
hand), seemingly frightened to death in reliving the trauma of her earlier
abduction by him.34
Some unspecified distortion in the pasts of these characters (events
preceding the film’s beginnings) moulds their presents and their deadly
futures. The mechanism of cinema, with its lenticular focus on gazing,
and exchanges of immobility for mobility, enables Lubitsch to dramatise
this psychology of Ma’s and Radu’s wretched bonds. The ancient past of
Egypt here connotes the sedimentation of primal experiences within love
relations. It also permits a perverse and exotic incarnation of these ties,
since Egypt’s great antiquity makes it impossible to remember. So, while
ancient Egypt is fully absent from the film in terms of the temporality of
the setting – the film plays out entirely in the viewers’ present (or possibly
in the immediately pre-First World War era) – it is palpable as a container
for, and explanation of, the fatal longings of the plot.
Except for a late interlude in the Egyptian desert that allows the
thwarted lovers to unite, Beyond the Rocks takes place almost wholly in
Europe, and chiefly in aristocratic England. Theodora (Gloria Swanson)
and Hector (Rudolph Valentino) are in love, but Theodora has already
married Josiah Brown, an elderly, rich, and well-meaning husband too
lacklustre to bring her joy. He departs suddenly on an archaeological
expedition he has been funding, intent somehow on vanishing in order
to free his wife for Hector. The expedition discovers a hidden temple, half
buried in the sand, and a papyrus – providing, according to an inter-title,
‘An account of the punishment meted out by the ancient Egyptians to
an unfaithful wife’. Josiah then hallucinates the ancient scene; we see a

34
Ma recounts to Albert her capture by Radu as we see the events in flashback on the screen. Radu
abducts her while she is washing clothes, hauls her fainted body on horseback to the tomb, and
lays her on a pallet where she later revives. He commands her to obey his will, as she struggles
against his firm grip. Dramatic and ominous shadows dance across the walls all the while,
heightening the sense of threat.
68 Antonia Lant

skimpily-clad girl dragged by ancient Egyptians to a stake, tied there,

and left slowly suffocating as the sand rises around her and the footprints
of her ancient punishers gradually blow away. Josiah remarks in a
further inter-title: ‘Poor creature. She may have been married to some
ailing old duffer, and when real love came along the temptation was
too great.’ Shortly thereafter, a band of desert marauders surround
the archaeologists and the self-sacrificing Josiah makes sure that he is
caught in the crossfire. In a pattern by now familiar in my argument,
the ancient Egyptian scene expresses the potency and enduring power
of desire. Josiah imagines as far back as he can, via Egypt, into human
nature itself, to comprehend the inexorability of the drives uniting his
wife and her lover.
Lisa Gitelman has proposed that ‘Media are functionally integral to a
sense of pastness.’ They involve ‘implicit encounters with the past that
produced the representations in question’.35 However, not all media are
integral to a sense of pastness in the same way. As I have been arguing,
ancient Egypt offered a banquet of options for weighing relationships
of time, but it was only cinema that could fully exploit this range, and
dramatise its own power through the encounter. Still photography registered
the double-temporality of the present instant compressed into a meeting
with the past, but lacked the mechanism to enliven stationary stones, to
capture ‘change mummified’, in the words of André Bazin.36
The allure of Egypt for articulating, simultaneously, a mix of tempora-
lities was certainly grasped by Felix Mesguich, an early motion picture
cameraman for the Lumière Brothers.37 In his memoirs, published in 1933,
he recorded his winter 1906 stay ‘Au pays des pharaons’, and, in a descrip-
tion of a shoot, there aligns a temporal contrast with a spatial one, of
foreground to background. The sun is setting behind the Libyan range, and
he has set up his camera on the slopes of the Mokattam Hill on the edge
of Cairo (the hill quarried for building the Great Pyramids at Giza). His
lens embraces the majestic landscape, where, ‘under the luminous sign of
its fertile river’, two civilisations lie juxtaposed, he writes. In the distance,
‘in a light mist’, that of the past: the shaded triangles of the Pyramids
of Giza and of Memphis, enormous masses at the edge of the desert.
In close up, that of the present, the various mosques, domes and minarets

35 36
Gitelman 2006: 5. Bazin [1945] 1967: 15.
37
Mesguich was born in Algeria, a pied-noir. He left the Lumière Company in 1898 and thereafter
travelled the world as a news cameraman, filming in Egypt from November 1906 until March
1907.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 69

of the city of Cairo.38 He continues, ‘An excess of imagination spills over

under the eastern sky, reminiscent of remembered things, so that I felt I’d
seen it all already in a dream.’39 Given his profession, his comment seems
to fuse familiarity from dreams with his habitual task of converting
landscape into the dream-like experience of film-viewing, while his
remark is also tinged with the orientalist scent of an opium dream, as well
as perhaps with the spiritualist journey of descended memory via
reincarnation earlier discussed. Through his lens, Mesguich experiences
the landscape as saturated with different permutations of time: past,
present, dreamt, imagined. In a second instance in which Egypt supports
the expression of a complex articulation of time for Mesguich, he describes
arriving at the feet of the Gizan Sphinx, ‘the Master of the Sand’, and
wonders if his presence troubles the serenity of the ‘Great Dreamer’.
Its human head with broken nose ‘seemed to follow all my movements
with a wild look as I illustrated it on film, an instant of its millennial life.
The crouching colossus, a god, alone in the silent immensity and everlas-
ting aura that was the kingdom of his rule.’ 40 Mesguich writes of using
all manner of lighting to try to capture the presence of the Sphinx, ending
with ‘streaming back-light’, such that all who will see the projected film
of this animal god will receive an impression of the mysterious wait that
it has delighted in over all the centuries.41 He measures the puniness of
his own intervention – the recording of an instant – by comparison with
the ungraspable age of the object before his lens. The vast reaches of
history dwarf the current moment, are unassimilable by it, even as they
submit technically to Mesguich’s recording machine.42
If Mesguich ponders the juxtaposed temporalities Egypt proffers
the moving camera, Flaubert, in the same desert a few decades earlier,
found ancient Egypt defiled by the present to the point of exasperation.
Flaubert documented his views in his letters and journal as he travelled
with Maxime Du Camp who was taking large-format still photographs.
In Luxor, Flaubert notes the obelisk by the pylon, ‘in perfect state
of preservation’, but for the ‘white birdshit’ which ‘streaks down from
the very top’. ‘Birdshit is Nature’s protest in Egypt; she decorates

38
Mesguich 1933: 127.
39
Mesguich 1933: 128. Florence Nightingale, visiting Egypt in 1849–50, saw it as if through a
magic lantern lens (Nightingale 1987: 72, 78). This is discussed further in Lant 1992.
40 41
Mesguich 1933: 128. Mesguich 1933: 128.
42
This stands in interesting contrast to Michael Allan’s thesis that Promio’s 1897 panoramic film
of the pyramids, Les pyramides (vue générale), ‘monumentalizes neither the pyramid’ nor the
figures in shot, ‘but the very dynamics of cinematic time’ (Allan 2008: 165, 168).
70 Antonia Lant

monuments with it instead of lichen or moss.’43 Writing home to

Dr Jules Cloquet, Flaubert remarks,
So here we are in Egypt, ‘land of the Pharaohs, land of the Ptolemies, land
of Cleopatra’ (as sublime stylists put it) . . . Anyone who is a little attentive
rediscovers here much more than he discovers. The seeds of a thousand notions
that one carried within oneself grow and become more definite, like so many
refreshed memories. Thus, as soon as I landed at Alexandria, I saw before me, alive,
the anatomy of the Egyptian sculptures: the high shoulders, long torso, thin legs,
etc. The dances that we have had performed for us are of too hieratic a character
not to have come from the dances of the old Orient, which is always young because
nothing changes.44

Flaubert, here, records the coupling I have described for the later silent
cinema – ancient Egypt as a prompt for, and the site of, memory. We see
that such ideas about ancient Egypt were not limited to the medium
of cinema – Sigmund Freud also explored them in his psychoanalytic
practice, for example.45 However, cinema, through its reanimation in
motion, and non-linear arrangements of recorded time, was an aesthetic
form deftly suited to entertaining via the pleasures and fascinations of
recollection.
The desert had been associated with still photography’s first wave – in
his era of extremely slow exposure times, Maxime Du Camp, as many
others, visited Egypt to capitalise on its intense lighting levels.46 We even
find Egypt present in the eighth plate of The Pencil of Nature, the first
published collection of photographs, assembled in 1844 by British pioneer
of photography William Henry Fox Talbot. In this plate, A Scene in a
Library, he records his own library; the six arranged books include
Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, first published as a
three-volume edition in 1837 by John Gardner Wilkinson, pioneer
Egyptologist and often referred to as the father of British Egyptology.47
The twinning of photography and Egypt was based in more than light,
however: the desert offered cinematographers and photographers a sort of
empty canvas on which to arrange forms. Mesguich describes composing a
shot by positioning himself in a particular relation to the three pyramids,

43 44
Steegmuller: 1979: 165. Steegmuller 1979: 79, 81.
45
Sigmund Freud used his collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts to signify the activity of
psychoanalysis. See Forrester 1994: 224–51.
46
See Lant 1995b: 83–6.
47
Talbot [1844] 2011. The other books in his photograph are: The Philosophical Magazine,
Miscellanies of Science, Botanische Schriften, Philological Essays, Poetae Minores Graeci and
Lanzi’s Storia pittorica dell’Italia.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 71

and then bringing up the camels and dromedaries into the long shadows of
late day, so as to make them stand out against the grey-gold of the sand.48
The notion of the desert as an empty canvas carries obvious colonial
connotations in indicating a blank and unclaimed space to conquer. But
it held a specific additional attraction for the moving picture camera, as
suggested by the numerous sequences in which early cinema technology
records the inscription of motion into sand.
Fazil (USA, 1928, dir. Howard Hawks) opens with a scene of galloping
horses passing over highly sculpted dunes, their riders bringing with
them a captured deserter. The low evening sun highlights the streams of
hoofmarks forming in rows as the pack ride towards the camera, and then
depart, almost emptying the shot. A following close-up of the horses’
feet shows their weight depressing the sand, as a needle etches the fresh
wax of a gramophone recording. (This is, indeed, a very early sound
film, without spoken dialogue but with patches of recorded music and a
few synchronised sound passages of drumbeats and of a gondolier singing.)
Die Sklavenkönigin was shot in Vienna except for small sections filmed
in the Egyptian desert by a second camera unit. These sequences display
none of the principal actors but do, however, include shots of camels and
three pyramids, and of riders crossing fast over the empty desert, leaving
tracks in the dunes, tracks amplified through being shot in low sunlight
whose long raking casts shadows that pick out the hoof-prints. The Eyes of
the Mummy Ma starts similarly, with a human figure (the sightseeing
artist, Albert) making tracks in the open, empty desert as he paces down
a dune, into a gulley, and uphill again towards the camera. Other tracks
we see in the sand, we will learn, belong to the young woman, Ma, who
regularly visits to wash at the banks of the Nile. Albert’s and Ma’s paths
cross – this is, in essence, the film’s plot. And Cleopatra (1917) makes use
of many desert sand scenes. A long shot of the queen’s encampment, a
specific direction tells us, ‘shows a messenger appear over the brow of the
hill on a fleet camel – he rides down through them [a crowd] . . . he throws
himself from the camel – before the tent of the Queen’.49 The film opens
on ‘The Desert Wastes’, according to the first title of the film.50 Here
Cleopatra is mustering her forces, having been expelled from Alexandria
by Julius Caesar. A fade-in reveals an array of objects upon these wastes:
tents, camp fire and boiling pot, a mixed assortment of soldiers eating
(Greek, Jew, Parthian, Midian, Arab, Syrian), camels, elephants, Ethiopian

48 49 50
Mesguich 1933: 128. Johnson 1917: 4. Johnson 1917: 1.
72 Antonia Lant

guards in tiger skins, chariot and horses, silken streamers above an

oriental pavilion. In short ‘a fine picturesque scene of an oriental
force’.51 The dense design sprawls across the blank canvas of the desert
screen that is Cleopatra’s movable home. Once she makes her decision to
confront Caesar, and commands Kephren, her personal secretary, to pick
up her rugs, we are told (in the script) of the effective dismantling of this
set – which again suggests the desert as canvas.52 For a final reference to
this fusion of the desert with linen, the film screen and the photographic
process of writing in light, we can turn to a review of She’s a Sheik
(USA, 1927, dir. Clarence Badger) in which the desert literally serves as
a screen.53 As the reviewer describes the film, ‘On the sandy screen of
white desert dunes, Zaida causes a newsreel, showing a vast army on the
march, to be projected. Not used to this kind of mirage, the Arabs
surrender rapidly just before the newsreel begins to make battleships
float along the Sahara.’
Sand has two contradictory meanings in relation to the theme of time
that this chapter has explored. On the one hand, the sands of time are
the finite limit on our life span; they are the contents of the hour-glass that
is running out. On the other hand, the sands of time are eternal, sand as the
smallest denominator of erosion. This metaphorical opposition allowed the
sands of Egypt to capture twin qualities of the passing of time – the longer
one of ancient, even geological history, and the shorter, personal one of
memory, the latter linked to the former through recapitulation theory
and through the merger of Egyptian history with nature and with myth,
with a place outside time. As a substance, sand itself is contradictory.
Although not liquid, it is suffocating, and we can drown in it, as does the
adulterous woman in Beyond the Rocks. Although it is solid, it is constantly
shifting, blowing and moving, like the wind or a wave. Ancient Egypt
then, through its sands, provided graphic shots in which a temporary
mark (a hoof mark) is performed in time, and by virtue of the pressure
of the (horse’s) body is imprinted, only to pass away, blow clean. The
filming of a hoof at the moment of impact also records the moment when
the impression and its trace touch one another, are still in contact in the
cinematographic process. Sand forms a powerful substrate through which
to evoke the kind of inscription cinema performs, a temporal inscription
into a surface, but one of fragile and fleeting duration (in severe contrast
to hieroglyphic incision in stone). This joined pattern of imprinting and

51 52
Johnson 1917: 1. Johnson 1917: 7.
53
Anonymous review, Time, 5 December 1927: 43–4.
 Cinema in the time of the pharaohs 73

loss registers the inextricable tie between past and present within the
celluloid medium. In its associations with both finitude and the eternal,
sand returns us to the multiple and incompatible kinds of temporal
arrangement figured in early films of ancient Egypt that I have already
described. The dominance of Egypt on the silent screen is a case of swords,
sandals and sex, but also of the sands of time.
 5 | ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’: representing ancient
Egypt and the Middle East in film theory and
criticism of the silent period
laura marcus

In the film theory of recent decades, there has been strong interest in the
graphic dimensions of cinematic representation, drawing in part on films
of the silent period. In turning to early film and film aesthetics, critics have
also pointed to the early twentieth-century understanding of cinema as a
new ‘universal language’, frequently represented in the terms of a ‘hiero-
glyphics’ of cinematic representation. These preoccupations are central to a
number of important studies by film theorists and historians, including
Miriam Hansen and Michael Iampolski, and the films of D. W. Griffith
play a crucial role in these contexts.
Hansen’s Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film
(1991) places Griffith’s epic Intolerance (1916) at the heart of its arguments
about early film, the immigrant culture of the USA, and the shaping of
cinema spectatorship in relation to an expanded public sphere. Intolerance
interweaves four narratives and spaces: ancient Babylon at the time of its
overthrow by Cyrus the Persian; France in the sixteenth century, climaxing
with the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre engineered by Catherine de
Medici; Christ’s crucifixion; the narrative of ‘The Mother and the Law’ in
the present day. The four stories are linked by the image of a woman
(played by Lillian Gish) rocking a cradle, a visualisation of lines from Walt
Whitman’s ‘Sea-Drift’: ‘Out of the cradle endlessly rocking . . . uniter of
here and hereafter.’1 In Griffith’s own account of Intolerance: ‘The purpose
of the production is to trace a universal theme through various episodes of
the race’s history. Ancient, sacred, medieval and modern times are con-
sidered. Events are not set forth in their historical sequence or according to
the accepted forms of dramatic construction, but as they might flash across
a mind seeking to parallel the life of the different ages.’2
In Intolerance, Hansen argues, Griffith attempted ‘to put the universal
language into practice, to ordain a new idiom of visual self-evidence that would
be not only equal but superior to verbal languages . . . As a “hieroglyphic”

1 2
74 Whitman 2004: 275. Quoted in Everson 1978: 90.
 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’ 75

text par excellence, marked by graphic and stylistic heterogeneity, Intolerance

projects something like a public reading space, asking the viewer to parti-
cipate in a collective process of deciphering and interpreting.’3 Iampolski’s
study The Memory of Tiresias: Intertextuality and Film (1988) takes up
issues of reading and deciphering the film text, but whereas Hansen focuses
largely on gender, cultural mediations and the public polity in the melting-pot
of early twentieth-century America (where the ‘universal language’ of film
had particular significance for a largely immigrant film audience), Iampolski
has a more formalist concern with writing-systems, film poetics and film
iconography. Like Hansen, he takes Intolerance (and Griffith’s films more
generally) as a central example for his arguments, opening up the ways
in which ‘the cinematic hieroglyphic’ functions in Griffith’s works, as ‘a
layered structure of meanings, significations, and intertextual connections
that are often irreducible to a whole’.4 This creates a stasis in the film isolated
from the narrative drive, as in the image of the woman rocking the cradle,
which both holds the different strands of the film together and pulls the
narrative drive back to a still point.
Both Iampolski and Hansen refer to one of the two figures in the history
of early film discourse on whom I focus in this chapter, the early twentieth-
century poet and artist Vachel Lindsay, noting the ways in which his
writings on cinema link back to the thought of the American Transcen-
dentalists, and to the visionary thinker Emmanuel Swedenborg. Lindsay’s
hieroglyphic preoccupations, which he both incorporated into his poetry
and applied extensively to film, place him in a long tradition of philoso-
phical and cultural theorising, fuelled in the early eighteenth century
by Champollion’s decipherment of the Rosetta Stone and the debates it
engendered about the origins of language and culture and pictorial versus
phonetic writing systems. For the British Romantic poets of the period,
as for the American Transcendentalists, hieroglyphics came to represent a
unity of word and image and a form of occulted knowledge. Thus Ralph
Waldo Emerson wrote, in his essay ‘Poetry and Imagination’, that the poet
‘shall use Nature as his hieroglyphic’.5 In ‘The Poet’, he asserted that
Nature ‘offers all her creatures to him [the poet] as a picture-language’.6
One crucial mediating figure between Emerson and Lindsay was Walt
Whitman, who inherited the Transcendentalist fascination with hiero-
glyphic representations. As John T. Irwin has suggested in his invaluable
study American Hieroglyphics: The Symbol of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics in

3 4 5
Hansen 1991: 17. Iampolski 1988: 119. Emerson 1903–4, vol. VIII: 65.
6
Emerson 1903–4, vol. III: 13.
76 Laura Marcus

the American Renaissance (1993), Whitman may well have conceived of

Leaves of Grass (a collection of poems he revised and extended throughout
his life, in which he celebrated selfhood, the life of the body and of nature,
and America as a nation) as ‘a kind of hieroglyphic Bible’.7 Whitman was
as important a figure for Lindsay as he was for Griffith and other early
filmmakers, in his creation of a public, democratic poetry and in his
intense, pictorial itemising of a perceived world.
The second figure I discuss is the British archaeologist, journalist and
writer Arthur Weigall. A contemporary of Vachel Lindsay’s, he was also
engaged with both film and Egyptology, though in markedly different
ways. While ‘Egypt’ was largely mediated for Lindsay through the Western
and, in particular, the North American ‘Egyptomania’ of the early twenti-
eth century, Weigall spent his formative years in Egypt, working on the
archaeological projects that would inspire the widespread cultural fascin-
ation with its ancient civilisation. For Lindsay, film and Egyptology merged
in a focus on film language and pictorial representation, whereas Weigall’s
engagement with cinema resulted from his fascination with spectacle and
show, brought into being by (as he perceived it) the drama of the Egyptian
landscape and (as a critic) from his concern with film as a national mirror
and optic. Examination of these two figures opens up the variety of ways in
which early cinema encountered ancient Egypt, through both the archaeo-
logical discoveries and the popular culture of the early twentieth century.

Vachel Lindsay

Vachel Lindsay, born in the American Midwest in 1879, came to the new
medium of film after his studies at art college and some success as a poet
associated with the Imagist movement of the 1910s. He published The Art
of the Moving Picture in 1915; a revised version was published in 1922.
The work has the claim to be the first English-language book of film theory
or film aesthetics. Writing against the view that film was closest as an
art to stage drama, Lindsay emphasised its relation to art and the art
gallery, and its affinities with sculpture. His central preoccupation, how-
ever, was with the ‘hieroglyphic’ dimensions of silent film, which led him
in two, interconnected, directions. First, film was to be understood as a
‘hieroglyphic’ language, a ‘new universal alphabet’, ‘a moving picture

7
Irwin 1993: 31. Whitman’s work on Leaves of Grass extended over the period 1855–91.
 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’ 77

Esperanto’ (171–88).8 The pictorialism of movies made them, Lindsay

wrote to George Brett, editor at Macmillan, ‘as revolutionary in their
own age as the invention of Hieroglyphics was to the cave-man. And they
can be built up into a great pictorial art. The Egyptian tomb-painting was
literally nothing but enlarged Hieroglyphics. We now have Hieroglyphics
in motion – and they can be made as lovely as the Egyptian if we once
understand what we are doing.’9 ‘It would profit any photoplay man’,
Lindsay asserted, ‘to study to think like the Egyptians, the great picture-
writing people’ (172). He claimed that he found the decipherment of
hieroglyphics ‘extraordinarily easy’ (though significant doubt was later cast
on his ability to interpret them) ‘because I have analyzed so many hun-
dreds of photoplay films’. Lindsay repeatedly returned to The Book of the
Dead (the most significant and long-lasting collection of funerary texts
created by the ancient Egyptians, dating from around 1550 BCE, intended
to guide and protect the deceased), describing it as ‘certainly the greatest
motion picture I ever attended’. ‘I have gone through it several times’, he
wrote, ‘and it is the only book one can read twelve hours at a stretch, on the
Pullman, when he is making thirty-six hour and forty-eight hour jumps
from town to town’ (xxxvi).
This image of the ancient Egyptian text as the fitting accompaniment to
modern speed and the motion and duration of railway travel across the
USA led Lindsay to his further connection: not just film, but modern
American civilisation in its entirety, was to be linked to ancient Egyptian
culture. ‘American civilization’, he writes, ‘grows more hieroglyphic every
day. The cartoons of Darling, the advertisements in the back of the
magazines and on the billboards and in the street-cars, the acres of
photographs in the Sunday newspapers, make us into a hieroglyphic
civilization far nearer to Egypt than to England’ (xxxvii).
Lindsay’s film-poems, many of them written as odes to movie-picture
actresses, took up the Egyptian theme, as in his poem ‘Mae Marsh, Motion
Picture Actress’:

When ancient films have crumbled like

Papyrus rolls of Egypt’s day,
Let the dust speak: “Her pride was high
All but the artist hid away:
Kin to the myriad artist clan
Since time began, whose work is dear.”

8
All page numbers refer to the 1922 edition of Lindsay’s work.
9
Lindsay in Chénetier 1979: 121.
78 Laura Marcus

The deep new ages come with her,

Tomorrow’s years of yesteryear.10

In 1925, Lindsay sent John Drinkwater his poem ‘Trial of the Dead
Cleopatra’, describing it as ‘an Egyptian poem, based on Egyptian
studies slowly growing more cumulative through the years’. As Lindsay
explained:

The reason I am so mad over hieroglyphics is simply that I am movie saturated . . .

Such a movie training is a surprising initiation into the whole Egyptian psychology,
and hieroglyphics. They had the most intense pictorial minds of any human beings
who ever lived, and breathed, not excepting the Japanese, and right now I am
nearer at home with a page of the Book of the Dead than I am with a page of
Mr. Shakespeare or Marlowe. It is nearer to the United States West Coast and
Hollywood . . . The motion picture is so necessarily an American art, requiring such
an enormous initial expenditure, such circus-like advertising, such floods of reckless
promotion, that our people are bound to be more subject to its daily grind than any
other people on earth. Movies are simply poured out, even in the middle sized
town, and I see an enormous progress in pictorial psychology in all American life,
even in the last three years. We think in pictures, like strings of carved beads, or
carved peach stones, if you will, and that is about all the thinking we do or are in
the prospect of doing for the next one hundred years.11

While Lindsay’s focus on the object world of film, and on the life imparted
in cinema to the inanimate, is suggestive, his concept of the ‘hieroglyph’ in
The Art of the Moving Picture often seems interchangeable with that of the
symbol, as he attempted to produce a fixed and universal lexicon of film
language. The more interesting result of his hieroglyphic preoccupations,
in many ways, was his second work on film, The Progress and Poetry of the
Movies, written in the early 1930s and unpublished in his lifetime. The
book was written after the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun, and
Lindsay refers in it to the Tutankhamun craze in America, whose legacy is
that ‘Egypt is beginning to have a definite place in the eye of the movie fan,
and a far more definite place than any imagination of our highest univer-
sities, who say in an abstract way that history began in Egypt. To the movie
fan, Egypt still exists. The Egyptian theatre at Hollywood is a sort of
beginning shrine . . . In short, in ten years our democracy has made the
leap from England to the Nile.’12

10
Lindsay in Camp 1984, vol. I: 305–6.
11
Lindsay (16 February 1925) in Chénetier 1979: 347–8.
12
Lindsay in Lounsbury 1995: 242–3.
 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’ 79

Here he gave an exhaustive account and analysis of the 1924 film The
Thief of Bagdad, in which Douglas Fairbanks played Ahmed the Thief who,
after undergoing a series of trials, rescues Baghdad from the Mongol leader
and his armies and wins the hand of the Princess. The film represents for
Lindsay (who speaks of watching it ten or more times) ‘pure “movie”’,13 to
be compared favourably with Griffith’s Intolerance because, while The
Thief of Bagdad clearly borrows from Intolerance, it contains what Lindsay
calls ‘incantation’ or ‘film magic’. It deploys, he argues, ‘the idiom of the
hieroglyphic’ and its magical objects – the magic carpet, the magic apple,
the magic crystal, the magic rope, the Princess’s tiny slipper, the cloak of
invisibility, the flying horse – are all symbols of the motion picture itself.
They encapsulate, Lindsay suggests, the power of film to move through
space and time in unprecedented ways, to make objects variously mini-
ature and gigantic, to represent invisibility, to ‘set in motion . . . things
which we have assumed were forever motionless’, to ‘transport us instantly
to the end of the world, to the depths of the ages, and forward to the
millennium, in the hands of the right dreamer’.14 ‘Let the hieroglyphics
indeed march and sing, and let those human beings who have thought they
have enslaved them for so long subordinate themselves for a little while
and then cast their eyes about, and discern the actual natural rhythm of all
things that seem inanimate, from the rope to the flying carpet.’15 He found
in The Thief of Bagdad a self-reflexivity which we can also observe in
the Berlin-based Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette film of the Arabian Nights, The
Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), in which Aladdin’s lamp becomes a
figure for the projective, imaginative and transformative powers of the
cinema itself. Indeed, the correlation between the lamp of Aladdin and the
film projector is strongly figured in early cinema, such as that of Georges
Méliès, and in writing about cinema in its first decades, in an extension of
the image of the pre- or proto-cinematic ‘magic lantern’.
In summary, for Lindsay, as for many other early writers on film,
ancient Egypt represented a ‘hieroglyphic’ language of silent film, a pictor-
ial language which conjoins word and image, while the Middle East of late
antiquity and the Middle Ages, conjured up by the Arabian Nights, comes
to stand for cinema’s magical transformative powers. In The Art of the
Moving Picture, Lindsay wrote of cinema-going: ‘the poorest can pay and
enter from the glaring afternoon into the twilight of an Ali Baba’s cave’
(252), thus reworking the more familiar representation of the cinema in its

13 14
Lindsay in Lounsbury 1995: 168. Lindsay in Lounsbury 1995: 239.
15
Lindsay in Lounsbury 1995: 178–9.
80 Laura Marcus

relation to the Platonic allegory of the cave-dwellers and their shadow-

world (to be found in early writings on cinema as well as in more recent
film theory). Yet, he continued, the ‘unspoilt twilight’ of the Arabian cave
has a more powerful antecedent, ‘an Egyptian burying-place . . . Man is an
Egyptian first, before he is any other type of civilized being. The Nile flows
through his heart . . . Egypt was our long brooding youth’ (254).
Lindsay was a visionary and an eccentric – a poet-artist in the
Swedenborgian-Blakean tradition – but his reflections on questions of
time, historicity and modern America’s visual turn, in its connections to
ancient Egypt, bear some comparison with those of more established art
theorists and cultural critics.16 Among these was the German art historian
Wilhelm Worringer who, a decade later, would draw, in terms critical
where Lindsay’s were celebratory, a comparison between Egypt and
modern America. In his 1927 book Egyptian Art, translated into English
the following year, Worringer argued that ‘Egypt in certain respects plays
in antiquity the part played in modern times by America. The tertium
comparationis is just that power of transformation of a non-indigenous
culture which because of this very lack of natural indigenous restrictions,
very quickly breeds a unified artificial type that after a few generations
gives proof of its assimilating power even in the sphere of physical charac-
teristics.’17 Egypt was, Worringer argued, a heterogeneous civilisation
founded on land reclaimed, by means artificial and technological, from
the deserts which surrounded its narrow strip of cultivated soil: ‘Extreme
artificiality triumphs over the immediacy of nature.’18 Egyptian civilisation,
he argued, is manufactured rather than organic: the connection with
America, or Americanism, lies in part in this concept of a people made
rather than born in the place in which they come to dwell. Worringer
extrapolated from this geohistorical account his models of Egyptian and
American literature, myth and art. Like America, Worringer argued,
Egypian culture ‘knows no myth of the downfall of the world’, and, by
extension, has no concept of

world-renovation . . . the time-feeling of civilization runs its course in a line of

infinity from which fate is absent. Ask America whether it knows feelings
of decline . . . Timelessness is fatelessness. Egypt – in this again resembling

16
It should be noted, however, that Lindsay’s comparisons between Egypt and America are based
on little more than a sense of their shared visual and pictorial systems of representation and
communication: he does not have a developed cultural and historical perspective on the
association he makes.
17 18
Worringer 1928: 3. Worringer 1928: 5.
 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’ 81

America – has an outward history but not an inward. It knows events only, not
strokes of fate. For this reason it produced only a system of annals, not a historical
literature. It registered with precision its external history, but myths as the vital
echo of an inner history are lacking.19

Worringer also made the connection through architecture: artificial

conditions of culture (in Egypt as in America) have led to ‘a greatness
and decisiveness of practical construction . . . a sureness and absoluteness
of form’ which result from the absence of those ‘restrictions . . . which arise
from a natural sphere of sensibility . . . Only to an artificial people divorced
from nature is it possible so quickly and surely to find this objective
absoluteness of architectural style.’20 As in the writings of his contemporary,
Alois Riegl, the focus is on the two-dimensionality of Egyptian art,
represented by the Egyptian relief. By contrast with Greek art, with its
‘wonderfully delicate play of balance between surface and depth’, Worrin-
ger argues, ‘The Egyptian relief is from the very first complete in its pure
surface character . . . The third dimension . . . from which all that is more
profound in the drama of artistic creation draws its inspiration, is not
present at all as a resistant in the artistic consciousness of the Egyptian.’21
Questions of surface and depth were also played out intensively in early
writings about film. The animation of a surface, however, at times becomes
a way of reconfiguring surface/depth relationships (as film historian
Antonia Lant has shown in her discussion of the work of Riegl and ‘the
haptic’ in relation to silent cinema, and in particular to ‘films that have
showcased cinema’s power to animate a surface by adapting the vocabulary
of Egypt’).22 Egypt is associated, Lant suggests, ‘with striking spatiality, be
it of flatness, of strangeness, of layers, of emergence . . . both cinema and
Egypt spoke of a world on the verge of spatial transformation’.23 In support
of this argument, and in relation to her account of the centrality of the
Egyptian bas-relief to perceptions of surface and depth in early film, she
quotes the German sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand on the Egyptian
example: ‘Sculpture has undoubtedly evolved from drawing: by giving
depth to a drawing we make of it a relief, and this relief may be regarded
as the animation of a surface.’24 Similar terms, though with no explicit
reference to Egyptian art, were taken up by the French art historian Elie
Faure in one of the earliest and fullest meditations on cinema aesthetics, in
which he presented the evolution of film as the movement from drawing

19 20 21
Worringer 1928: 9. Worringer 1928: 23–4. Worringer 1928: 25.
22 23
Lant 1995a: 55. See also Lant 1992. Lant 1995a: 53.
24
Hildebrand 1932: 125, quoted in Lant 1995: 55.
82 Laura Marcus

(thin inscription) to a sculptural thickness of gesture and, finally, to the

throwing out of a whole being, a whole nature, in the cinematic (re)cre-
ation of the world.25 For many early writers on film, connections were to
be made between cinema and models of, variously, artistic evolution
or regression (where cinema is understood as a ‘primitive’, pictorial and
anthropomorphic mode of representation and cognition).

Arthur Weigall

Arthur Weigall (1880–1934) will be a briefer footnote in film history

than Vachel Lindsay, but he is nonetheless an interesting figure, not least
in the ways in which his work came to intertwine Egyptology and film
culture. In the first years of the twentieth century, Weigall was the Chief
Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, in which region lay the tomb of
Tutankhamun. He worked with Howard Carter and with Lord Carnarvon
in Egypt, having been taken on as assistant to the archaeologist Flinders
Petrie when he was 19 (and without a university degree). After leaving
school he had steeped himself in the study of ancient Egypt and its
artefacts, and had learned to read hieroglyphics. Weigall went out to
Abydos in Egypt with Petrie at the end of 1901, when he was just 21.
At the close of 1905, he was made Inspector of Antiquities for the southern
region of Egypt, where he was based in Luxor. During this period, there
was intense activity in the opening of tombs in the Valley of the Kings, on
which Weigall reported in the press and in letters home (some of which
are reproduced in the recent biography of Weigall written by his grand-
daughter, Julie Hankey).26
Describing the opening of the tombs of Yuya and Tuya, Weigall wrote
of sights

which I can safely say no living man has ever seen . . . All round the sarcophagi –
piled almost to the roof – were chairs, tables, beds, vases and so on – all in perfect
condition . . . The room looked just as a drawing room would look in a London
house shut up while the people were away for the summer . . . I think we all felt
that we were face to face with something which seemed to upset all human ideas of
time and distance . . . All three of us very soon crawled out of the tomb and into the
sunlight – one step from the seventeenth century before Christ to the twentieth
century after Him.27

25 26 27
Faure 1923: 39–42. Hankey 2007. Quoted in Hankey 2007: 57.
 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’ 83

‘A door seems to open in the brain’, he wrote in 1909 of the opening of the
tomb, in his Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts: ‘a screen slides back,
and clearly one sees Time in its true relation. A thousand years, two
thousand years, have the value of the merest drop of water in the ocean.’28
Like Lindsay, his comments on Egyptian civilisation are celebratory where
Worringer’s would be highly critical, but there is nonetheless a similar
perception of time, or rather timelessness, in the Egyptian example.
Weigall insists on the immediacy of the tactile surfaces of the monuments
which required no evidence of the progress of time (moss, lichen) to
communicate their power. As Hankey writes: ‘It was just that sense of
the day before yesterday that Weigall loved.’29
In 1909 Weigall (working on a biography of Akhnaten) and friends
started to plan a play of the life of Akhnaten, scripted by Weigall and to
be performed outdoors in the Valley of the Queens, in a place in the cliffs
which they described as a natural amphitheatre. At the final rehearsal, the
players were, however, struck down by a variety of injuries and ailments
which prevented the play from being performed. As Hankey notes, this
quickly turned into a legend of a curse by the ancient priests of Amon.30
The idea for the play took on further significance when Weigall returned to
England in 1914, with a completed biography of Cleopatra, and a scenario
for a further play on which he had been working – ‘a wordless play’, which
would (as Hankey suggests) extend his idea of ‘staging Egypt’31 and which
might well have been inspired by Max Reinhardt’s wordless play Sumurun,
adapted from the Arabian Nights, and performed in London in 1911. A film
version of Sumurun was eventually made by Ernst Lubitsch in 1920.
F. H. Payne, the patron of Reinhardt’s The Miracle, gave support to
Weigall after he had seen the stage models he had made, but the declar-
ation of war put an end to these particular plans. Weigall, who was also
writing regular commentary essays on the situation in the Near East for the
Fortnightly Review, did, however, become involved with revue theatre as a
set designer, drawing for inspiration on the dramatic effects of light and
colour he had seen in Egypt. Other revues included Now’s the Time, which
would seem to have been based in part on Wells’s concept of a time
machine: the characters travel forward into the future (where they ‘all take
terrific excursions in air’) and back into the past, including that of Egypt,
where, as a reviewer wrote, ‘we see a golden-haired Cleopatra fascinate
Anthony under the sardonic eyes of the Sphinx’.32

28 29 30
Weigall 1909: 129. Hankey 2007: 100. Hankey 2007: 137.
31 32
Hankey 2007: 211. The Observer, 17 October 1915, quoted in Hankey 2007: 222.
84 Laura Marcus

Weigall was also developing ideas for a form of variety theatre influenced
by the mixed programming and ‘continuous performances’ of the cinemas.
Backing was not forthcoming for this, but the project reveals something of
the significance of the cinema for the theatre of the period; in particular, the
ways in which the film medium and cinematic presentation were shaping
perceptions of the live theatre and its future. Weigall’s engagements with
film itself would in fact develop from this point. His more ambitious ideas
and projects were not realised: these included the construction of ‘cinema
work in Egypt after the War’, to include ‘a big historical drama, a big modern
Anglo-Egyptian drama, two or three short tales of modern or medieval or
ancient life, and one educational film dealing with the monuments and
sights of Egypt’.33 The ambitions for work in a range of genres, and for
films representing both antiquity and modern Anglo-Egypt, are striking.
There were also forays into screenplay writing and adaptations of novels
popular at this time, and a film adaptation of one of Weigall’s own novels,
The Dweller in the Desert (1921), published in America as Burning Sands
and made into a film under that title.34 The novel, one of a number of
‘desert romances’ written by Weigall in the early 1920s, reads as a riposte
to E. M. Hull [Edith Maud Winstanley]’s bestselling The Sheik (1919) in
which the central figure, Ahmed, exerts sexual mastery over the woman
he abducts in the desert, raping her into submission and, ultimately, into
a passion which becomes mutual love.35 (At the close of Hull’s novel
‘the Sheik’ is revealed to be not ‘an Arab’ but a European, and the sexual
plot can safely become a marriage plot.) The Sheik was made into one of the
most successful films of all time in 1921, with Rudolph Valentino in the title
role. It was directed by George Melford, who also directed Burning Sands in
1922. Paramount Pictures clearly intended to build on the phenomenal
success of The Sheik with Burning Sands, though Weigall’s novel had upheld
moral and sexual probity and not ‘lust in the dust’. Weigall’s hero, Daniel
Lane, is a scholar and philosopher, an expert in Arabic languages and
culture, with a profound indifference to the colony culture of Cairo and a
deep understanding of, and sympathy with, the Egyptian people: the Sheik in
The Dweller in the Desert is an old man, the head of his tribe, with whom

33
Letter from Weigall to Edward Foster, manager of the Stoll picture company, dated 21 May
1915, quoted in Hankey 2007: 228.
34
Weigall 1921a and 1921b. Filmed as Burning Sands by Paramount Pictures, directed by George
Melford, 1922.
35
Hull 1921. Hull’s novel went into one hundred and eight editions between 1919 and 1923: as
Melman 1998: 90 notes, its sales ‘surpassed those of all the contemporary best-sellers put
together’.
 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’ 85

Daniel has a particular bond. The romance plot functions as a rebuttal to

Hull’s abduction and rape scenario: when the British governor’s daughter,
Muriel Blair, runs to Daniel in his desert camp, he keeps her there in entirely
celibate fashion for two weeks, instructing her not in the ways of sex but into
knowledge of the land and the people of Egypt. Weigall makes much of
Daniel’s strength, charisma and ‘manliness’, and the sexual plot is by no
means absent from the novel, but its most passionate prose is devoted to the
Egyptian landscape, described in terms both pictorial and cinematic.
Weigall’s major break-through into film culture came after April 1921,
when he published an article in the British periodical The Nineteenth
Century and After entitled ‘The Influence of the Kinematograph on
National Life’. This article was absorbed by the question of national
characteristics as historically and culturally determined, suggesting that
the issue of ‘national cinemas’ was not separable from a hierarchisation
of races, nations and their ‘evolution’. Moreover, in Weigall’s account, if
national traits, however pronounced, were not fixed, permanent and
immutable, then, to take his central example, the hegemony of American
films (with Americanisation linked, in this account, to the dubious ethics
of the cinema) was a ‘mild but undoubtedly dangerous poison’ that
threatened to alter British national identity for the worse. The appeal for
stricter and more discriminating censorship, and for the support of British
film companies, was thus inextricably linked to the perception of a threat
to the national character.
In Weigall’s article, as in many others, the argument was extended by
a disquisition on the significance of the cinema as an art form, and an
apparent attempt to define an aesthetic of film and to outline an image of
its future. Throughout this period, there was a bifurcation between con-
tempt for the ‘average’ film product and a sense of the immense potential
of the cinematic medium. Weigall’s article specifically addressed itself
to ‘that section of the intellectual public [which] should arouse itself to
an interest in the Kinema, and should no longer regard the subject as
beneath its notice’ (671). It called attention to the photo-play’s abilities to
present ‘human character . . . with a clarity unsurpassed upon the theatrical
stage’, to show the workings of an actor’s face ‘at a distance of a yard or
two’ and, through the subtitle, to provide ‘a unique opportunity to the
author to display his command of stimulating or poignant language; for a
single telling sentence, breaking in upon the silent action, has a force which
otherwise it seldom possesses’ (671). Moreover:
In a drama upon the stage the different threads of a story cannot be followed up as
they can in a photo-play; and only in the Kinema can we see very nearly
86 Laura Marcus

simultaneously what is taking place upon both sides of a closed door, or in two
separate localities. Moreover, the scenic effects in a film-drama, apart from colour,
have a scope which no other art has offered them. The possibilities of the Kinema,
in fact, should arouse the enthusiasm of the artist to the highest pitch; for never
before have the arts of literature, portraiture, scenic composition, drama, and
music been capable of such an interdependent combination.

The importance of moving pictures as a means of familiarising the people of one

nation with those of another is inestimable; and as a means of recording present, or
reviving past, national events they are without rival. What adequate steps, one
would like to know in passing, has the Government taken to secure the preserva-
tion of such records? Are proper archives being formed, so that our children’s
children may see with their own eyes the very scenes which we have witnessed?
Think what it would mean to us if we could now be actual spectators of the events
which occurred in the days of Napoleon; and let us remember that there is no
reason, if proper care be taken, why the people of the far future should not be able
to be witnesses of the actual events of which they will read in their histories. (671)

Weigall provided no technical language, other than the ‘subtitle’, which

was then explained for the layman; he described the effects, but did not
give the terminology, of the close-up and parallel editing. The attractions
held out included seeing what the stage could offer: physiognomic detail
and a form of simultaneity – ‘what is taking place on both sides of a closed
door’ – which was held to be the province of the cinema alone. In general
terms, then, the appeal of the cinema, as Weigall represents it, lay in the
possibility of occupying what were held to be impossible vantage-points.
The significance of the dual perspective, ‘both sides of a closed door’, could
not in fact have derived from any essentially cinematic qualities (given that
it is a standard stage-device) but might indicate another form of privileged
position: that of being in two places at once, here and there, home and
abroad. The ‘aesthetic’ of the cinema was seen as a totalising one: ‘never
before have the arts of literature, portraiture, scenic composition, drama,
and music been capable of such an interdependent combination’ (671).
The ‘anti-modernism’ of the article emerges in the absence of any reference
to the ‘movement’ or ‘motion’ – the dynamics – that elsewhere came to
define (albeit paradoxically) the ‘essence’ of cinema. Weigall’s concern in
the article was almost entirely with fixity, and with the preservation of
historical witness.
Cinema was, indeed, a vision born of empire, and the optic was that of
the body occupying, from a position of power, two spaces which were
either mutually closed to each other (‘both sides of a closed door’) or
existed at a greater spatial distance (‘two separate localities’). The place
 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’ 87

from which one looked was thus highly significant, and the urgency
of looking at cinema arose, Weigall suggested, from its role as national
mirror and from the need to take control of the optic. In American films,
Weigall argued, the Englishman was represented as a ‘buffoon’: ‘We of this
country in particular are allowing the instrument to be turned against
ourselves’ (671–2).
On the basis of this article, Weigall was approached by Lord Northcliffe,
who asked him to write a regular film column for the Daily Mail. It was the
first of its kind in the paper, and drew a large readership. On 30 May 1921,
a column appeared entitled ‘Films. “The Daily Mail” and the Kinema.
A New Critic’, with the announcement that ‘“The Daily Mail” has secured
the services of the most distinguished critic of the kinematograph, Mr
Arthur Weigall, whose article in the April number of the Nineteenth
Century and After, entitled “The Influence of the Kinematograph upon
National Life”, attracted very widespread attention.’ Mr Weigall, the edi-
torial continued, would, over the next few months, write ‘regularly and
frequently’ in the Daily Mail ‘critical articles concerning the films and
photo-plays exhibited to the trade and to the public during that period . . .
Mr Weigall, though a young man of the most modern sympathies and
interests, has spent fourteen years among the antiquities of Egypt, first as
assistant to Professor Flinders Petrie and afterwards as Inspector-General
of Antiquities to the Egyptian Government.’ 36 His credentials, it is sug-
gested, were secured by his knowledge of and sympathy with both the
contemporary and the ancient worlds.
The editorial closed with a lengthy extract from the Nineteenth Century
article, in which Weigall had addressed that ‘section of the intellectual
public’ which did not patronise the ‘picture palace’, pointing up the
immense influence of the cinema on national life, including ‘the code of
ethics’, and the malleability of the ‘so-called characteristics of the British
race, as those of other nations’, which ‘are largely a manner of contagion,
like manners and fashions’. The extract also dwelt on the ‘Americanisation’
of the world (which ‘does not represent the best element of that nation’),
and the need for an improvement in British cinema and wider distribution
of good British films in the States: ‘Properly handled, the kinema could be
made to endear the two races to one another by the bonds of mutual
admiration and fellow feeling.’37
Weigall’s film column, which ran for over a year, and at times appeared
on an almost daily basis, had the byline (under Weigall’s name) ‘Author of

36 37
Daily Mail, 30 May 1921: 7. Daily Mail, 30 May 1921: 8.
88 Laura Marcus

“The Influence of the Kinematograph on National Life”’, thus stressing

that this, rather than any more general approach to film reviewing, was to
be the column’s focus. His film writings for the paper were written in
support of British cinema, and against the block-booking system that gave
American films a near-monopoly. He also continued to write in praise
of cinema as a record of its times and in favour of film archives ‘so that
our children’s children may see with their own eyes the very scenes which
we have witnessed’.38 Many of the columns discussed the films that were
on release in London, though Weigall’s critical vocabulary and terms of
assessment reveal no very great insights into the new medium, tending to
plot description and minimally elucidated references to ‘good’ or ‘poor’
acting and photography.
Towards the close of 1922, when the tomb of Tutankhamun was opened,
Weigall had been out of Egypt for some eight years, but he returned as the
Daily Mail’s special correspondent to report on the opening of the sealed
inner chamber of the tomb. Reports from Egypt through December and
early January appeared anonymously as ‘from our special correspondent’,
though it would appear that these were written by Weigall. On 18 January
1923, the paper announced that Arthur Weigall, ‘the famous Egyptologist . . .
is about to describe from an historical, artistic, and pictorial standpoint
the wonderful contents of Tut-ankh Amen’s tomb . . . Mr Weigall has been
commissioned by The Daily Mail to proceed to Egypt and give our readers
the fullest benefit of his great knowledge and experience.’ Weigall’s contri-
butions subsequently ran with the byline ‘Late-Inspector General of
Antiquities under the Egyptian Government’.
The paper made no reference at this juncture to the connection between
Weigall in his two manifestations as ‘the most distinguished critic of the
kinematograph’ and as ‘the famous Egyptologist’, though his film column
and his Egyptological column were separated by a matter of months. Their
co-existence, however, is a suggestive one, in the context of the broader
relationship between film criticism and Egyptology in this period. Weigall’s
reports from Luxor describe the spectacle of the opened tombs and the
magical properties of their contents. Writing of the removal of a chariot
from the tomb, he noted: ‘At each corner is a small inlaid circle, enclosing
the sacred eye of Horus, as though to suggest the all-seeing omniscience of
the monarch as he drove through the streets of his capital. These eyes,
vividly inlaid in blue, black, and white, seemed to be glaring at us in the

38
Quoted in Hankey 2007: 253.
 ‘Hieroglyphics in motion’ 89

sunlight as though the ancient magic were still potent.’39 Describing, on

17 February 1923, the opening of the inner chamber of the tomb, Weigall
wrote: ‘as the first blows reverberated through the hot chamber where
the party sat in the glare of the arc lamps a thrill shot through me like
something that burnt in my veins and I seemed to see the Pharaoh in the
darkness of the other side of the doorway suddenly wake from his long
slumber and listen’. While Howard Carter shone the light of his torch
through the inner chamber door of the tomb onto ‘wonderful things’,
Weigall emphasises the otherworldliness of his encounter with the past:
‘It is an extraordinary feeling to leave the dazzling sunshine and go down
into the stillness of these rock-hewn chambers. Suddenly the light and
warmth of the sun are gone, the sounds of the living world outside are
silenced . . . It is as though the mind had taken a strange backward leap and
had swept swiftly across the centuries.’40
Weigall’s position at this time was a frustrating one. He wished to be
acting as one of the expert Egyptologists and archaeologists, but was
viewed as a mere journalist, in a context in which The Times had been
given a monopoly on reportage. One of his subsequent moves was to take
on the role of expert advisor in the creation of a replica of the tomb site for
the British Empire Exhibition, held at Wembley in 1924. The replica,
which was situated in the Amusements Park area of the exhibition, was
described by the organisers as follows:

Situated at almost the extreme end of the main avenue running from the gardens
through Toy Town, the reconstruction of the Tomb at Luxor is proving one of the
Amusement Park’s chief attractions. Here the visitor can take an inexpensive
journey to Upper Egypt, and visit by proxy what has become famous as the most
exclusive spot in the world. Through the skill of Mr Weigall and Mr William
Aumonier [the model maker], the tomb and its contents have been faithfully
reproduced . . . the confined space is dealt with conveniently, and the visitor views
the object as though framed in a picture.41

The Wembley replica was greeted with both fury and litigation by Howard
Carter. Its exhibition came at a time when the real tomb, as Christopher
Frayling has noted, was locked up as the result of a clash between Carter
and the Egyptian minister of public works.42 Weigall’s involvement in
the replica’s creation could be understood as a form of retaliation for
his exclusion from any official role, as either Egyptologist or journalist

39 40
Daily Mail, 6 February 1923: 7. Daily Mail, 20 February 1923: 9.
41 42
Quoted in Frayling 1992: 33. Frayling 1992: 35.
90 Laura Marcus

(given The Times’ monopoly) at the actual site of the tomb, but it is also at
one with his long-standing fascination with the theatrical dimensions of
ancient Egypt, and the history of his attempts to embody these in spectacle
and show. Moreover, the ‘visit by proxy’ to which the exhibition’s organ-
isers point recalls Weigall’s focus on ‘what is taking place on both sides of
a closed door’ in the cinema, while the viewing of the tomb’s objects ‘as
though framed in a picture’ conjures up not only the charged moment of
Howard Carter’s first torch-lit glimpse of the treasures of Tutankhamun’s
tomb through the aperture in the tomb-wall, but also a film frame itself.
The connections between the Tutankhamun discoveries and the world
of the cinema were of many and varied kinds, from the negotiations
(orchestrated by Carnarvon) for the film rights of the event, through to
the highly ‘cinematic’ accounts of the burial chamber’s first opening, to the
cultural fascination with Egyptology that it engendered and that found one
of its most striking forms in cinematic representations and cinema archi-
tecture. The discovery of the culture of the ancient world became inter-
twined with early understandings of film as at once absolutely modern and
as archaic in its ‘return’ to a pictorial, universal language and its appeal to
the most essential and ‘primitive’ of emotions. In Lindsay’s words: ‘It is
sometimes out of the oldest dream that the youngest vision is born.’43

43
Lindsay 1922: 260.
6 | Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient
world
david mayer

For some years I have been trying to understand the various and numerous
links between the late-Victorian and Edwardian stage and early films.
Some research has taken me to ‘toga-plays’, stage and film dramas
depicting Romans, especially first-century emperors such as Nero and
Domitian, in conflict with emerging Christianity. I studied both the plays
and films as a continually mutating platform where issues ranging from
support for and dissent from empire and imperial conquest, Victorian
radicalism, feminism and female suffrage, class and nationalism might
be played out before theatre and cinema audiences.1 More recently, my
quest for understanding has also taken me to D. W. Griffith’s films and
their theatrical sources. Pursuing these avenues, I have repeatedly come
across large-scale live spectacles of the ancient world and, with these,
inserts or episodes of what we might term ‘modern’ or ‘art’ dance.2
But I have never, until now, attempted to bring together spectacle,
architecture and dance – as these streams converge and feed into filmic
depictions of the ancient world.
The uniting of dance with, and within, ancient architectural settings
comes as no surprise to theatre historians. The ancient world, rediscovered,
celebrated and re-mounted on the stage in settings reproducing elements
of recent archaeological discoveries, became viewable from the first
decades of the nineteenth century. In such pantomimes as Harlequin
Rasselas or The Happy Valley staged in 1815 at London’s Sans Pareil
Theatre, its subject taken from Samuel Johnson’s fable Rasselas, Prince of
Abisinia (sic), some scenes offered exotic and not necessarily accurate
decor apparently derived from Claudius James Rich’s recent excavations
of Babylon. Dances, although not necessarily dances related to their set-
tings, were endemic to pantomimes. The architecture of classical Greece,
republican and imperial Rome, and the full panoply of findings from
excavated Mesopotamian sites continued to appear on British, American
and European stages for a full century. A year after the advent of

1 2
Mayer 1994. Mayer 2009. 91
92 David Mayer

commercial motion pictures in 1896, the American critic Edward Dithmar

reported Wilson Barrett’s The Daughters of Babylon, staged at the Lyric
Theatre London in 1897, as ‘the latest contribution to the biblical drama.
The scene is laid in and near the City of Babylon in the era of the Jewish
captivity . . . The stage pictures are said to be beautiful and the play dull.’3
Photographs of the play show actors posed in emulation of the glazed
porcelain relief tiles recovered at Babylon and standing against theatre sets
reproducing the gigantic winged man-headed bulls that had been placed in
the British Museum in 1855.
Amongst the ‘stage pictures’ was a procession-dance before ‘the mighty
temple of Bel-Merodach’.

Before [the so-called ‘procession of the god’] . . . came radiantly beautiful maidens,
crowned with flowers and attired in rich stuffs, who sprang and danced as David
may have danced before the ark, expressing religious enthusiasm by ardent
bodily exercises, by fantastic gestures, even by cries and wild exclamations,
which increased the excitement of the [watching] multitude. They scattered
flowers along the path of the god, twisted like Dervishes, and were untiring in
agility. Under the glare of the sun they seemed almost like radiant humming-birds,
or birds of paradise. Their long hair streamed down and floated in a cloud around
their lissom bodies, and their little feet twinkled in the golden sandals which they
wore instead of shoes. Behind them came minstreals [sic] playing on cymbals,
beating drums, and plucking the frail strings of citherns. And behind them again
the singers solemnly walked, uplifting their voices in a great chorus.4

This description of a striking moment in Barrett’s stage drama underlines

the ‘Babylonian’ dance as both exotic – strange – and erotic, the dancers’
bodies, with their ‘ardent bodily exercises’, ‘fantastic gestures’ and ‘wild
exclamations’ suggesting women possessed and beyond self-control.
Dance, especially dance in the imagined costumes of the classical, Middle
Eastern and Egyptian worlds as well as of the Holy Land, and reliant on
extended gesture and upon music unfamiliar to the Western ear, enhanced
the mise-en-scène and added an aura of authenticity to both the setting
and the action. Dance, therefore, was both an entertainment in itself and
an essential validation of the foreign locus for the drama enacted. Dance on
film was to provide the same function.

3
Dithmar 1897.
4
Barrett & Hichens 1899 (a novel derived from Barrett’s stage-play): 141–2. It was Barrett’s
practice to follow each stage success with a novelised version, narrating and describing each
stage scene in full detail.
 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world 93

Nineteenth-century acting, as well as dance, was intensively gestural, the

actor adding to vocal inflection with arms and hands carried away from
the torso, the trunk and legs likewise a part of the emoting actor’s body.
The actor strove to show with her or his body the physical impact of the
emotions and thoughts felt and expressed. On stage, the actor’s gestures
were supported – emphatically underlined – by incidental orchestral music
which normally accompanied each scene. The actor in early film was
similarly supported by music, music that first accompanied the filming
in the studio and, again, music that was performed in nickelodeon cinemas
and picture palaces alike by pianos and by full orchestras to emphasise the
emotional content of the episode presented. For both the stage actor and
the cinema actor, music sometimes initiated the gesture, sometimes the
gesture followed both thought and music. But in every case music fur-
nished the tempo for the gesture as well as its direction, force and rhythm.5
Early motion pictures, in contrast to the live stage, had to cope with the
loss of spoken dialogue and with the certainty of ambient sound and music.
The latter, music, was likely at each showing of a film, but the appropri-
ateness of the music and the ability of the available musicians to reproduce
such sounds as cymbals, beating drums and plucked stringed citherns lay
beyond the grasp of most picture houses. Nonetheless, dances again
performed the double function of entertaining cinema audiences and,
more significantly, validating the exoticism – the very strangeness – as
well as the potential eroticism of the ancient locale. Thus it was that
dances, increasingly derived from, it was claimed,6 ancient classical and
Mesopotamian/biblical sources, became a staple of the ancient world mise-
en-scène when shown upon the screen.
Dance historians, far more than either theatre or film scholars, have
recognised the several strands of dance that, along with their leading
performers, migrated from the variety and art stage into motion pictures.7
In the main their accounts, whilst referring to and detailing the orientalism
of numerous Salomé dances, do not make connection with depictions of

5
Mayer 1999: 10–30.
6
Kendal 1979: 62–9 cites the early twentieth-century dancers whose performances and mises-en-
scène were allegedly drawn from ancient and remote sources. Daly 1995: 101–6 likewise cites
dancers from this period and quotes Isadora Duncan: ‘I drew my inspiration from Greek
sources. I do not try to reconstruct Greek dances. This is practically impossible. The inspiration
which I draw enables me to interpret what I believe to be not only the idyllic, but the ideal
dance.’ Again, quoting Duncan: ‘Of all the thousands of figures of Greek sculpture, bas-reliefs
and vases there is not one but is in exquisite bodily proportion and harmony of movement.’
7
Notably Elizabeth Kendal, Ann Daly, Tony Bentley and Fiona Macintosh.
94 David Mayer

Figure 6.1 The exterior walls of Babylon. D. W. Griffith’s set for Intolerance (1916).

the ancient world either as it was seen in many stage dramas before 1905
or, from around that very date, in motion pictures. Their accounts are
extremely useful in following the convoluted evolution of modern art-
dance, but they must be read in parallel to any examination of dance and
the ancient world, whether that world is on-stage or on-screen.
Two iconic film images recall that ancient world. The first shows the
high ramparts of Babylon besieged by the armies of the Persian king Cyrus
(Figure 6.1). The second, probably more immediately familiar, depicts the
vast palace courtyard of Babylon, every foot of standing room thronged by
thousands of spectators who are dwarfed by elephant-capped columns and
the seated idol of Ishtar, while the broad palace staircase is similarly alive
with hundreds of barefoot oriental dancers, their arms raised, their palms
turned upward in hieratic gestures (Figure 6.2). In this astonishing
sequence, two elements – the architecture of the ancient world and what
we recognise as twentieth-century art dance – meet and fuse together on
film to give us what we accept as visible images of an ancient civilisation.
Both of these images, as the reader will be aware, come from the
Babylonian segment of D. W. Griffith’s 1916 film Intolerance. The
imagined architecture of ancient Babylon is the setting both for action
 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world 95

Figure 6.2 The courtyard of Belshazzar’s palace thronged with dancers and spectators
in D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916).

sequences of siege warfare and for what was, at that date, very modern
dance, its modernity variously acknowledged in the promotional literature
for the film, in Lillian Gish’s memoirs8 and in Vachel Lindsay’s ecstatic
poem (below).
Stepping twenty years further back into the past from Intolerance, I now
want to compare large outdoor spectacles with filmic ones and the pres-
ence in both of dance in exotic settings that is used to signify the culture,
the luxury, the sensuality, the eroticism and the decadence of an imagined
and luridly displayed ancient world. Doing so, I have in mind one particu-
lar spectacle: The Fall of Babylon, a production launched in 1886 by the
Anglo-Hungarian dancer and impresario Imre Kiralfy and elaborated
thereafter through the 1890s by P. T. Barnum and John Rettig. I will argue
that Kiralfy’s Babylon, the drama of rival civilisations in conflict, was the
inspiration for two of Griffith’s major films: his 1914 Judith of Bethulia and
the ‘Babylonian segment’ of his 1916 Intolerance. Both of these films, as

8
Gish & Pinchot 1969: 174–6.
96 David Mayer

much as the earlier Kiralfy Babylon, attempt to weld into a single narrative
the drama of embattled civilisations, desperate and personally costly
attempts at rescue, Old Testament or Apocryphal stories, archaeological
research and more personal and intimate dramas. Both Griffith films are
saturated with new idioms of dance. Additionally, I refer to two further
films which use the ancient world as the site to introduce and use the new
dance languages: Griffith’s 1912 Oil and Water and Alla Nazimova’s 1923
art nouveau Salomé.
I stress that my argument is non-teleological. There is no evidence to
suggest that the developments in spectacle and dance that preceded Intoler-
ance were either planned or foreseen. These developments happened because
they were moments in the trajectories of individual dancers, scenic artists and
film directors. I also stress that here I cannot do full justice to modern or
orientalised dance. There are many exponents of both whom I have had
deliberately to ignore in order to give some coherence to this discussion.9
The Fall of Babylon was one of Imre Kiralfy’s early ventures into spectacle.
Imre and his brother Bolossy had arrived in Britain as dancers and had
expanded into staging large-cast narrative ballets. From ballets, they moved
on to stage shows, performing at Olympia and, later, in American venues. In
1886, working with a local artist, John Rettig (who briefly became P. T.
Barnum’s designer of spectacles and who unquestionably designed The Fall
of Babylon’s massive ramparts and that city’s public spaces), Imre accepted a
commission from Cincinnati’s Order of Cincinnatus, seeking a large-scale
event to inaugurate the city’s centennial celebrations. Kiralfy mounted
Cincinnati’s The Fall of Babylon on a four-hundred-foot stage which he
and Rettig erected in a local baseball park. A year later, on a plot on New
York’s Staten Island, he staged a further version of The Fall of Babylon, a
production praised both for its vastness and skill:

. . . there is more solid merit in the spectacle than a person can realize on one visit.
The production as a whole fairly astonishes by its magnificence and splendor. As a
work of art it is of merit, and as a gigantic picture it is almost bewildering. Viewed
simply as a spectacle it is the equal of anything ever attempted in this country. It
appeals strongly to the intelligent class, more so than to the ordinary amusement
lover.10

9
Notably Mata Hari (Margarethe Geertruida Zelle), Marie Wittich, Olive Freemantle and Mary
Garden, the last three early twentieth-century interpreters of Salomé in Richard Strauss’s opera.
Wittich, the first operatic Salomé, refused to dance ‘the dance of the seven veils’ and was
replaced by an anonymous dancer. Other operatic Salomés have been more forthcoming.
10
New York Times, 17 July 1887.
 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world 97

Again, in 1890, he transported his Babylon to Boston and, thereafter, under

Barnum’s management, to other American cities.
I cite the Cincinnati production because this city lies across the
Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky. Griffith, then an 11-year-old
child, was living in rural Harlan County, Kentucky, and had yet to
accompany his family’s move to Louisville. There is no evidence to
suggest that Griffith actually witnessed a performance of The Fall of
Babylon, but it was newsworthy and well-publicised and would have
come to his attention through gossip and Barnum’s ubiquitous posters
(Figure 6.3).11
The Fall of Babylon’s plot is derived from two sources, the Old
Testament Book of Daniel and Herodotus’ account of the Persian
conquests. The Book of Daniel tells of the ‘Babylonian captivity’ of the
Jews, the cruelty of King Nebuchadnezzar when he compelled the
captives to worship a gigantic golden image or face death in a fiery
furnace, and the succession to the Chaldean throne of Belshazzar.
Daniel is a captive prophet who counsels both kings and who, inter-
preting Belshazzar’s dreams and the meaning of God’s handwriting
upon a palace wall, warns of Babylon’s fate. Herodotus continues the
narrative of Babylon’s fall to the armies of Cyrus and the strategies of
the Persians in taking and sacking the city. Neither of these accounts
stands up to archaeological evidence, but both describe an empire in its
decline. Nor does either account describe processions, competitive
games and spectacular dances, but Kiralfy made up for that deficiency
by dramatically drawing back the city walls to reveal a monumental
plaza for dancing and display (Figure 6.4), described in The Fall of
Babylon’s programme as,

. . . a scene, whose prodigality of splendor and picturesqueness of grouping

was a marvel in those days of unparalleled oriental luxury. Preceded by
richly-robed priests, armor-clad horsemen, and dancing maidens with
melodious timbrels, comes the king, garbed in all the jewelled richness of
regal trappings, seated in a lofty chariot throne, drawn by milk-white
steeds. In his rear follow prisoners of war, heavily manacled, soldiers,
diviners, astrologers, priests, satraps, rulers of provinces and the royal
banners of Babylon . . .12

11
A full set of Barnum’s posters for his tour of The Fall of Babylon are held by the University of
Princeton library and are viewable on-line.
12
Kiralfy & Barnum 1891 souvenir programme.
98 David Mayer

Figure 6.3 Cover to souvenir programme: Imre Kiralfy’s The Fall of Babylon,
Boston, 1891.

Griffith’s appropriation of that Babylonian plaza for the celebratory dances

of Intolerance is, of course, one of his best-known signatures.
Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia (1913) is the director’s first film to reach a
full four reels in length and has been described by some historians as
 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world 99

Figure 6.4 Triumphant procession as depicted in souvenir programme for Imre

Kiralfy’s The Fall of Babylon.

America’s first feature motion picture.13 Griffith’s film draws, first, on a

deutero-canonical source (a late addition to the Old Testament) and,
second, on two stage plays. The first is Paolo Giacometti’s Giudetta, which
the Italian actress Adelaide Ristori had introduced to American audiences
on her farewell tour in 1866 and which had subsequently been performed
by Nance O’Neil’s company between 1903 and 1905.14 The second is
Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s 1904 Judith of Bethulia,15 a commissioned re-
working of Giacometti’s drama. The film also necessarily draws upon
Griffith’s experiences as an actor playing small roles and understudying
in the O’Neil company in 1904. However, the overall mise en scène – that
is, sets and costumes – and many of the telling moments and plot-points in
Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia appear to have been taken from Kiralfy’s Fall of
Babylon. Bethulia’s high walls (which Griffith, his budget constrained by
Biograph, shot from a low angle and terminated their expanse against a
natural rocky outcrop), lumbering siege machinery and extras brandishing
spears, an embattled population, a disputatious and fractured priesthood
and two civilisations in conflict all seem eerily familiar. The film’s resident
Judaeans and invading Assyrians, the former defended by Judith (a Jewish
patriot), the latter led by Holofernes (a ruthlessly implacable general), and
Judith’s triumphant return with Holofernes’ head offer a different narra-
tive. Additionally, there are also three full sequences of dance led by
Gertrude Bambrick, and a fourth sequence in which Blanche Sweet, herself
a dancer before joining Griffith’s repertory company, balletically heaps
ashes on her head. These dances are readily viewable at several internet

13
On Judith of Bethulia, see also Buchanan in this volume.
14
Giacometti 1866, an interlinear text in Italian (Giudetta) and English (Judith).
15
Aldrich 1904.
100 David Mayer

sites because Judith of Bethulia, a mere 49 minutes in running time (at 18

frames per second), forestalls abridging. About these dances: more will
follow.
The Babylon of Griffith’s Intolerance far exceeds Kiralfy’s. Griffith’s
ramparts are higher and wider. The invaders’ siege towers and catapults
and massed troops are larger and more numerous, his Babylonian markets
and workshops more visible and active, his public ceremonial spaces
monumental and exotic, and his palaces (both interiors and exteriors),
grander and more luxurious, his properties – kitsch doves drawing mini-
ature chariots – more detailed and far more decadent. But above all, there
is dance: dancers massed in procession, dancers in hieratic worship and in
public celebration, dancers entertaining courtiers and Babylonian royalty,
in the background of royal baths, turning entertainment into frenzied
orgies, dancers finally collapsing and relaxing in post-orgy and post-coital
stupor. Whereas in Judith of Bethulia there are three set-piece dances and
one ritual of abasement that approaches dance, there are no fewer than
fifteen discrete dance episodes in Intolerance’s Babylonian segment. Again,
more will follow about these dances and their creators.
We are all familiar – so familiar that we do not even query – the
presence of dancing girls in sound film. They appear, for example, in
desert tents or in the courts of Roman emperors or within the palaces of
oriental monarchs (in films that range from the 1951 Quo Vadis and the
1959 Ben-Hur to the ‘Carry On’ films). They are set-dressing – part of the
furnishings, mood enhancers – which add nothing to the narrative and are
simply taken for granted by characters within the narrative and, likewise,
by the films’ audiences. If we note them at all, we probably do no more
than check them out as luscious, then return to the action. But these non-
diegetic dancers are distinct both in purpose and in terms of their visibility
from the dancers and choreographic spectacles that emerged in early
twentieth-century silent films. In complete contrast to their decorative
but largely functionless modern counterparts, these early twentieth-
century dancers were important to the depiction of the ancient biblical,
classical and Near Eastern worlds. They were meant to be conspicuous, a
part of the action, their presence marked with intertitles. And they were
placed in the foreground where film spectators could see that they were
being watched – or visibly ignored – by the ruler, and could be understood
for the kinds of dances they were performing. At the same time, their
cultural specificity rarely emerged beyond the generalised ‘eastern’ flowing
skirts, jewelled or figured bodices and filigreed headdresses seen on the
midway plaisance ‘native villages’ of international expositions. Unless a
 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world 101

production designer had imposed a specific concept, as in Intolerance,

there is little to distinguish ‘Egyptian’ dancers from ‘Roman’, ‘Judaean’,
‘Persian’ or ‘Babylonian’. An unintentional and unregarded homogeneity
prevails.
The dance styles employed in silent film emerged in the vaudeville
houses of America and the music halls and cabarets of Europe before
influencing filmmakers and/or appearing in narrative films. I identify six
dancers who contributed directly to the ancient world scenes in these early
films, taking each by turn and citing those corners of the theatrical and
filmic ancient world that she illuminated: Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan,
Gertrude Hoffman, Gertrude Bambrick, Ruth St. Denis and Alla
Nazimova.
Although there is a rough chronology to the emergence of these dancers,
their impact on early twentieth-century theatre and film audiences and incipi-
ent film directors was nearly simultaneous. Indeed, their arrival in the vaude-
ville houses and legitimate theatres directly coincides with Griffith’s own years
in vaudeville, his abandonment of an acting career and his emergence as a film
director and deviser. One of his first acts, when allowed by Biograph to enlarge
the studio’s acting company, was to hire the choreographer-dancer Gertrude
Bambrick and another dancer-actress, Blanche Sweet, both ‘Hoffman girls’,
trained in Gertrude Hoffman’s company.
Of these six dancers, Duncan is the best known, by reputation if not by
influence. Duncan was one of the first dancers, largely self taught, who
broke with the rigid formalities of ballet and who, following the dicta of the
French musician François Delsarte, sought to link intimate feelings with
movements, attitudes and gestures that immediately – and silently –
expressed those emotions. Her early appearances in vaudeville followed
this line, but around 1905, as Duncan began appearing in European
venues, her interests began to coincide with those of the so-called ‘Cam-
bridge ritualists’ and anthropologists – Gilbert Murray, Jane Harrison,
James Frazer and Ruby Ginner. These academics spurred investigation
into ancient Greek and Near-Eastern dance-as-ritual and their writings
encouraged experimentation in achieving the non-codified movements of
dancers depicted on Greek vases, statuary and murals.16
In simpler terms, Duncan saw herself as an exponent of Hellenic
civilisation and as a recreator of ancient Greek dance. She haunted classical

16
Both Maurice Emmanuel, The Antique Greek Dance (translated from the French by Harriet
Jean Beuley, London, 1916) and Ruby Ginner, The Revived Greek Dance (London, 1933) wholly
based their reconstructions on Greek pictorial sources.
102 David Mayer

sites, seeking inspiration and publicity and attempted even to perform in

these venues. Her imagined ancient dances carried in performance a
strong, unspoken, element of racism. Espousing Greek civilisation and
Dionysiac dance, Duncan consciously positioned herself in opposition to
the ‘primitive’ savagery she deplored in the dances of African Americans.
She took particular exception to the dances of Aida Overton Walker, the
‘queen of the cakewalk’, choreographer for the Black Patti Troubadours
and, in 1907, the first African American dancer to perform ‘the dance of
the seven veils’ costumed as Salomé. These white versus black and civilisa-
tion versus primitivism dichotomies that arose from Duncan’s stance17
long affected the Hollywood films of white America. Endless troupes of
cinematic dancing girls were cast exclusively from white females,
‘browned-up’ with body makeup and black wigs if the occasion required.
The exception to this practice allowed the casting of African American
dancers if the film’s setting was sub-Saharan Africa or if the scene required
alternate dances: a decorous, but sexually enticing, dance from visibly
white dancers and an abandoned, frenzied, drum-led dance by the African
American performers.
Isadora Duncan did not appear in films,18 but her influence is visible in
the opening sequence of Griffith’s 1912 Oil and Water which, unusually for
a film’s first moments, was a dance. The American poet Vachel Lindsay
described it thus:19

The Olympians and the Muses, [the dancers shoeless and minimally costumed] in
the logical wrappings of reeds and skins, with a grace that we fancy was Greek, lead
a dance that traces the story of the spring, summer, and autumn of life . . . but not
before they have given us a vision from the Ionian islands. The [screen]play might
have been inspired from reading Keats’ Lamia, but it is probably derived from the
work of Isadora Duncan.

Lindsay was so taken with this film and Blanche Sweet in the leading role
that he wrote the following which to some degree recreates the nickelodeon
conditions in which this dance and subsequent screen drama were viewed:
Blanche Sweet, Moving Picture Actress
(After seeing the reel called ‘Oil and Water’), 1914
Beauty has a throne-room

17
Daly 1995: 168–76.
18
Pearson 2002 argues that this was a very conscious decision based on the belief that live dance
cannot be adequately captured on film.
19
Lindsay 1922: 67.
 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world 103

In our humorous town,

Spoiling its hob-goblins,
Laughing shadows down.
Rank musicians torture
Ragtime ballads vile,
But we walk serenely
Down the odorous aisle.
We forgive the squalor
And the boom and squeal
For the Great Queen flashes
From the moving reel.
Just a prim blonde stranger
In her early day,
Hiding brilliant weapons,
Too averse to play,
Then she burst upon us
Dancing through the night.
Oh, her maiden radiance,
Veils and roses white.
With new powers, yet cautious,
Not too smart or skilled,
That first flash of dancing
Wrought the thing she willed:–
Mobs of us made noble
By her strong desire,
By her white, uplifting,
Royal romance-fire.
Though the tin piano
Snarls its tango rude,
Though the chairs are shaky
And the dramas crude,
Solemn are her motions,
Stately are her wiles,
Filling oafs with wisdom,
Saving souls with smiles;
’Mid the restless actors
She is rich and slow.
She will stand like marble,
She will pause and glow,
Though the film is twitching,
Keep a peaceful reign,
Ruler of her passion,
Ruler of our pain!
104 David Mayer

Maud Allan developed a further route for modern dance to enter into the
ancient world, in Allan’s instance the biblical world, with her Salomé dance
(Figure 6.5). She, too, had once experimented with interpreting classical
Greek dance but, in 1907, her performance of The Vision of Salomé,
notorious not least because of the supposed skimpiness of her costumes,
scandalised American and British variety audiences. Maud Allan’s Salomé,
in some respects resembling turn-of-the-century theatrical Judiths (using
eroticism and seduction to captivate and being depicted often with the
severed heads of their adversaries),20 encouraged further theatrical,
operatic and dance Salomés, among them Hedwig Reicher in Germany,
Caroline Otero in Spain and, notably, Ruth St. Denis in America.21
Among the American Salomés was Gertrude Hoffman. Hoffman,
working both as a soloist and as a company leader and choreographer,
was (in my view) the pivotal figure in bringing dance and the purported
movements of the ancient world to the screen. Her performance of The
Vision of Salomé in 1909 (Figure 6.6), a deliberate imitation of Maud
Allan’s Salomé dance, and her ‘high temperature costume’ were described
by a New York observer:

Miss Hoffman’s Salomé costume consists specifically of one pair of flesh colored silk
trunks, reaching from the waist halfway to the knee; one skirt of black gauze, gold
embroidered at the bottom and reaching to the ankles; a girdle of pearls and brilliants,
breastplate and décolletage of pearls and emeralds, with ropes of pearls looped to the
girdle, and necklace and armlets of brilliants and jade. A diadem and a red wig
complete the costume. Neither tights nor sandals are worn, the arms, limbs, and torso
being entirely bare . . . After the first gasp, when the heavy velvet curtains were drawn
back to disclose Miss Hoffman, the audience of first nighters refused to credit their
senses. The dim blue light of the really magnificent setting of the courtyard of Herod’s
palace half disclosed the semi-nude figure of Salomé. From the first sinuous movement
of the dancer’s arms the guessing contest began, and it left the theatre only with the
audience . . . Miss Hoffman does not give all her pack of tricks at the first glance. The
black skirt acts as a delusion and a snare to the eye . . . The audience is so spellbound
with the stage picture, with the gliding gesture dancing of Salomé, they forget even the
exotic costume . . . Gertrude Hoffman added, ‘I watched Maud Allan carefully, and
then, as she created Salomé, I created Maud Allan creating Salomé . . . I want The
Vision of Salomé to be taken seriously, not as an exploit of sensational costuming.’ 22

20
See, further, Buchanan in this volume.
21
The evidence for this claim is largely pictorial: large numbers of postcards and journal
illustrations of the various dancers costumed and captioned as ‘Salomé’.
22
Unidentified New York interview reprinted in the Cass City [Michigan] Chronicle, 26 February
1909.
 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world 105

Figure 6.5 Maud Allan performing The Vision of Salomé, from a posed
photograph, c. 1907.

Hoffman’s contribution to film, although indirect, was significant. In 1911,

learning of Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, Hoffman took herself
to France where she minutely observed Michel Fokine’s choreography and
vocabulary of movement. She then raced ahead of the Ballets Russes to
New York, formed her own company of one hundred French and Russian
dancers, recreated Fokine’s dances and opened a successful season at New
York’s Winter Garden Theatre. Crucially, in Hoffman’s company was the
15-year-old Gertrude Bambrick, and one of those to witness the Hoffman
company perform was D. W. Griffith.23
Having been induced by Griffith to leave Hoffman and join Biograph,
Bambrick probably choreographed – as well as appeared in – the dance
prologue to Oil and Water. She was then cast as the lead Assyrian dancer in

23
Mayer 2009: 173–80.
106 David Mayer

Figure 6.6 Gertrude Hoffman as Salomé, in imitation of Maud Allan, c. 1909.

Judith of Bethulia and is seen leading Holofernes’ troupe of dancing

concubines, most memorably in the so-called ‘Dance of the Fishes’. As
an important ingredient of the film’s mise en scène, Bambrick (at Griffith’s
direction) instructed those actors cast in Assyrian roles in the movements
and attitudes of the Ballets Russes. In particular, she taught them to use
profile positions (the ‘law of broadest aspect’ found in ancient Assyrian
reliefs) in order to emphasise the otherness of the invaders, thereby
imparting a physical dimension to the Assyrians that distinguished them
from the more naturalistically portrayed Judaeans.24
In 1915, a development occurred that brought Griffith’s cinematic
ancient worlds still closer to modern dance. The director chose Ruth St.
Denis as his principal choreographer for Intolerance. St. Denis and her
partner, Ted Shawn, had established a dance studio in Los Angeles,
offering instruction in ‘the science of the human body as an expressive
instrument’ and advised in publicity that they created dances ‘especially
created to film well’.25 Griffith sent the Gish sisters, Gertrude Bambrick,
Mary Alden, Blanche Sweet, Carmel Myers and Mae Murray to twice-
weekly classes. Carol Dempster, who in the 1920s was to replace Lillian
Gish as Griffith’s leading actress, was – although a 14-year-old girl –
already a member of the Denishawn troupe. Actresses from other studios,

24 25
Kendal 1979: 141. Kendal 1979: 142 quoting Denishawn advertisements.
 Architecture and art dance meet in the ancient world 107

notably Louise Glaum, who succeeded Theda Bara in ‘vamp’ roles, also
took instruction in dance and movement.26
Since Griffith was developing the ‘Babylonian story’ for Intolerance,
St. Denis and her dancers became essential to his planning and realisation
of dances which spoke to the character, religious fervour and decadence of
the Babylonians. Of St. Denis’s fifteen choreographed sequences, some were
brief fragments of dance glimpsed beyond the archways of palace or temple
rooms, some were ritualised episodes accompanying court ceremonies of
prayer and supplication and four were major stand-alone set-piece ballets
filling the great elephant-pilastered public square and vast palace banquet-
ing hall. Some were led by Gertrude Bambrick and Ted Shawn. Griffith
required dances that made little effort to drive the narrative in themselves
but instead were always emotive and atmospheric in support of the
narrative and, always, placed in centre-focus.
Finally, there was Alla Nazimova, only slightly less a dancer than an
actress, active in re-creating a biblical world. This world emerges on-screen
in the film Salomé of 1923 and not with archaeological exactness but,
rather, by reproducing the sensual art nouveau Judaea imagined and
depicted in Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations to Oscar Wilde’s drama
Salomé.27 This schematic, louche mise-en-scène – settings, costumes,
make-up, properties – are all conceived by Natacha Rambova, while the
entire film – steps, gestures, expressions – is minutely choreographed by
Charles Bryant to the lethargic tempo of giant feathered fans, their shafts
wielded by somnolent slaves oblivious of mortal actions within the royal
palace. Herod alone – aroused, slavering and only eventually sated – plays
against the engulfing torpor with fierce animation, only changing from lust
and shame to revulsion and thence to outrage and cruelty in response to
Salomé’s demand for the Baptist’s head. The cast’s movements refer only
distantly to ballet, but they retain the straight spines of ballet dancers.
Salomé’s set-piece Dance of the Seven Veils is deliberately hidden by four
female dancers carrying across their shoulders large opaque fabric screens
thereby leaving Salomé’s supposed nudity to the spectators’ imagination,
but her close-up duet with Jokanaan’s severed head is orgasmic as she,
writhing, dips beneath a covering robe to kiss the dead mouth.
Nazimova’s performance in the narrative of John the Baptist’s imprison-
ment and decollation at the court of Herod in a louche Holy Land setting,
tells us that, by 1923, the mise-en-scène of the ancient world was no longer

26
Mayer 2009: 173–80.
27
Expressly stated in opening titles and in accompanying promotional materials.
108 David Mayer

necessarily re-created with awe or reverence nor any pretence to historical

accuracy. Unlike Kiralfy’s Babylon, Nazimova’s Salomé was not for
Sunday-school crowds and family outings. It was a decided ‘art’ film by
virtue of its alarming action and non-realistic mise-en-scène alike. The
ancient world of Kiralfy and Griffith had been brushed aside, to be
replaced by art nouveau tendrils and swirls, decadence and camp postur-
ing. Nonetheless, motion pictures and even the conservative public were
now ready to consider – but, significantly, not to endorse – a mythic past
that spoke less of the historian-archaeologist and much more of the artist,
the production designer and the wardrobe mistress.
7 | Ancient Rome in London: classical subjects in the
forefront of cinema’s expansion after 1910
ian christie

The extreme admiration and excitement provoked between 1911 and 1915
by a group of films set in classical antiquity is difficult to evoke today.
Partly this is due to a continuing critical disdain for the popular represen-
tation of the ancient world that began with twentieth-century reactions to
such painters as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic
Leighton, and reappeared in relation to the films of Cecil B. DeMille and
other ‘epics’ of the 1950s.1 A more specific strand in the ‘condescension of
posterity’ also identified these films as ‘uncinematic’ at a crucial moment of
critical stocktaking around 1930.2 As a result, little attempt has been made
to recover the relatively rich history of critical and even personal response
to other early landmark films, such as D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation
(1915) or DeMille’s The Cheat (1915). We know, for instance, what wide
and lasting cultural impact DeMille’s film had in France, thanks to the
writings of those who were happy to pay tribute to it. But if we look at early
French critical writings on film such as those collected by Richard Abel,3
we find no mention of G. Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914) – despite the assurance
of Bardèche and Brasillach, writing in 1935, that ‘nothing else was talked of
in France for years’ after the film’s triumphant opening in 1915.4 They
quote Le Cinéma writing that ‘M. D’Annunzio seems to have laid the
foundation here for a new art which is perfectly in the spirit and to the
taste of our times’, and equally passionate and evocative praise dating from
as late as 1920.5
There is certainly evidence of an appreciative response to Cabiria in
Britain, even apart from the film trade press, always ready to praise. The

1
Many of these painters were highly successful academicians, and reaction against them may have
been fuelled as much by the Modernist revolt against academicism as by a disdain for their
idealised and illustrative subject-matter. In the case of films based on popular nineteenth-
century ‘toga plays’, these suffered the same derision as their sources, especially due to their
association with mass evangelism. See Mayer 1994: 1–6.
2
Thompson 1980: 12 speaks of working against ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’ at the
beginning of his groundbreaking 1963 recovery of early English working-class history. The idea
of the properly ‘cinematic’ or ‘filmic’ emerges in film criticism around 1930, in such works as
Lejeune 1931 and Rotha 1930.
3 4 5
Abel (1988). Bardèche & Brasillach 1938: 49. Bardèche & Brasillach 1938: 49. 109
110 Ian Christie

first Times review acknowledged its narrative accomplishment: ‘merely as a

spectacle the film would be an assured success – some of the scenes of the
siege of Carthage are very effective – but it has the added advantage of a
well-defined plot, the interest of which is sustained for a full two hours’.6
However, four months later, the response was more generic:
[Cabiria has been] received with much applause by large audiences. It is on a lavish
scale, and is said to have taken two and a half years and cost £40,000 to prepare.
Fire effects, a volcanic eruption, battles, thrilling adventures on land and water,
crowds of actors make a kaleidoscope of action that lasts for more than two hours,
and the incidents follow in a succession so rapid as to be sometimes a little
confusing.7

And yet another account, published two months later, suggested diminishing
enthusiasm:

. . . that story of ancient Rome and Carthage which . . . takes its jerky way through
almost unbelievable visions of Etna in eruption, destroying palaces and villas, of
Hannibal crossing the Alps, of living sacrifices to a nightmare of a Moloch, of the
court of Hasdrubal, and what not.8

The cursory tone of these comments is rather different from L’Opinion in

France which hailed the film’s scenarist Gabriele D’Annunzio as ‘the early
master of a new art, the Giotto of the cinema’.9 It is also far from the
enthusiasm of an eloquent personal response, free of hindsight and not
intended for publication:
I went to see Cabiria . . . last night and returned with a much fairer opinion of the
artistic value of the movies. The picture is simply stupendous. The acting is
excellent – far above any I have ever seen done by an American company – and
the scenery is wonderful. Hannibal’s army crossing the Alps, the destruction of the
Roman fleet at Syracuse by the reflecting mirrors of Archimedes, the temple of
Moloch at Carthage, the desert expedition of the King of Cirta, the siege of
Carthage by Scipio – all of these are done with the grimmest realism and are
blood stirring in their gripping action . . . Of course it cost fifty centavos to view
Cabiria from the ground floor and one rather expects the unusual, but I was
enthusiastically surprised . . .

This was the future playwright Eugene O’Neill, writing in October 1914 to
his girlfriend, while a mature student at Harvard.10 The same highlights

6 7
The Times, 15 May 1915. The Times, 28 September 1915: 5.
8 9
The Times, 26 November 1915: 11. Bardèche & Brasillach 1938: 49.
10
Letter from O’Neill to Beatrice Ashe, 7 October 1914, quoted in Hayes 2001.
 Ancient Rome in London 111

that were briskly noted by The Times clearly impressed O’Neill, but as a
demonstration of film’s artistic, rather than merely spectacular, potential.
We might wonder if there are equivalent contemporary responses still to be
found elsewhere, in letters or journals, but pending any such discoveries, it
would seem that Cabiria did not make as great or lasting an impact in
Britain as in France and the United States.
The main reason may simply be circumstantial: Cabiria opened in
Britain relatively late, in mid 1915, when the Great War was under way
and dominating both public and private attention. Another may be that,
for all its novel qualities, it confirmed the cinematic appeal of the classical
world, which had already been well proven by a series of successes that
dated back as far as 1910. It is this series I want to examine, to test the
proposition that such ancient-world films, largely Italian, played a decisive
part in transforming the film business in Britain.
We can construct a pre-history of such subjects in moving pictures,
beginning with Georges Hatot’s Nero Trying out Poisons on His Slaves
(1896–7) and Robert Paul’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1900).11 Although
the latter is known today only from a catalogue image, it must have traded
on the established appeal of Bulwer-Lytton’s 1834 novel which, as Maria
Wyke has shown, enjoyed success in many different media throughout
the nineteenth century, and had made the title-phrase synonymous with
refined spectacle.12 There was also much more classical-world spectacle
on offer in turn-of-the-century Britain. Among many late-Victorian
painters drawn to this period, Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s portrayal of a
luxurious Roman world had been especially popular since his successful
Grosvenor Gallery exhibition of 1882.13 Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur (1880) and
Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis (1896), both set in first-century Rome,
were already hugely popular in cheap editions.14 And when a London stage
version of the former opened in 1902, it attracted wide attention – for its
extravagance of spectacle, if not for its dramatic subtlety.15 Significantly,
The Sketch noted ‘several clergymen’ in the opening night audience at
Drury Lane, prefiguring the particular advantage that such religiously
themed entertainment would continue to enjoy.16

11
The former belongs to a group of nine vues historiques made for Lumière in 1896 or 1897 by
Georges Hatot, which mark an exception in the Lumières’ predominantly contemporary vues
(Catalogue Lumière, cinquième liste, no. 747, Néron essayant des poisons sur les esclaves,
Sadoul 1985: 137).
12 13 14
Wyke 1997: 150–86. Lambourne 1999: 294. Lifson 2009.
15 16
Booth 1981: 72, quoting The Times, 4 April 1902. Ellis 2003.
112 Ian Christie

Paul’s film was also perhaps most immediately inspired by the popular
‘pyrodrama’, or fireworks spectacle, loosely based on Bulwer-Lytton’s
novel, that was a popular attraction in the grounds of Alexandra Palace,
near his North London studio.17 Paul’s short film, typical of the period at
just over a minute, showed ‘the interior of a Greek house, in which Ione is
seated with Lydia, the blind girl’. While a dance is in progress, ‘Vesuvius is
seen in eruption . . . the volcano throws out lava, which rushes over the
house, of which the pillars and walls fall in, making a complete wreck.’18
Realising that he could not compete with the spectacle of the pyrodrama’s
‘eruption’ – the film frames a distant view of Vesuvius – Paul concentrated
instead on the climax of the novel’s narrative, when Glaucus escapes the
eruption with his beloved Ione. This is perhaps an early example of what
George Kleine, the American entrepreneur who popularised ancient-world
spectacle films, would later describe as film’s ability to show ‘the characters
[as] living and breathing human beings’.19
Paul’s film must have been predicated on a proportion of viewers
knowing enough of the Pompeii story, in whatever form, to grasp what
they were seeing – although the questions of to what extent, and precisely
how, audiences knew what was being represented in such early films
remain unanswered.20 No doubt there was a ‘lecturer’ in some situations,
and such commentary continued until at least 1912 in certain cinema
halls.21 But perhaps it was only solved by including title cards on films;
and Paul was in fact a pioneer of title slides and titles printed on film,
introduced in his 1901 catalogue. But he did not continue with ‘classical’
subjects, turning instead to Dickens adaptations in the following year.
However Pathé, which would soon become the first multinational producer
and distributor, began to include subjects from antiquity in its cata-
logues as early as 1902. These sat alongside popular tales from all eras,
some of them clearly offering ‘legitimate’ excuse for female nudity – such as
Le jugement de Pâris (The Judgement of Paris, 1902) – but after Pathé
became closely involved with the ‘film d’art’ movement in 1908, there is a

17
Wyke 1997: 156–7. Paul began constructing his new studio in Muswell Hill in 1899, less than a
mile from Alexandra Palace, which had by then presented ‘Pain’s Last Days of Pompeii’ for at
least a decade as part of its summer entertainment season.
18
Description in The Era, 28 June 1900, quoted in Barnes 1997: 192.
19
Wyke 1997: 157, quoting from Mayer 1985–6: 41–50.
20
See my discussion of this in relation to films shown in the music halls in Christie 2012.
21
Low 1948a: 17 records that around 1912 ‘whether films should be accompanied by a lecturer
exercised the showman’, presumably on the basis of her close reading of trade journals.
However, the scale of lecturer accompaniment at this date and beyond is still far from clear.
 Ancient Rome in London 113

notable increase in classical subjects. Alberto Capellani followed his

Tarquin le superbe (Tarquin the Superb, 1908) with La vestale (The Vestal,
1908), which survives in a stencil coloured print that emphasises the
spectacle of its conclusion, as the temple flame neglected by the vestal
virgin who has broken her vow is ‘magically’ reignited.22 A similar eroti-
cism runs through two films directed by the co-founder of the short-lived
Film d’art company, André Calmettes: Le retour d’Ulysse (The Return of
Ulysses, 1909), with Penelope besieged by her suitors, and especially
Héliogabale (Heliogabalus, 1910), in which the depraved emperor tries to
molest a vestal virgin he has abducted.23
These films, running for about fifteen minutes each, were widely
admired, and exported to many countries. In Britain they would form a
featured attraction within the mixed programmes of between eight and ten
short films which were standard until at least 1911–12,24 often described in
the trade press as ‘headliners’, indicating they were used to promote the
programme as a whole. So, for instance, in February 1912, the Empire
Picture Palace in Finchley, North London, included Pathé’s The Vengeance
of Licinius (La vengeance de Licinius) – billed as a ‘coloured drama’ – in a
programme comprising eight titles, of which four were comedies, one
scientific, one a western, and one other a drama.25 But there were other
cinemas in London that had already shown some of the longer Italian
spectaculars. On looking closely at actual cinema programmes, we discover
there is no straight line of ‘progress’ towards the feature-centred pro-
gramme. Instead, there is a complicated ecology of halls of different sizes
and levels of ambition that is in almost constant flux during the period
between 1908 and 1915, and perhaps beyond. By 1912, two-hour pro-
grammes are the standard offer, but these could be made up in many
different ways.
For as long as this remained the typical exhibition pattern, there is little
point in trying to guess which types of film were most popular. The ‘trade’,
comprising distributors and exhibitors, continued to insist that its audi-
ences wanted ‘variety’ – although there was also mounting evidence of the
popularity of longer films.26 What complicates any analysis of cause and
effect, or even of routine practice, is that films set in antiquity tended to be

22 23
Abel 1994: 248. For an account and analysis of Héliogabale, see Abel 1994: 255–6.
24 25
Christie & Sedgwick 2009. The Finchley Press, 7 February 1912.
26
Low 1948b: 26–7 quotes a range of British trade opinion, between 1915 and 1918, in favour of
‘short pieces’ and three-reel films, rather than the five-reelers that were becoming common. She
suggests this may have reflected exhibitors’ self-interest, since these films generally remained
cheaper than the new ‘super films’ and allowed more shows to run during a day.
114 Ian Christie

longer than the average, and more promotable as events. Their appearance
also coincided with, and perhaps helped to drive, the new ‘exclusive’ film
distribution pattern, which requires some explanation.
Before 1910, the film trade in Britain, as in all countries, operated on a
free market basis, with ‘renters’ or distributors sourcing films from produ-
cers (who might also be distributors, as in the case of Pathé and Gaumont)
and renting them to exhibitors for screening. In principle, there was
nothing to prevent a renter providing the same films to neighbouring
exhibitors, although there may well have been informal understandings
to avoid such an occurrence. Equally, the same film might be available
from a range of renters. This situation represented a transitional period
after the early economy of film that was based entirely on producers selling
as many prints as possible – at first directly to exhibitors – and making
whatever return and profit they could from the volume of print sales. The
effect of this system was to discourage investment in more elaborate,
and therefore more speculative, types of production. Producers’ outlay
per title and the prices of their films remained relatively low.
Around 1910, this distribution system began to change, although
unevenly in different countries. The earliest mention of a film being offered
‘exclusively’ in Britain seems to have been Clarendon with The Invaders in
1909, but the pioneer historian of British cinema, Rachael Low, cited a
Danish film from Nordisk, In the Hands of Imposters (Den hvide Slave-
handel), released by New Century Film Services in 1911, as ‘the first film in
this country specifically handled as an exclusive’.27 Subsequently the shift
towards exclusive contracts accelerated. Throughout 1911 and 1912, the
trade journals carry numerous advertisements by renters urging exhibitors
to ‘boom’ their show by securing an early booking of a new exclusive. The
same film would then become available more cheaply for a subsequent
booking in the same area, with the implication that the first booking would
be the most profitable – although as we shall see, this might not always
have been the case. Nor did the exclusive system appear in other countries
at the same time: in the Netherlands, according to Ivo Blom, it did not start
until 1913, by which time ancient-world films were among the most
eagerly sought for exclusive engagements.28
The first exclusives offered in Britain were mostly contemporary
thrillers. But in March 1911, the Tyler Film Co. advertised Itala’s The
Fall of Troy (La caduta di Troia) as ‘sole agents for the British Empire’
(Figure 7.1).29 Citing a ‘special report’ on this impressive production four

27 28 29
Low 1948a: 46. Blom 2003: 230 ff. Bioscope, 30 March 1911: 58.
 Ancient Rome in London 115

Figure 7.1 British distributor’s 1911 advertisement in The Bioscope for Itala’s The Fall
of Troy, claiming that its superior scale and realism would guarantee commercial
success for exhibitors.

weeks earlier,30 Tylers emphasised the film’s scale (over eight hundred
actors), realism, length (2,000 ft, running approximately 30 minutes) and
‘striking posters’ – all of which they claimed would bring people back
‘again and again’ to see it. There had been a Last Days of Pompeii (Gli
ultimi giorni di Pompei) and Nero (Nerone), both from A. Ambrosio in
1908–9, as well as the Pathé subjects mentioned earlier. But by 1911, The
Fall of Troy and Milano’s Dante adaptation The Inferno (L’Inferno, 3,950 ft,
or 65 min. running at 16 frames per second) seem to have benefited from a
conjunction of the exclusive system, with its need for prestige titles, and a
growing willingness among exhibitors to show longer films. Production
companies were now able to invest more substantially, and the costs of the
Italian ‘spectaculars’ soon became a part of their publicity – a 1914 illus-
trated newspaper supplement on Cabiria carried the headline ‘A £50,000
film: D’Annunzio’s Cinema-Play’.31 Exclusive territorial rights also created
a new level of competition, with Quo Vadis? cited as ‘the first film to be
sold by auction in Britain . . . only ten years after £12 or £13 had been the
price of a best seller’.32
It was not only the scale and value of films that were changing. The
period 1910–12 saw a boom in building large and increasingly luxurious
cinemas around Britain. In London alone, one entrepreneur, Montagu
Pyke, added five new cinemas to his existing circuit of eleven between
February and August 1911 – in Peckham, Brixton, Balham, Finsbury Park
and Charing Cross Road. One of these, the Brixton Cinematograph

30 31 32
Bioscope, 23 February 1911. The Sketch, 29 April 1914: 3. Low 1948a: 47.
116 Ian Christie

Theatre, seated ‘nearly 900 patrons in comfortable tip-ups’,33 while, in less

than two years, the Maida Vale Picture House would seat 1,500 and, a year
later, The Grange super cinema in Kilburn reached a capacity of 2,028. The
audience for film shows was growing, exponentially it would seem; and
there are reports from this period of prosecutions for overcrowding in the
old, smaller picture theatres. But did the rate of cinema building simply
reflect increased demand for film entertainment, or was there also a
relationship between the vast number of seats now on offer and the scale
of films being offered to fill them?
Two films shown within six months of each other in 1913 marked the
decisive impact of ancient Roman spectacle in the new long format, as well
as the link between these subjects and prestigious venues. Cines’ Quo
Vadis? opened at the Albert Hall on 26 April and was reported to have
attracted 23,000 spectators on the May Bank Holiday two weeks later.34
And on 6 October, Ambrosio’s new 6,000 ft version of The Last Days of
Pompeii (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) opened exclusively at the West End
Cinema in Coventry Street, with ‘specially composed music’ performed by
‘a full orchestra’, and all seats bookable, at prices ranging from one shilling
to an astonishing ten shillings and sixpence. Schools and colleges were
encouraged to inquire about special prices for group visits to ‘Lord Lytton’s
classical masterpiece’.35
Both films set new records for the price required to secure exclusive
British rights: Jury’s paid £6,700 for The Last Days of Pompeii and Ruffells
paid £8,000 for Cines’ Antony and Cleopatra (Marcantonio e Cleopatra,
dir. E. Guazzoni), the immediate successor to Quo Vadis? later in 1913.
Having paid such sums, there was naturally pressure to secure returns,
initially from prestigious central London venues, but also – in a new
development – from a growing range of new suburban cinemas, as well
as provincial cinemas. But before looking at how they performed in the
new exhibition marketplace, it is worth considering what these films
offered that was distinctive and appealing.
The first successful genre of the ‘exclusive’ era was the thriller, usually
driven by a crime story involving theft or kidnapping, or by espionage.
‘Nick Winter’ and ‘Nat Pinkerton’ pitted their wits against highly

33
Bioscope, 16 March 1911: 59.
34
This information comes from a report in The Times, 13 May 1913, on ‘holiday crowds at
various places of recreation’, which may be the first time that a film presentation appeared
alongside attendance figures for such venues as Hampton Court (120,000), Crystal Palace
(60,000) and Alexandra Palace (30,000).
35
All quotes here are from The Times, 6 October 1913.
 Ancient Rome in London 117

organised gangs, reaching an apotheosis in the Zigomar, Fantômas and

Vampires titles of 1911–15.36 These series offered dynamism, speed,
modernity and suspense with their characteristic cliff-hanger episode
endings – very different qualities from those of the antiquity subjects.
The appeal of the ancient-world films lay in spectacle, with massed
crowds of extras, period costume and architectural sets, while their
typical plots veered between pomp and decadence, punctuated by scenes
of combat, sacrifice and, of course, large-scale destruction.
These qualities clearly appealed, perhaps for the first time to the
‘better class’ of patron that the burgeoning cinema business was trying
to attract – sometimes described in Britain as ‘the carriage trade’, in a
reference to traditional theatre parlance – although they also seem to
have appealed to the popular audience. Moreover, films set in ancient
Greece or Rome had distinctive commercial qualities, very different
from those of the serials. With already familiar titles, they could be
publicised in advance; ticket pricing could be higher, with pre-booked
seats (rather like opera transmission today); and films could run for
longer – a week or more, rather than the two or three days that had
become common by 1914. Above all, the antiquity films had moral as
well as cultural appeal, like their theatrical precursor Ben-Hur. The two
key source-texts, The Last Days of Pompeii and Quo Vadis, were both
popular nineteenth-century novels that portrayed the challenge of
Christian value to pagan Rome.37 Unlike their rivals (the thrillers that
turned on kidnapping and torture, while hinting at other depravities),
these Christian epics judiciously balanced their portrayal of decadence
with the eventual triumph of Christianity. They also co-existed with a
widely distributed series of explicitly biblical films – From the Manger to
the Cross (Kalem, 1912, dir. S. Olcott), The Bible (La Bibbia, Aquila,
1913), The Messiah (La vie et la passion de nôtre Seigneur Jésus Christ,
Pathé, 1913–14), Daniel (Vitagraph, 1914, dir. F. A. Thomson), Christus
(Cines, 1916, dir. G. Antamoro) – and with the success of Max
Reinhardt’s 1911 production of the pseudo-medieval religious play,

36
Three Zigomar films were made by Eclair in 1911–13 (dir. V.-H. Jasset); five Fantômas serials
were produced by Gaumont in 1913–14, followed by Les Vampires in 1915 (all directed by
L. Feuillade).
37
Glaucus, the hero of The Last Days of Pompeii, is a Greek living among the Romans of first-
century Pompeii and, while not a Christian (although Christianity is practised among the city’s
many cults), clearly embodies Christian values. The two other novels that would serve as key
source-texts for later films set in the first century CE, Ben-Hur and The Robe, are both explicitly
Christian apologetics.
118 Ian Christie

Figure 7.2 By 1915, lavishly produced ancient world subjects, such as Cines’ Julius
Caesar, were an established attraction, as evidenced by this trade show advertisement
intended to enthuse local exhibitors.

The Miracle (Das Mirakel), followed by two film versions of it in 1912

(one co-directed by C. Kearton and M. Reinhardt, the other by
M. Misu). A further source of cultural status was the Shakespearean
connection: as early as 1909, Vitagraph was advertising its Julius Caesar
as ‘another Shakespearean headliner’,38 while two of the most popular
ancient-world films of the early 1910s appear to have been Cines’
Antony and Cleopatra (1913) and Julius Caesar (1914) – the latter
proclaimed in a trade advertisement as ‘the most important event in
Scottish pictures so far this year’ (Figure 7.2).39
Quo Vadis? appears to have been the first extended film screening at
London’s Royal Albert Hall, announced as a two-week run on 26 April
1913, which was extended for a further two weeks on 7 May.40 The
distributor, Jury’s, published a sixteen-page ‘story of the play’ brochure,

38
Advertisement, Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 28 January 1909.
39 40
Advertisement, The Bioscope, 6 September 1915. The Times, 7 May 1913.
 Ancient Rome in London 119

which was also on sale at provincial venues.41 In addition to admiring

reviews, the film gained valuable publicity from a widely reported ‘private’
visit by King George V and Queen Mary to see it at the Albert Hall on
5 May.42 Throughout the empire, this royal patronage was used to promote
the film. Its New Zealand debut at His Majesty’s Theatre in Wellington, on
17 July 1913, was advertised in fulsome terms:
Its beauty, magnificence and grandeur; its mighty magnitude, artistic excellence,
historical accuracy, and marvellous realism; its gorgeous accessories and startling
depiction of BURNING ROME, THE MARTYRDOM OF CHRISTIANS thrown
to the lions, in short ITS MERIT, which captures Europe, America and Australasia,
has now captured Auckland and is sure to capture Wellington.43

And at Ashburton, on the south island of New Zealand, a ‘special grand

revival of the world’s greatest picture success’ on 31 December advertised
‘the king of films / the film of kings’, ‘as honoured by King George V’.44
The opening of The Last Days of Pompeii in 1913, six months after its
predecessor, attracted more critical attention than Quo Vadis? had.
Launched with a special ‘press view’, it gained a highly supportive advance
review in The Times which is worth quoting in full:

The story of Lord Lytton’s famous novel, with the fine spectacular setting of most
of its central incidents, is peculiarly suitable for reproduction on the cinemato-
graph. The film . . . has been made in Italy, the more important scenes having been
enacted by the performers under the shadow of Vesuvius. The pictures have, in
consequence, a brilliance of lighting and an accuracy of definition which would
probably have been unattainable in our own latitudes. The film is also a striking
example of the elaborateness of the preparations made for the production of
modern cinematograph pictures. The number of the performers is enormous,
and one tumultuous scene, ‘in which the Senate’s judgment on Glaucus is
announced to an immense gesticulating multitude’, extorted a tribute of warm
admiration from the audience. The story is unfolded in a way which preserves the
interest of the narrative throughout and works up to a dramatic climax. These
closing scenes are a triumph for the maker of the film. The gladiatorial contests in

41
A copy from the Rink Picture Theatre, Aberystwyth, has been digitised as part of Bibliografica
Celtica, National Library of Wales, online at www.archive.org/stream/bibliothecacel1913waleuoft/
bibliothecacel1913waleuoft_djvu.txt, accessed 14 August 2011.
42
The Times, 6 May 1913: 11.
43
Evening Post, Wellington, 17 July 1913, available online at http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/
cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=EP19130717.2.20.2&e=———10–1——0–, accessed 13 August 2011.
44
Ashburton Guardian, 31 December 1913, available online at http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/
cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=AG19131231.2.2.3&l=mi&e=——10–1——0–, accessed 13 August
2011.
120 Ian Christie

the arena are suddenly interrupted by the eruption of Vesuvius, followed by the
wild flight of the populace, whose frantic efforts to escape are reproduced with
great realism. The story closes with some beautiful and striking scenes of the Bay of
Naples, with the smoking volcano in the background.45

The cinema’s advertisement on the opening day, also in The Times, went to
considerable lengths to establish the film’s credentials and status. Prices, as
we have seen, were high, although patrons were assured that ‘the Press has
been unanimous in acknowledging this new film as the greatest actually on
the market [and] as one of the most instructive Plays of today’.46
It was certainly significant that Bulwer-Lytton was a well-known English
author: for the cinema trade, his novel was simply a ‘classical masterpiece’.
And, interestingly, his grandson gave a lecture for London University’s
Extension Guild on 1 November, while the film was still running, in which
he defended Bulwer-Lytton, despite acknowledging that he was now ‘out
of fashion’.47 Although ostensibly held to promote the forthcoming bio-
graphy of his grandfather, could this event also have reflected the success
of the film in bringing Bulwer-Lytton back to attention, if not fashion?
If so, it would be an intriguing case of what Boulter and Grusin have
identified as the ‘remediation’ effect, whereby the spectacular use of a new
medium to re-present a venerable subject benefits both the status of the
medium and the longevity of the source material.48
How popular were the long films? There are few indications of audience
size, apart from the Albert Hall figure quoted above, and no box-office
statistics from this period. But we can find other indicators. One is the level
of investment that distributors were willing to make, which can be judged
from an Index of Exclusives published by The Bioscope in 1914. The Index
lists over seven hundred titles, among which Pathé’s 1912 Les Misérables
(dir. A. Capellani) is the longest (at 10,000 ft) and Quo Vadis? the second
longest. The list includes a surprising number of films of less than 500 ft, all
British, but largely consists of titles of between 1,500 and 4,000 ft. The
implication seems to be that there was rising demand for longer films.
Another indicator of audience size is the place of classical-world films in
local cinema programmes. To show Quo Vadis? and Antony and Cleo-
patra in 1913–14 was to make a statement about a cinema hall’s status, its

45 46
The Times, 24 September 1913. The Times, 6 October 1913.
47
‘Bulwer-Lytton and His Times’, The Times, 1 November 1913.
48
Boulter & Grusin 1999: 273 define remediation as ‘the formal logic by which new media
refashion prior media forms [and] along with immediacy and hypermediacy . . . one of the
three traits of our genealogy of new media’.
 Ancient Rome in London 121

confidence in its audience and ability to afford an ‘exclusive’. An example

of this dynamic at work can be found in the competition between two
cinemas in North London: the East Finchley Picturedrome (which today
survives as the Phoenix) and the Finchley Rink Cinema. On 15 August
1913, the Picturedrome advertised ‘Coming! Quo Vadis? A completely new
version’; and again on 22 August: ‘Monday next – Quo Vadis?’.49 Meanwhile,
the Rink Cinema was advertising Ivanhoe with ‘the full Lyceum company’,
a reference to that theatre’s reputation for spectacular productions under the
direction of Irving and Beerbohm Tree. The film in question, made by Zenith
at their Whetstone studio (dir. L. Bantock), used settings from the Lyceum, and
appears to have held over and is listed as still playing at the Rink on 29 August.
On 5 September, the Picturedrome struck back with Ivanhoe ‘for three days
only’, but stated that this was the American IMP version, made by Herbert
Brenon. The Rink countered with 1812, along with a Broncho Billy western
and a Nick Winter thriller.50 From 12 September, the Picturedrome showed
one of Britain’s few historical films made on a grand scale, B&C’s The Battle
of Waterloo (dir. C. Weston), for two weeks, against which the Rink offered
Fantômas. But on 19 September, the Rink advertised that Quo Vadis? would be
showing ‘for one week only’ from 29 September; and on 26 September, the film
was further promoted as ‘shown before their majesties the King and Queen’.
The Picturedrome meanwhile showed The Battle of Waterloo.
What this short passage of exhibition history in a relatively affluent
district reveals is the prestige attaching to Quo Vadis?, which was
announced with more extensive press advertising than any other film
during these months. Its value to exhibitors was confirmed by the results
of a survey among managers, ‘What does the public want?’, published in
The Bioscope in February 1914: the only film mentioned more than once
was Quo Vadis?. Later that month, a letter to The Bioscope referred to ‘the
immense success of The Mysteries of Paris, Quo Vadis? and several other
masterpieces’, originally regarded ‘with suspicion’ by exhibitors as being
‘too artistic’, which proved to the writer that ‘the public is really interested
in the technical and artistic development of the picture play’.51
Elsewhere, in such diverse countries as the Netherlands and Poland, the
Italian spectaculars were also major attractions. Ivo Blom has shown how

49
All subsequent information in this paragraph comes from cinema advertisements in the
Finchley Press, held at the British Library.
50
It is not clear what 1812 would have been, unless it was the Russian film of this title, directed by
Vasili Goncharov, and possibly distributed internationally by Pathé.
51
Bioscope, 26 February 1914: 955.
122 Ian Christie

the Amsterdam distributor and exhibitor Jean Desmet became embroiled in

fierce battles over the Italian spectaculars in 1913, competing with his rival
Anton Nöggerath to secure Quo Vadis?, after the success he had with The
Fall of Troy in 1911.52 When Nöggerath got the Dutch rights by outbidding
Desmet, the latter retaliated by showing a cut-down version of the film,
presumably pirated, under the title Emperor Nero and the Fire of Rome
(Keizer Nero en de Brand van Rome), which then provoked stern press
denunciations of misleading the public.53 With the success of this genre
well established, Nöggerath found himself faced with further challenges.
Having secured the Ambrosio version of The Last Days of Pompeii, another
rival bought the Pasquali version and launched this version on the same day.
Claims and counter-claims flew in the Dutch press over which was the
‘real’ Last Days. Although Nöggerath retained his lead, with Antony and
Cleopatra in 1914, Desmet countered with In Hoc Signo Vinces (Savoia,
Italy, dir. N. Oxilia; known in Britain and the US as By the Cross), which
dealt with the later Roman emperors and Constantine, and continued to
rent the film to cinemas in Catholic areas of the Netherlands as late as the
1920s.54 In Poland, where the author of Quo Vadis and recent Nobel prize
winner, Henryk Sienkiewicz, was a national hero, the film broke all records –
for attendance and prices charged by the cinemas.55
The Roman films of 1910–15 reached a world that was in many ways
well prepared for them, with producers, distributors and, however reluc-
tantly, exhibitors seeking ways of extending and holding their audiences’
attention. They introduced new forms of publicity and promotion, with
press shows, press books and souvenir brochures, all considered worth-
while investments for films that could compete in the cultural marketplace.
Their scale and ‘classical’ associations helped neutralise opposition to the
moving pictures as a corrupting influence; and they lent glamour and
dignity to many of the new super cinemas that showed them. Above all,
they appealed to a broad audience: those who were already confirmed
filmgoers – described in a reflective Times article of 1913 as a ‘hall full of
men and women, old, elderly, and young, paying their sixpences, listening
intently, going away and coming again’56 – and apparently also to a new
influx of the more educated who had previously spurned the picture
palaces, such as Eugene O’Neill. Occasionally we glimpse the place of these
classical subjects within what Hugo von Hofmannsthal called the ‘chaos of
literatures’ about cinema that flew past.57 In an early novel entitled Voyage

52 53 54 55
Blom 2003: 229. Blom 2003: 230. Blom 2003: 232. Skaff 2008: 46.
56 57
The Times, 9 April 1913: 11. von Hofmannsthal in Luft 2011: 115.
 Ancient Rome in London 123

in the Dark (1934), clearly based on her own experiences in pre-First World
War London, Jean Rhys evokes lively audience reaction in a Camden Town
cinema to an episode of the adventure series Three-Fingered Kate (1909–12),
which is followed by ‘a long Italian film about the Empress Theodora, called
The Dancing Empress’.58 But there is no account of how this was received.
Part of the appeal may well have been erotic, since this had certainly
been an important feature of much ancient world painting and sculpture
from the fin-de-siècle. The hero of Joseph Roth’s 1934 novel The Antichrist
describes seeing naked women for the first time in a film about Moses, in
which ‘an Egyptian princess bathes naked in the Nile, with her naked
servants’, before finding the cradle containing ‘the Jews’ guide, the legisla-
tor of the world’.59 The future literary scholar and Christian apologist C. S.
Lewis, born in 1898, described in his autobiography how he had
developed a great taste for all the fiction I could get about the ancient world: Quo
Vadis, Darkness and Dawn, The Gladiators, Ben Hur . . . Early Christians came into
many of these stories, but they were not what I was after. I simply wanted sandals,
temples, togas, slaves, emperors, galleys, amphitheatres; the attraction, as I now
see, was erotic . . .60

Lewis’s generation, already familiar with ancient-world fiction in print

and illustration, was the first to discover cinema as teenagers (although
not apparently Lewis himself). They could now enjoy the panoply
of popular antiquity ‘put into action’, as the Times advertisement for
Quo Vadis? announced.61 But despite the vast numbers in Britain
who flocked to see such action, there seems to be surprisingly little
evidence of lasting cultural impact. By 1930, Paul Rotha could refer
condescendingly to Cabiria as ‘a remarkable feat for 1913 [sic], even
though its cinematic properties were not pronounced’, in a book that
would become the vade mecum for a rising generation of cinephiles.62

58
Passage from the novel quoted (in French translation) in Prieur 1993: 55–6. The film in
question could be Teodora imperatrice di Bisanzio (1909, dir. E. M. Pasquali), the Film d’Art
Théodora (1912, dir. H. Pouctal), or even a later memory of Ambrosio’s post-war Theodora
(1921, dir. L. Carlucci). I include a French version here because memoirs are not always reliable
and novels need not be accurate.
59
Prieur 1993: 182–3. Since C. B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923) does not treat Moses’
childhood, this could be a reference to Vitagraph’s Life of Moses (1909, dir. C. Kent and
J. S. Blackton).
60 61
Lewis, 1955: 35. The Times, 7 May 1913.
62
Rotha, 1930: 235. Rotha was born in 1907, and one wonders when – or even if – he had actually
seen Cabiria at the time of writing his precocious overview. By comparison, the present writer
recalls interviewing the Belgian filmmaker Henri Storck, also born in 1907, who in the 1980s
recalled vividly the impression that Cabiria had made on him as a child.
124 Ian Christie

Quo Vadis?, The Last Days of Pompeii and Cabiria, once benchmarks
against which British and American films were measured, seem to have
been completely forgotten, until the new film history of the 1970s
began cautiously to acknowledge their achievements.63 Sic transit gloria
antiqui . . .

63
Robinson 1973: 56; Rhode 1976: 53.
8 | Gloria Swanson as Venus: silent stardom,
antiquity and the classical vernacular
michael williams

The association between star images and their cultural antecedents in

history, and particularly in Greek and Roman antiquity, has been appar-
ent since the emergence of film stardom.1 One has only to peruse the film
fan-magazines and press-books of the 1920s to witness the fluency with
which critics and studio press offices established mythical frameworks for
audiences to appreciate their favourite stars. It could thus be argued that a
‘classical’ vernacular of words, myths and images has shaped our idea of
what a film star is or should be. Even within antiquity itself, those seeking
political or cultural influence – most famously Alexander the Great –
found it expedient to merge mythical imagery with their public persona,
contributing to what Beard and Henderson term ‘an empire of images’.2
Like the statuesque Apolline figure that is captured on the coinage of
Alexander, sculptures proliferated in public spaces to venerate the cele-
brated individuals of the day. Many of those works were adopted into the
canon of high art following the Greek and Roman revivals in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, thus inspiring the work of painters such
as Joshua Reynolds in the nascent celebrity culture of the period, in which
he was a key agent.3 Classical myths, and the art they inspired, fascinated
the Victorians, and as technology for the mass-circulation of prints and
public access to galleries improved, this mythic vocabulary became even
more widely embedded within popular culture. It was out of this visual
culture that cinema emerged. The new medium sought to legitimate itself
as an art form via the culturally prestigious vestments of the past, while at
the same time defining itself as the dominant cultural mode of the
present, and one preoccupied with founding an artistic and industrial
legacy for the future. The process of mythically acculturating the star was
key to elevating the prestige of cinema itself by association; motion
pictures could thus be brand new but, at the same time, as old as classical
civilisation.

1
I would like to thank Pantelis Michelakis and Maria Wyke, along with fellow contributors to this
volume, for their very helpful feedback on earlier versions of this chapter.
2 3
Beard & Henderson 2001: 186. See Postle 2005. 125
126 Michael Williams

While the significance of aspects of classical art and myth to film

stardom has been highlighted in key works of star studies, particularly
those of Richard Dyer and Edgar Morin, this chapter arises from research
that seeks to explore it on a more systematic and contextual basis.4 Star
discourse has long promoted its idols as Greek ‘gods and goddesses’, and
has a history in other media such as the theatre before the coming of
cinema itself. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, traces the
terminology of the ‘star’ attraction, one which may also be a ‘shining light
in society’, back at least to 1779, originating in the pagan belief that
illustrious persons could appear as stars in the heavens after death.5 The
discourse that elevated the glowing limelight figures of the stage was
perhaps even more conducive to the construction of the elusive creatures
of light and shadow beheld at the cinematograph. In Britain, the term ‘star’
was widely deployed by film fan-magazines from the early 1910s, some-
times in quotation marks as the discourse became established, and then
fully naturalised by the start of the Great War. Drawing on archival
research into the relationship between classicism and star promotion and
reception in the silent era, this chapter will introduce ways in which aspects
of Greek and Roman antiquity were a significant influence on concepts of
stardom, in both implicit and explicit forms. To this end, I shall take as my
starting point a striking image of one of the leading stars of the silent era.

Icons of modernity

Although her early career is largely eclipsed by her bravura performance in

Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), Gloria Swanson was one of the
greatest stars of the silent era. After building her profile during the 1910s
working in comedies at the Essanay, Keystone and Triangle studios,
Swanson signed with Paramount in 1919. It was at this point that she
was promoted as a leading player by Cecil B. DeMille, who gave her star
status in a series of celebrated roles, including that of Lady Mary Lasenby
in Male and Female (1919), and established Swanson’s reputation as a
‘clothes-horse’ of fashion.6 Swanson was one of the two most powerful

4
See, for example, Dyer 1986 and 2001; Morin 2005; and my recent work on the subject (Williams
2012).
5
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. ‘star, n.1’, online version August 2011, www.oed.com/view/Entry/
189081, accessed 8 August 2011.
6
For more information on Swanson’s career and private life, see her excellent autobiography:
Swanson 1982.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 127

female stars of 1920s Hollywood (the other being Mary Pickford) and, as
Mary Dejardins has argued, the combination of her portrayal of characters
fighting to express female desire within various patriarchal institutions,
along with her own often traumatic love life, ‘confirms Swanson as a figure
most associated with modern women in relation to concerns about sexual
compatibility within marriage’.7 In this context, Dejardins highlights the
influence of the British novelist and creator of the stylistic concept of ‘It’,
Elinor Glyn, in shaping the star’s persona so as to embody a seemingly
timeless yet modish form of femininity. Thus in 1921, Glyn opined to
Photoplay magazine that Swanson ‘has an old soul struggling to remember
its former lives – not young – young – like this Great America’.8 According
to Dejardins, the film Beyond the Rocks (1922, dir. Sam Wood) showcased
Swanson within a parenthesis of ‘timeless romance’. Its screenplay had
been written by Elinor Glyn and, like several other films, it located
Swanson within the milieu of France’s historical past. We shall see how
this uneasy fusion of the timeless and the contemporary, the American and
the European, bears great significance for a key image I shall examine.
An historical, if not classical, framework is implied in many of Swan-
son’s publicity images in this period. One image from the October 1921
issue of Photoplay presented a sketch of the star titled ‘Gloria Victis’
(Figure 8.1). The stylised portrait shows Swanson in profile looking left
and with head tilted heavenwards (in a pose that links the search for
divinity with innumerable contemporary ‘leaping’ gestures of physical
culture), clutching a flower whose fine scrolled lines echo both the star’s
dark locks of hair and the white marble capital of an Ionic column which
frames her face to the right. The title, perhaps, constituted a reference to a
celebrated sculpture created by Antonin Mercié in the 1870s – a represen-
tation of Fame or Hope honouring French soldiers who had fallen during
the Franco-Prussian War, an image of ‘glory to the defeated’ still influential
in the early 1920s.9 If there’s an implicit touch of antiquity in this image, it
is more evident in a promotional postcard for the 1922 Paramount film
Her Husband’s Trademark, directed by Sam Wood. True to her clothes-
horse image, the original script tells us that the character Swanson played
(Lois Berkeley) was ‘the best-dressed woman in New York’, and the star
was introduced to viewers singing the song ‘Does Beauty Rule the

7 8
Dejardins 2010: 116. Dejardins 2010: 116, citing Photoplay, 24 October 1930.
9
Taft 1921: 29. The title ‘Gloria Victis’ may also be a reference to a 1910 novel by John Ames
Mitchell.
128 Michael Williams

Figure 8.1 Sketch of Gloria Swanson entitled ‘Gloria Victis’ in Photoplay,

October 1921.

World?’10 The basic premise is that Lois is manipulated by her husband:

‘He uses Lois as sort of a foil to attract men, dressing her in the heighth
[sic] of fashion and finery. Her beauty is incomparable.’11 While the film’s
narrative evidently has significance for Swanson’s stardom at this time, it is
a publicity image used to market the film that I shall focus upon.
In a mauve-tinted postcard released to publicise Her Husband’s Trade-
mark, a still of Swanson is contained by a delicately drawn border that
quite literally frames her as a work of art for the viewer (Figure 8.2). Most
likely photographed by Donald Biddle Keyes, the image is like many he
captured of the star on the set in which she adopts distinctly statuesque
poses. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the photograph is the way the
drapery of Swanson’s gown conceals her forearms, leaving her upper arms
exposed as if fragments of what was once a sculptural whole, in the manner
of the Venus de Milo. Equally, the serpentine curve of the silk folds of her
gown obscures her legs thus again reproducing the form of the Venus; one
foot appears to rest gently on a step like the statue’s foot, unseen but not
lost. The pose is self-conscious; the gentle smile acknowledges, and perhaps

10
Her Husband’s Trademark, 1921, full script by Clara Beranger, held in the Margaret Herrick
Library, Los Angeles.
11
One-page synopsis held in Margaret Herrick Library, copied for file in 1941.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 129

Figure 8.2 Postcard featuring Gloria Swanson, released to publicise Her Husband’s
Trademark (1922).

approves, the look of the viewer at this carefully constructed display. As

I shall later argue, this image, where Swanson personifies the present status
of her celebrity by embodying a representation of the past (particularly,
here, of Venus), belongs to a long history of cinema’s art-historical
appropriations.
The implicit presence of Venus in Swanson’s pose, however, is cast in a
new light by another photograph of the same image published in the
September 1922 issue of Picture-Play magazine (Figure 8.3). In this glossy
full-page artwork, tinted in order to invite fans to cut it out and frame it,
the still is edited differently so as to accommodate a wider view of the set.
Significantly, it now reveals a statuette of the Venus de Milo stood upon a
wooden chest beside the star. This confirms the implicit presence of the
Greek goddess within the pose of Swanson’s body in the cropped image.
130 Michael Williams

Figure 8.3 Photograph of Gloria Swanson, published in the magazine Picture-Play,

September 1922.

One heavenly body acting upon another, perhaps.12 The star is placed in a
position of direct comparison to the reproduction of the Venus de Milo,
which can be viewed as an iconotext – a work of art within a text – that
comments on the star and her place within history as her stardom is in the
process of being constructed. Swanson replicates the pose of the statue; her
flowing gown now evidently mirrors the copy of the statue beside her. Each
icon reflects upon, and validates, the other. Swanson’s elaborately pat-
terned gown suggests texture, tactility and sumptuousness, and contrasts
with the harsh whiteness of the marble. The sculpture bathes Swanson in
reflected glory, and imparts perceived European sophistication onto the
American idol. It makes her seem more complete and present, and cer-
tainly fashioned for 1920s modernity in her streamlined, deco-esque
styling and body shape. The whole photograph might imply modernity’s
power to restore and better the ancients, and yet the fragmentary Venus
also reminds us that all idols, including Swanson, must fall.

12
Picture-Play, September 1922: 82.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 131

The iconic gravity signified in this meeting of an emblem of early

twentieth-century art and one of antiquity is complex. The relationship is
further problematised by our awareness that the Venus is a replica of a
statue that is itself identified as a Hellenistic copy of a lost Greek original.
Indeed, the Venus de Milo is better known from its copies than the
‘original’ that now stands in the Louvre, just as the actress Swanson was
mainly known through photographic copies of the kind Picture-Play
readers were gazing upon in this image. There are here already so many
evident gaps between the referent and the real that the photograph can be
read as a comment about the constructedness of stardom as a work of art,
and the structuring influence of classicism on film stardom as it developed
in the 1910s and 1920s (an influence that persists to this day).

Stars and sculpture

Since the beginnings of cinema, sculpture, and particularly that associated

with the art and myth of antiquity, has helped shape not only the figures
that would go on to become stars, but also a certain conceptual under-
standing of what cinema is. A guiding myth here is that of Pygmalion (best
known from Ovid’s Metamorphoses): the sculptor Pygmalion falls in love
with the statue he has made of Galatea, a work of art which is then brought
to life with the assistance of Venus. The myth became especially popular in
late nineteenth-century paintings, and was most famously portrayed by the
French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1890. But it gained added currency as
advances in photography, and then moving images, found felicitously self-
aggrandising possibilities in the mythic narrative of how life and idealised
beauty are animated from art itself.
The Pygmalion myth is discussed in Lynda Nead’s work The Haunted
Gallery (2007), where she argues that the ‘dream of motion haunts the
visual arts from the classical period to the present day’.13 Exploring the
often uncanny effects of moving images in painting, photography and film
at the start of the twentieth century, where the inanimate is seemingly
brought to life in what she terms the ‘haunted gallery’, Nead argues that
‘animation disturbs chronology, drawing the past into the present and
reintroducing pre-modern beliefs to modernity. This is the folded time of
the haunted gallery, where living pictures and moving statues confuse past,

13
Nead 2007: 45.
132 Michael Williams

present and future, and in which new technologies express archaic, magical
thinking.’14 While Nead does not apply her analysis directly to film stars, it
is clearly relevant to our examination of the Swanson image in Picture-
Play. While Swanson here does not move, she is the Venus brought to life.
Or, read another way, she is Galatea – a work of cinematic art now
standing before the viewer (who is positioned as Pygmalion?), while Venus
looks on, her work done.
One can find precursors for this Pygmalionism in accounts of late
Victorian theatrical stars. G. Hunt Jackson’s 1899 collection of poems
Modern Song from Classic Story took inspiration from classical myth and
history in examining contemporary life. One poem, entitled ‘Galatea:
A Farewell Ode to Miss Mary Anderson on Her Retirement from the
Stage’, uses language that could be understood as strongly proto-cinematic:

Like an entrancing vision of surprise

Fair Galatea has shone before our eyes,
Beautiful as a phantom from above
Who visits earth to teach a stainless love
...
Farewell, sweet GALATEA! tho’ lost to sight,
Our hearts will hold thee in a shrine of light.15

This elevated discourse of visions, divine beauty and radiant shining light
closely resembles the kind of imagery that constructed the glowing whiteness
of the pioneering female star Lillian Gish, with its powerful connotations
of idealised femininity and, indeed, race (as Richard Dyer has argued).16
Both aspects are present in the Swanson image. More specifically,
the ode to Anderson anticipates a discourse that emerged in film
fan-magazines in the late 1910s, which equated stars with works of
art, particularly sculpture. As Edgar Morin observed in his book The
Stars, a star’s beauty is ‘as eloquent as the beauty of statues’.17 Morin’s
phrase alludes not only to the ideals of ‘classical beauty’ by which stars
are valued, but also to a conception of stars themselves as works of art.
Indeed, although he does not develop at any length the innate classicism
implied by his words, Morin’s description of the endeavours of Holly-
wood stardom as ‘industrial Pygmalionism’ is apt indeed.18 Thus, however
playfully, the theme of stars as gods ‘coming to life’ allowed publicists

14 15 16
Nead 2007: 47. Hunt Jackson 1895: 40. See Dyer 1994.
17 18
Morin 2005: 131. Morin 2005: 42.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 133

to talk about them both as works of art and as figures, by association,

worthy of popular veneration.
While sculpture might seem an odd artistic medium to evoke for a figure
as dynamic as the motion picture star, it does help give shape to what was a
rather nebulous cultural form. Sculpture could provide a useful reference
point through which studios and audiences might negotiate encounters
with stars in that, among art forms, sculptures (as David Getsy puts it) ‘are
more self-evidently actual and obdurate things occupying space with their
mass’, giving physical form to something elemental or intangible.19 Indeed,
it is worth recalling here the characteristics of stardom as defined by John
Ellis (following the work of Richard Dyer):

Stars are incomplete images outside the cinema: the performance of the film is the
moment of completion of images in subsidiary circulation, in newspapers, fan-
zines, etc. Further, a paradox is present in these subsidiary forms. The star is at
once ordinary and extraordinary, available for desire and unattainable. This
paradox is repeated and intensified in cinema by the regime of presence-yet-
absence that is the filmic image.20

The sculptural metaphor, I would argue, whether a simile or metaphor in a

magazine article, or a work of art within a visual text as in the Swanson
image, is one way of conferring imaginative form and, above all, presence on
the star. To this, a classical association brings an added sense of historical
connection to the beauty, prestige and mythic resonances of antiquity but
also modern transcendence of those qualities. Of course, it could be said
that reference to the art and myth of antiquity in star discourse is mere
kitsch and promotional fluff conjured up by lazy copy-writers. However,
Morin cautions us not to take the popular divinisation of stars too lightly:

Of course the spectator knows that the star is human . . . of course the institutions
of the cult of the stars, in spite of their evident mystical character, remain profane:
clubs, magazines, correspondence, presents, and not temple, bible, litanies, offer-
ings; yet all the processes of divinization are in action beneath these lay forms, and
it is these processes that characterize the star. Parker Tyler expresses it perfectly:
“Anthropomorphic gods – the term must not be taken literally, but it is not merely
a manner of speaking.” 21

I agree with Tyler entirely. It is all too easy to dismiss star discourse
without properly interrogating why it can produce such a powerful effect
on cinemagoers and the wider cultural environment.

19 20
Getsy 2004: 10. Ellis 1992: 91.
21
Morin 2005: 85, citing Parker Tyler without specific attribution.
134 Michael Williams

If there are two classical deities most associated with stars in the 1920s,
they are Venus (or her Greek appellation, Aphrodite) and Apollo. Both
are received as mythic personifications of the finest in youth and beauty
of their respective genders: Apollo is the god of light and music (appro-
priate for film); while Amelia Arenas tells us that, since the Middle Ages,
Venus has become the ‘patroness of lovers and artists’.22 Each has
sculptural representations prominent in the canon of Western art. For
Apollo, it is the statue of the god that stands in the Vatican’s Belvedere
courtyard and was so prized by Johann Winckelmann, founder of
modern art history, that it is referenced in publicity for male stars such
as Ramon Novarro and Ivor Novello.23 As for Venus, if it was arguably
once the Venus of Medici in the seventeenth century, it is certainly now
the Venus de Milo, ever since its discovery on the island of Melos in 1820
and its later display in the Louvre. Critically endorsed, prestigiously
displayed, and widely disseminated, it is no coincidence that it is almost
invariably these two particular representations of Apollo and Venus that
star publicists evoke.
Bearing in mind the qualities of stardom elucidated by Ellis, one can see
why the Venus de Milo was a particularly resonant image when juxtaposed
to a star such as Swanson. This Venus is ordinary yet extraordinary and,
indeed, present yet absent. As Arenas puts it: ‘the Venus de Milo doesn’t
exist in our world. In fact, our fascination with her might well betray a
perverse impulse – a neurotic attraction to ambivalent love-objects, for
she’s in the same measure physically tangible and psychologically aloof.
She’s serene, grand, remote.’24 Continuing such contradictions, this Venus
is described as matronly because of her large hips, but also as maidenly
because of her small breasts.25 (A dual signification, incidentally, that
suited Swanson’s public image in 1922 – known as the mother of a
2-year-old child, and now in her second marriage, but also needing to appear
romantically available for her fans.) Arenas also suggests that the Venus
is ‘at once, a symbol of carnal anxiety and carnal longing, of erotic
potency and impotence’.26 This contradiction links back to the original
Greek myth as related by Hesiod, who tells that the goddess sprang
from the severed genitals of Saturn, making her (as Arenas rather
disconcertingly puts it) ‘the phallus that smiles’.27 The Venus image
thus plays with Swanson’s persona in ways that are both complex and

22 23
Arenas 2002: 37. For further discussion of Apollo in star discourse, see Williams 2003.
24 25 26 27
Arenas 2002: 36. Arenas 2002: 38. Arenas 2002: 45. Arenas 2002: 36.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 135

ambivalent, suiting her image as one of Hollywood’s most desired, and

most professionally powerful, female stars.
The statue of the Venus de Milo, while grand and remote, has an aura
of ambiguity and openness about it (according to Elizabeth Prettlejohn),
partly because the actual dating of its origins has been the cause of so
much controversy.28 Moreover, Prettlejohn suggests, ‘the absence of the
arms, which creates the distinctive silhouette so important to the statue’s
modern celebrity, also permits the most extravagant range of conjecture
about the figure’s action, and thus its subject matter and meaning’.29
These missing limbs have precipitated much speculation as to the correct
mythic context for the statue. The now preferred reading, founded on the
discovery of a fragment of the hand apparently bearing an apple, suggests
the myth of the Judgement of Paris. In that story, the goddess (as
Aphrodite) is victorious over her divine rivals Hera and Athena when
chosen as the most beautiful by the mortal Trojan Paris. As Kousser
suggests, the statue’s holding out of an apple to viewers would have
invited them to reflect on the decision made by Paris based on what
the goddesses represent: ‘What is best – political power, military success,
or love?’30 One might suggest that there is a ‘writerly’ quality (to borrow
Barthes’ phrase) to the Venus as she survives. One doesn’t know what
she is thinking or doing as her missing arms remove any narrative for
this frozen moment. Viewers are thus invited to project their own
readings upon her.31 While this Venus is set apart from us and appears
serene and remote, the vulnerability of the lost arms (as Gregory Curtis
concludes) ‘brings the goddess down to earth among us. Here she is
vulnerable as we are.’32
Framed with this Venus, Swanson is likewise grand and remote, befitting
her star persona. Yet perhaps she is more present than her sculptural
counterpart in that her context, personal identity and action (albeit frozen)
are more clearly defined. In her gaze towards, but not quite at, the viewer,
we are also invited to offer judgement about her as a star. And, so soon
after the Great War and its huge losses, politics, warfare and the value of
life and love would indeed have been pressing concerns for the readers of
Picture-Play.

28
Prettlejohn 2006: 230. The statue is now generally attributed to the Hellenistic era of 150–50
BCE, rather than an earlier period.
29 30
Prettlejohn 2006: 233. Kousser 2005: 227.
31 32
See, for example, Barthes 1975. Curtis 2005: 204.
136 Michael Williams

Taste, politics and desire

As a star, Swanson is as elusive a construct as the statue and, like it, appears
before us only as an image, a fragment. Yet, it is not only the arms of the
Venus de Milo that are missing but also her original decoration. Like other
sculptures of antiquity, the semi-translucent whiteness of her Parian
marble, so eulogised since the production of the Greek and Roman copies,
would have seemed only lifeless and unfinished to her creator. Embellish-
ments of paint, jewellery and a high polish would have been added in
antiquity,33 although this might seem like gilding the lily to modern eyes. It
is also the luminosity of the Venus that reflects divinity upon Swanson,
while its slightly tarnished whiteness flatters the rather more radiant skin
of the star. Moreover, the lustrousness of Swanson’s silken garments and
shining coiffure makes her seem the more vibrant of the pair, as if she had
appropriated the original decoration of the goddess for herself. In the
Judgement of Paris, Aphrodite must have been the most posed and con-
trived beauty, unlike the ‘unadorned’ Athena.34 In Picture-Play, Venus
seems to have swapped roles with Swanson. Likewise, while the actual
Venus de Milo is an oversized marble, befitting a major Olympian god-
dess,35 here she is reproduced in miniature, with Swanson rendered in
more impressive scale. Such hubristic conceits are no more than a continu-
ation of the use of antiquity in defining the tastes of the present for both
cultural and political ends. The Venus de Milo was evidently the right
image for 1922, for artist Thea Proctor observed a fad for acquiring
statuettes of the figure in Europe and the United States that very year,
placing the Swanson image at the heart of this meeting of the ancient and
the new.36
The Swanson image belongs to a long tradition, prominent during the
eighteenth century, where it became the society fashion to be painted ‘at
ease’ among statues and picturesque ruins. Like the 1922 image, such
paintings construct an iconography that invites contemplation of an
imagined connection in which figures of the present are framed within
the past, and vice versa, as if in an imaginary gallery. This sense of
continuity echoes the accounts of travellers on the Grand Tour, such as
that of John Northall. Writing of his 1752 tour of Italy, Northall asserts
that he experiences a thrilling frisson of being, in a sense, in the presence of
the idols of antiquity ‘standing as it were in their own persons before us’.

33 34 35
Curtis 2005: 169. Kousser 2005: 240. Kousser 2005: 239.
36
Carden-Coyne 2009: 242, citing Thea Proctor, The Home, 3 June 1922: 37.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 137

This sense of encounter, Northall concludes, ‘gives a man a cast of almost

2,000 years backwards, and mixes the past ages with the present’.37 This
was also the thinking behind the ‘Historical Style’ of Joshua Reynolds in the
mid eighteenth century, who deployed classical settings and contrapposto
poses to elevate his subjects, and himself, for a nascent celebrity culture.38
One example apposite for the Swanson image is Reynolds’ portrait of
‘Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton and Duchess of Argyll’ (dated
1760). As the catalogue of the Lady Lever Art Gallery (which owns the
painting) points out, Reynolds portrays Gunning wearing the robes of a
peeress, which grounds her in the contemporary, while the flowing white
drapery of her dress, along with her idealised features, give her ‘something of
the air of an antique sculpture’.39 To reinforce this implication, Reynolds
adds a pair of doves to her right, while to the left she rests her arms pointedly
upon a relief sculpture of the Judgement of Paris. As with Swanson, allusions
to Venus (whether direct or indirect) are much to the fore. Reynolds
achieved success because, as Martin Postle asserts, he realised that ‘he
needed to appeal to popular as well as polite culture, to transient tastes as
well as eternal truths’.40 Not so different then to the Hollywood film industry
attempting to construct stars as figures of the modern world but also of
timeless tradition, and as idols of desire but not indecency.
The Venus de Milo was swiftly incorporated into the canon of classical art
and, like its predecessors, was appropriated by those seeking cultural or
political advantage from its use. The story of its actual discovery in 1820 is
characterised as a drama of political subterfuge populated by colourful apoc-
ryphal anecdotes, as the Greek locals of Melos dealt with representatives of the
ruling Ottoman Empire and France, each seeking to claim the newly dis-
covered statue for the glory of their nation. France prevailed. The Venus was a
much-needed icon for the Louvre’s collection. Only four years before, the
museum had been required to repatriate the Apollo Belvedere to Italy,
whereas the British Museum had successfully acquired the Parthenon marbles
from Lord Elgin.41 It is fitting that Swanson would develop an association
with France in the 1920s, not only by virtue of the settings of some of her films
but also through marriage in 1925 to a French marquis. Swanson’s first trip to
Europe began in April 1922 when she sailed to Southampton on the SS

37 38
Haskell & Penny 2006: 50, quoting Northall 1766: 362. Postle 2005: 17.
39
‘Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton and Duchess of Argyll’, Lady Lever Art Gallery,
Liverpool, available online at www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/collections/paintings/
gallery1/elizabethgunning.aspx, accessed 18 April 2011.
40 41
Postle 2005: 17. Curtis 2005: 122.
138 Michael Williams

Homeric, and she later recorded her affinity for Paris in her autobiography,
along with her visit to the Louvre, which she attended with her lover Marshall
Neilan.42 If only serendipitously, the photograph of Swanson in the fan-
magazine thus functioned as a surrogate for her actual encounter with the
real Venus de Milo, a bridging of modern European sophistication and
Hollywood cultural imperialism, the old world and the new, and the story
of an illicit romance still kept secret from the press.
If antiquity was utilised to endow film stars with greater artistic authority,
that use formed part of a greater project to establish cinema itself as a worthy
cultural force with the power to address all classes. This broader utility is
apparent in a 1918 editorial from Photoplay, one of a series promoting
cinema as simultaneously modern and traditional but, above all, a new
democratic art form. In its leading editorial, ‘The Eternal Picture’, the
magazine opines: ‘Pictures are not only ancient as logical thought; they are
universal.’ Its claim makes a case for cinema as a vernacular form, and links
the art and artists of antiquity directly to ‘the motion picture’. It concludes:
‘The motion picture is not really new. It is a thing as old as the world, cast in
a new mold. It is something more: it is the first and only amalgamation of
science and art . . . [Science] found the immemorial picture a changeless
image – and gave it the breath of life.’43 The motion picture, and by
implication, the star, is here constructed as the apogee of the artistic evolu-
tion of classical art. Not only that, but it has the power to bestow life upon art
in the fashion, once more, of the Pygmalion myth. For knowing studio
publicists, this vernacular classicism was an expedient means to elevate and
internationalise the star image, drawing on audiences’ existing knowledge of
classical myth and iconography that they had gained from a still-prevalent
classical education. Indeed, fans and critics alike engaged in a frequently
competitive display (often enacted across the columns and letters pages of
fan magazines) of their awareness of such myths and their conduciveness to
the construction of images for particular stars.

Encounters with modernity

The Swanson image is thus one of many explicit or implicit comparisons

between stars and iconographic or poetic representations of classical
deities. Given their promotional function, such pieces engaged in what

42
Swanson 1982: 177. 43
‘The Eternal Picture’, Photoplay, December 1918: 23.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 139

I have already indicated to be a paradoxical manoeuvre: drawing upon the

historical and artistic gravitas of the most highly valorised emblems of
antiquity, while attempting to position the star at a still higher level of
value. So the theme of bettering, as well as merely embodying, the antique
is a favourite in star publicity. One article in British fan-magazine Picture-
goer proclaimed the Australian-born swimming star Annette Kellermann
to be ‘The Modern Venus’ in 1917. Supporting this claim with the reported
views of New York City College students on ‘the art of antiquity’, the article
gleefully notes that:

Every one of them repudiated the classic Venus de Milo and voted Annette
Kellermann the ideal womanly form. They declared the figure of Miss Kellermann
featuring in William Fox’s Daughter of the Gods should be perpetuated to posterity
in bronze and marble as the symbol of perfection in feminine development. They
insisted that her figure represents and interprets the modern spirit; that is ‘lithe
and triumphant’, whereas the Venus of antiquity is a ‘thick-waisted Greek’, and not
a fit pattern to mould the daughters of Britain and America.44

This line of flattering comparison is typical of Kellermann’s publicity and

the reception of such films as Daughter of the Gods (Herbert Brenon, 1916)
and Venus of the South Seas (James R. Sullivan, 1924). The specific strategy
here to disparage the Venus de Milo gives support to the argument of Ina
Zweiniger-Bargielowska on shifts towards an increasingly slim female ideal
in the post-war period: ‘This new fashionable figure contrasted not only
with the corseted hourglass silhouette of the Edwardian era, but also that of
Venus de Milo. In 1918 Kellermann was one of the earliest commentators
to dismiss the Venus as “rather fat” and she now claimed that her meas-
urements resembled the slimmer Venus di Medici.’45 While this explains
the willingness of a star like Swanson to be seen to surpass the Venus de
Milo in her vital measurements (much as a later 1930 magazine feature
tabulated the vital statistics of the statue and Garbo to prove how ‘divine’
the star was in comparison),46 the statue from Melos was not to be usurped
so easily by either her Medici rival or any cinematic pretenders.
Indeed, at least in film fan magazines, the Venus de Milo continued to
provide a benchmark of female stardom, and a convenient template for
advertisers. Exploiting psychology ever more strongly, advertisers knew
that the ideal specimens of physical ‘perfection’ in this period of

44
‘Annette – the Modern Venus!’ Picturegoer, 5 May 1917: 123.
45
Zweiniger-Bargielowska 2011: 307, citing Kellermann 1918: 24–6 and 47–9.
46
The 1930 article, most likely from Photoplay, is reproduced in Broman 1991: 10.
140 Michael Williams

Figure 8.4 ‘Ideals of Beauty’, Photoplay, July 1926.

burgeoning physical culture produced feelings of personal inadequacy in

consumers which could be commercially lucrative.47 Palmolive’s 1926
‘Ideals of Beauty’ campaign in Photoplay, for example, promoted its soap
in a full-page colour image where a young woman gazes longingly upon a
statuette of the Venus de Milo: the former is labelled ‘That Schoolgirl
Complexion’, the latter ‘Physical Perfection’ (Figure 8.4).48 The perfection
of a priceless work of art can apparently be achieved through the purchase
of the ten-cent bar, while this cheapness is offset by the reassurance that it
is the second-best-selling soap of ‘beauty-wise Paris’. The woman’s tilt of
the head gently echoes that of the statue, while the radiant pinks of her skin
connote, as in the Swanson image, health and vitality as opposed to the
cold whiteness of the marble Venus. Placed knowingly in magazines amid
features such as the one on Swanson, such advertisements completed the

47
For discussion of trends in advertising and Hollywood ideals of youth, see Addison 2006: 3–25.
48
‘Ideals of Beauty’, Photoplay, July 1926: 89.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 141

circle of high art, popular culture and consumerism. Swanson and Venus
change places with the turn of a page.
It is clear that the ancient gains an added value in collision with the
modern. What helps the Venus de Milo, and perhaps the reason also why it
resonates in such a minor key, is that although it is presented in these
examples as an authentic and original work of antiquity, it is already
inscribed with the signs of modernity. It was already neoclassical in
antiquity. Kousser goes so far as to call the statue a ‘deliberately retrospective’
work of art, designed to emulate selectively much earlier representations
of Venus (the ‘Aphrodite of Capua’ type), producing a form ‘filtered
through a Hellenistic sensibility’ which modulates the details of drapery
and flesh. ‘The end result’, Kousser argues, ‘was a visually compelling work
that appeared deeply rooted in the past but also vividly contemporary.’49
Even 2,000 years ago, the Venus was deeply rooted in the past. Once you
add to this its damaged appearance and a murky history of restorations
since its discovery, the statue truly bears the scars of both the ancient world
and a series of encounters with the new. The two Swanson images,
concealing and revealing Venus, point to the structuring (if sometimes
off-screen) influence of classical aesthetics on Hollywood and European
stardom. This star’s body is held poised between the ideal and the dam-
aged, as it is between high art and kitsch, but it is often aspirational, and
used to suggest prestige through the patina of authenticity. Yet as much as
it idealises whole, perfected bodies, the classical form often connotes the
opposite: loss, damage and trauma. And, indeed, each aspect at once masks
and reveals the other.

Fragments and ruins

No contemplation of the evident damage to the Venus de Milo can be

undertaken without consciousness of the sense of loss that frequently
attends encounters with classical antiquity. The accidental survival of its
relics and the serendipity of their rediscovery as fragments and ruins,
particularly since the eighteenth century, more than anything else has
shaped our reception of those cultures and our relationship to them. In
the wake of the First World War, the iconography of the devastated
civilisations of the past became strangely resonant.50 Antiquity may

49
Kousser 2005: 238.
50
For an overview of the cultural impact of many of these discoveries, see Ceram 2001.
142 Michael Williams

endure, but it is inherently fragile, and this aspect underscores its recep-
tion, whatever advertisers would like their consumers to believe. Indeed,
this damage is the core to its appeal, especially with regard to the Venus de
Milo. As Arenas puts it, ‘If most Venuses are too damaged to compete with
the Venus de Milo, those that remain unharmed are, in a sense, not
damaged enough.’51 This brokenness Arenas likens to a fetish, hence the
fascination with the Venus of surrealists such as Dali during the 1920s and
30s. The use of costume to ‘break’ the body of Swanson into parts in her
portrait with Venus could also be read in this way. Indeed, the ‘Gloria
Victis’ image of Swanson discussed earlier bears some resemblance to
artwork by photographer (and advertiser) Man Ray in this period. En
plaine occultation de Vénus represents the head of the goddess gazing in
semi-profile past the abstract swirl of an Ionic column.52 Such images
attest to the currency of the classical and its capacity to foreground themes
of the broken and the fetishised, thus foregrounding arguably more sub-
versive readings of the classical image which might otherwise be left
unspoken. Such aspects have been pursued in the work of later artists such
as Mary Duffy and Alison Lapper, who have used classical art to decon-
struct contemporary notions of beauty, disability and sexuality.53
As all this implies, the post-war context of the Swanson image is crucial.
Ana Carden-Coyne has explored the use of classicism and modernism
during and after the First World War, highlighting the use of antiquity
iconographically to restore the image of the broken male body and shape
the ideal female form. On the basis of examples like those discussed here,
rather than finding a ‘radical gulf between old and new worlds’, Carden-
Coyne finds connections made between the classical and the modern. After
the war, she argues, ‘Grief and despair were deeply felt, and yet so too were
ideals of rebuilding civilisation.’54 We thus might view the broken nature of
the Venus in the Swanson image as acknowledgement of such collective
pain and, yet, an ability to triumph over it (‘Gloria Victis’, perhaps).
Carden-Coyne continues with a catalogue to which film stars should be
added: ‘Embedded in this nostalgia for an invented, distant past was a
desire to build a better future. Perfection of the classical body through the
eyes of the modern represents a remarkable effort of post-war culture.
Rehabilitators, dancers, beauticians, bodybuilders, sporting men and
women, not just Olympians, pursued this perfection.’55 In this context,
alongside an athletic ‘New Diana’ type that was attributed to film stars

51 52 53
Arenas 2002: 36. Arenas 2002: 43. Prettlejohn 2006: 241.
54 55
Carden-Coyne 2009: 11. Carden-Coyne 2009: 26–7.
 Gloria Swanson as Venus 143

less often, Carden-Coyne discusses the ‘New Venus’. She labels the ‘New
Venus’ as a meeting of ‘heterosexual maturity with sublime aesthetics and
modern fashion’;56 an excellent match for Swanson’s persona.
Analysis of the Swanson photograph testifies to the power of the star
image in silent cinema, as well as its attendant mythologies. It is an image
that explains the mechanisms of stardom. References to classical antiquity
flattered the interest, accumulated knowledge and assumed discernment of
the audience who appreciated the stars so carefully constructed for them;
provided an imaginative means of interacting with stars and other follow-
ers or fans; and contributed to the elevation of cinema itself as an art form.
After the First World War in particular, references to antiquity provided
an ideal imaginative template for transposing the art that represents the
ancient idols, and their Grand Tour pretenders, into the new pantheons of
the picture-palace. Classical imagery, often sculptural, presented a way of
re-evaluating the present against the past, of scrutinising tensions between
stasis and action, the mythic, real and ideal, the quotidian and the univer-
sal, the original and the copy, and the present and the absent. The image of
Swanson with, and indeed as, Venus was thus neither trivial nor just a
‘manner of speaking’. Placing celebrity images within the parenthesis of
antiquity in this way was a means to appeal to both transient tastes and
eternal truths (as it was for Reynolds), and belongs as much to the
reception of antiquity as it does to that of stars.
Towards the late 1920s, the use of classicism in star iconography was
perhaps at its most intense but its contradictions were often exposed and
irony more often emphasised. Following the death of Rudolph Valentino
as well as a series of star scandals, audiences, led by the press, became at
least partly disillusioned with the idealising mythology that had been
favoured before. A Photoplay editorial in November 1928 put it bluntly:
‘Idol worship is no more. There are no longer any gods and goddesses on
the screen; just human beings of varying degrees of interest. PHOTO-
PLAY’s circulation is increasing because this magazine is not trying to
create gods and goddesses; it is concerned with the men and women of the
screen and their pictures.’57 While the era of screen gods and goddesses
was far from over, and is still present at least as an undercurrent in
contemporary stardom, it is nonetheless significant that Photoplay’s fore-
telling of its end occurred at another key moment in cinema history. As
synchronised sound technology was being rolled out to much controversy,

56 57
Carden-Coyne 2009: 241. Quirk 1928.
144 Michael Williams

a change was taking place in the nature of stardom. The heightened star
mythology built up by fan magazines, studio publicists and fan poetry
had filled the imaginative realm created by the great silent image witnessed
in a music-filled auditorium. When stars spoke, it rooted them more firmly
in space and time. Stars were still excessive constructs, of course, but the
relationship to their audience had changed. Moreover, the star system was
now firmly established, and the guiding forms of the older arts could
perhaps step back into the wings, although they remain an influence to
this day.
9 | Homer in silent cinema
pantelis michelakis

In 1995, forty directors from around the world participated in a project

commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the first motion picture by
the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière. They were asked to use the film
camera patented by the Lumière Brothers to produce a short film each, of
no more than 52 seconds in length, without synchronous sound, and to
confine themselves to only three takes. Theo Angelopoulos participated
with a sequence in which Odysseus wakes up on a shore he does not
recognise, approaches the camera, and stares into it with puzzlement
(Figure 9.1).1 The title that introduces the sequence situates it in Ithaca,
quoting Odysseus’ first words upon arrival at his homeland in Odyssey,
book 13. It reads: ‘Ulysses: “I am lost! In what foreign land have I arrived
again?” Homer’s Odyssey.’ In contrast to the Odyssey itself, where an
Odysseus well looked after by the Phaeacians wakes up on a sandy shore
of his homeland covered in mist, the Odysseus of this sequence appears
shipwrecked, and the shore he finds himself on is rocky and bathed in
bright daylight. What does Odysseus look at when looking in puzzlement
into the camera of the Lumière Brothers? Does he look at a material object
at odds with the natural landscape? At an object symbolising the strange-
ness of the landscape that will turn out to be his homeland? At his own
reflection in the lens of the camera? Does he try to see through the camera,
at the spectators, in the way that the actors of early cinema sometimes
acknowledge the presence of an audience? Is Odysseus an ancient hero on
modern shores, or is the modern spectator transferred to the ancient
shores of Ithaca? Or is the modern spectator, like Odysseus, stranded on
the alien shores of the so-called ‘primitive’ modes of acting and represen-
tation of early cinema?2 The sequence focuses not only on the mechanical
gaze of the camera but on the interaction between what the camera sees,
what the actor in front of the camera sees, and what the spectator sees. And
it does so through the dramatisation of a seminal scene of misrecognition,

1
See Winkler 2009a: 238–301.
2
For the identification of early cinema as ‘primitive’, see recently Gaudreault 2006 and Strauven
2006b. 145
146 Pantelis Michelakis

Figure 9.1 Odysseus’ arrival in Ithaca in T. Angelopoulos’ contribution to the film

collection Lumière & Company (1996).

of seeing but failing to recognise what should be familiar. The sequence,

then, provides a reflection on what is at stake in returning to the origins of
both cinema and Western literature. At a single stroke, the sequence
renders alien one of the most canonical scenes of a canonical epic and
one of the founding moments of the most popular medium of the twenti-
eth century. At the same time it conflates the two as if they were always
inseparable. Odysseus, it seems to suggest, is like the spectators who have
always been at home in cinema even if, or especially when, their encounter
with the origins of the medium triggers emotions more akin to the
alienation of exile.
Angelopoulos’ vision of the confluence of the origins of cinema and of
Western literature does not display any awareness of the films discussed
in this chapter. It nevertheless provides a useful starting point for think-
ing about some of the promises and hopes with which cinema, as a new
art form at the turn of the twentieth century, could approach Homer.
Discussions of the reception history of Homer in cinema usually begin
with the earliest commercially available films on the subject which date
back to the 1950s. Earlier films on the fall of Troy and on Odysseus’
travels and return to Ithaca are usually dismissed as ‘non-Homeric’ or are
confined to passing references in online filmographies and in the foot-
notes of scholarly books and articles.3 However, by the advent of syn-
chronised sound in the late 1920s, more than a dozen films had been
produced across Europe and North America on, or at least had evoked,

3
This holds true even for recent studies such as Paglia 1997, Solomon 2007, Winkler 2007b,
Nisbet 2008 and Pomeroy 2008.
 Homer in silent cinema 147

Troy and Odysseus. Some of them are now lost but those that have
survived, together with press reviews, posters, production stills and other
ephemera testify to a whole chapter in the cinematic history of Homer
that has hitherto been neglected. What follows is an attempt to situate
silent films concerned with Homer’s poems in relation to the larger
reception of Homeric epic but also in relation to the cinematic genre
of film epic. Situating the films under discussion in relation to these
two frameworks may seem an obvious move, but, as Angelopoulos’
short film shows, the implications of such a ‘homecoming’ for both the
films themselves and for the frameworks concerned requires careful
consideration.
Silent films on early Greek epic vary in length from the one-minute
Judgment of Paris which was produced in France in 1902 (Le jugement de
Pâris, dir. Georges Hatot) to the forty-minute Odyssey, produced in Italy in
1911 (Odissea, dir. Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe de Liguoro and Adolfo
Padovan), and the more than three-hour-long Helen, produced in
Germany in 1924 (Helena, dir. Manfred Noa). The earliest among these
films, the Judgment of Paris and the Island of Calypso: Ulysses and the
Giant Polyphemus (L’île de Calypso: Ulysse et le géant Polyphème, France,
1905, dir. Georges Méliès) can be seen as examples of how early cinema uses
classical mythology as a platform for the display of optical tricks. Themes
such as a journey, revenge, or marital life are central to the half-dozen films
whose titles evoke the Odyssey and Odysseus but whose subject is distinct-
ively modern: An Odyssey of the North (USA, 1914, dir. Hobart Bosworth),
A Polynesian Odyssey (USA, 1921, dir. Burton Holmes), Circe, the
Enchantress (USA, 1924, dir. Robert Z. Leonard) and the two films entitled
The Return of Odysseus produced in 1918 (Die Heimkehr des Odysseus,
Germany, dir. Rudolf Biebrach) and 1922 (Die Heimkehr des Odysseus,
Germany, dir. Max Obal) respectively. At least two films demonstrate the
strong impact on early cinema of theatre: the 1909 Return of Ulysses (Le
Retour d’Ulysse, France, dir. André Calmettes) and the 1913 King Menelaus
at the Movies (König Menelaus im Kino, Austria, 1913, dir. Hans Otto
Löwenstein). And two films use parody and burlesque to revisit the
associations of Greek epic in early cinema with action and romance: King
Menelaus at the Movies and The Private Life of Helen of Troy (USA, 1927,
dir. A. Korda). A single chapter cannot do justice to the many issues raised
by this diverse body of films, but under the headings of epic film and
Homeric epic it can at least begin to explore how silent film based on
Homeric themes challenges common assumptions both about epic as a
film genre and about the reception history of Homer.
148 Pantelis Michelakis

Epic film

The films which stand out in terms of their artistic ambition, monumental
scale and wide distribution in numerous countries across Europe and
North America are the Italian Fall of Troy of 1911 (La caduta di Troia,
dir. Luigi Romano Borgnetto and Giovanni Pastrone), the Italian Odyssey
of the same year and the German Helen of 1924 (both mentioned above).
Scenes with hundreds of extras, massive sets, siege engines, naval battles,
aerial shots of chariot races, and special effects ranging from artificial rain
to man-eating monsters dominate the three films from beginning to end
(Figures 9.2 and 9.3). In Helen the title character arrives in Troy on a
chariot drawn by lions, and in The Fall of Troy she is transported through
the ether in a giant, Botticelli-style seashell pulled by little Cupids. The
strong presence of spectacle, however, does not detract from the romance
which in all three cases plays an instrumental role in the construction of
the narrative. As the foreword in the press book of Helen puts it, ‘While
presenting to you Homeric combats on land and at sea with mighty

Figure 9.2 French poster for Manfred Noa’s film Helena (1924), released in France as Le siège de Troie.
 Homer in silent cinema 149

Figure 9.3 Odysseus’ ship and its encounter with Scylla in Francesco Bertolini,
Giuseppe de Liguoro and Adolfo Padovan’s Odissea (1911).

warriors and engines of war, in scenes and settings on a scale so colossal as

to defy description, yet throughout the wonderful love story of Helen and
Paris predominates.’4
The scale and ambition of these films have an aggressive and sensational
publicity campaign to match. ‘Never in the history of the film business’,
concludes a review of The Odyssey, ‘has such an elaborate advertising
campaign been outlined . . . We have no hesitancy in saying that no motion
picture has ever been so thoroughly advertised and never was so much
well-designed advertising matter placed at the disposal of the state right
buyer.’5 The advertising campaign for The Odyssey was assigned to no
other than Frank Winch, the publicity organiser of the Buffalo Bill show,
who was now invited to transfer his entrepreneurial skills to the new and
promising film industry.6 Twenty million pieces of printed matter were
claimed to have been produced ‘for the exploitation of “The Odyssey”’
which included programmes, music scores, illustrated souvenir booklets
with the story of the Odyssey, paperback, cloth and leather-bound copies of
‘the greatest epic poem in all literature’ in Greek or English, colour posters,
postcards announcing the playing date of The Odyssey (‘to be filled in’) and
even printed copies of a lecture to accompany the screen viewing (‘com-
prehensive, elegant and in simple language’).7 The advertising campaign
also included lobby displays of life-size photos as well as grottoes, stucco

4
From the ‘Foreword’ of the press book of the film held in the collections of the British National
Film Archive.
5 6
The Moving Picture World, 17 February 1912: 590. Ibid.
7
Quotes from The Moving Picture World, 24 February 1912: 706.
150 Pantelis Michelakis

effects, lighting effects, plaster busts of Homer, Grecian costumes for

lecturers and glass-front folding frames.8 In addition to all this, there were
letters collected ‘from every university president in America commending
the “Odyssey” as a masterpiece of world’s literature’, and a nationwide
essay competition was launched, with ‘a cash prize of $100 for the best
thousand-word essay on the greatest of all epic poems’ in which a hundred
thousand students were supposed to have taken part.9 As an advertisement
in a trade journal put it, probably without irony and certainly without
exaggeration, ‘there is no limit to the advertising possibilities that you may
take advantage of’.10
It may be tempting to see the issues of length, spectacle, romance and
publicity as defining the early cinematic reception of Homer in the way
that they shaped ‘the epic film’ of the Hollywood industry of the 1950s and
1960s, or the European low-budget, ‘sword-and-sandal’ films of the same
period, or even the more recent revival of epic cinema since Ridley Scott’s
Gladiator (2000). However this would be both anachronistic and reductive,
doing little justice not only to the many films mentioned above that would
be excluded from such an interpretative scheme but also to those that
would be included. American film audiences first saw the journeys of
Odysseus and the fall of Troy in imported, European productions which
predated the cinemascope epics of Hollywood by half a century. In the
period before the emergence of the historical epics of D. W. Griffith, this
encounter with imported productions generated enthusiasm and admir-
ation, rather than the derision customarily levelled at non-American cold-
war attempts to deal with epic on film. Generically too, the diversity of the
films under consideration speaks in favour of a more inclusive and flexible
definition of the terms ‘Homeric’ and ‘epic’ than those provided by epic
film (whether old or new). The term ‘epic’ was first introduced as a generic
title for films in 1911,11 a year when the novelty and ambition of multi-reel
films was thematically channelled not through great historical events of the
past but directly through a literary tradition of epic poems stretching back
to ancient Greece.
In the first three decades of cinema ‘Homer’ not only meant a combination
of the monumental, the antiquarian and the ethical (i.e. the trademark

8 9
Ibid. The Moving Picture World, 17 February 1912: 584.
10
The Moving Picture World, 10 February 1912: 504.
11
On the origins of the use of the term ‘epic’ as a generic label in film criticism, see Hall & Neale
2010: 23. On film epic between history and the canon of Western literary epic, see Paul 2013.
 Homer in silent cinema 151

qualities of what was to become ‘film epic’).12 ‘Homer’ also embraced

trick cinematography, eroticism, fantasy and, on occasion, parody and
burlesque. In silent cinema, the great civilisations of the past communi-
cated not only ‘via the peaks’, as Deleuze writes about film epics, drawing
on Nietzsche’s conception of history as a series of great moments.13 They
also communicated via the troughs of the mundane, the contingent and the
everyday. Consider, for instance, the search for a lost manuscript entitled
‘Helen of Troy’ in The Target of Dreams (USA, 1916, Knickerbocker Star
Features) or the presence of a manicurist possessing the beauty of Helen of
Troy in Rigadin and the Pretty Manicurist (Rigadin et la jolie manicure,
France, 1915, dir. Georges Monca), or even the extended use of the word
‘Odyssey’ to describe the adventures of a countryman in a metropolis
(Odyssée d’un paysan à Paris, France, 1905, dir. Charles-Lucien Lépine),
of an entomologist in the army (L’Odyssée d’un savant, Pathé, France,
1908), of a spaceship (L’Odyssée de la voiture astral, France, 1905, dir.
Georges Méliès) and even of a meal (Odissea di una comparsa, Italy, 1909,
dir. Romolo Bacchini).
In terms of narrative development too, the ‘free-wheeling approach to
plot material from the Iliad’14 and the Odyssey is striking when compared to
classical Hollywood or more recent attitudes of film epic towards authenti-
city and fidelity. For instance, in The Private Life of Helen of Troy, Helen’s
return to Sparta at the end of the film is only the beginning of new erotic
adventures for her and of a decision by Menelaus to ignore her.15 In The Fall
of Troy, the central Homeric heroes Achilles, Agamemnon and Odysseus are
all made irrelevant, and they are not even introduced by name. In Helen,
Achilles and Hector are both in love with Helen, Patroclus is in love with
Achilles, Paris unsuccessfully tries to kill Priam with the poisoned arrows
meant for Achilles, and, as Troy is in flames, Priam attempts to poison Helen
to appease the gods before drinking the poisonous potion himself. Moving
beyond play with the Homeric source material, in what follows I offer three
particularly telling examples of how silent films related to Homer challenge
homogenising assumptions about epic as a film genre.
Epic films are often seen as vehicles for community-building narratives,
especially for national narratives as ‘expressions of the myth-making
impulse at the core of national identity’.16 More often than not, they are

12
See especially Deleuze 1986: 152–5, Sobchack 1990, Burgoyne 2011a and Wyke in this volume.
13
Nietzsche [1874] 1980.
14
Winkler 2007b: 205 with reference to the 1931 Queen of Sparta (USA).
15 16
See further Malamud in this volume. Burgoyne 2011b: 83.
152 Pantelis Michelakis

perceived as ‘effective instruments of ideological control which, through

spectacular and engaging historical reconstructions, manipulate their audi-
ences to assent to a celebratory model of national identity’.17 Historical
epics of the silent era are not always exempt from this as the hegemonist
tendencies of Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (Italy, 1914) and D. W. Griffith’s
Intolerance (USA, 1916) suggest.18 Manfred Noa’s Helen (1924) can be
seen as participating in a similar search for a national epic through the
ancient Greeks, a distinctly German epic in this case, such as those we find
in the works of G. W. F. Hegel and Richard Wagner, associated with the
Hellenisation of ‘the entire genre of epic and, through this, German
national identity’.19 However, Helen does not produce a nostalgic longing
for heroic achievements of a glorious past. The intertitles convey a sense of
being spoken for everyone, ‘from a stance of sure knowledge’20 of the kind
associated with the epic narrator of later epic films. Yet, at the same time,
they also convey a sense of doom not normally expected from the epic
narrator. In this sense, Helen envisages history as tragedy rather than
romance, with its motivating forces being guilt, ambition, hate and fear.
Grave mistakes are committed out of the best motives and personal
decisions turn out to have unintended and uncontrollable consequences
for the community: Menelaus forces Helen against her will to travel to the
games in honour of the most beautiful Greek woman, which leads to his
own rivalry with Achilles and to the night that Helen spends with Paris in
the temple of Aphrodite. Helen sleeps with Paris persuaded she gives
herself to a god and fails to listen to his warnings that he is a simple
shepherd. She then follows Paris to Troy out of shame for having slept with
him, rather than out of love. Paris kills Achilles not because he wants to –
in fact Helen asks him not to – but because Helen is the reward for which
other archers are keen to shoot Achilles if he does not. Paris does not alert
the celebrating Trojans to the Greeks inside the Trojan horse in order to
prove to Helen that, for once, he can do what she asks him to do.
Priam’s role as the patriarch who holds absolute power over the life of
his children and subjects, Paris’ Oedipal relation with him, Helen as an
object of desire, and the death and devastation with which the film ends
play out a complex web of intergenerational and gender relations that are
in crisis. The film was made during a time when the aftershocks of the

17
Wyke 1997: 22.
18
On Cabiria, see, for instance, Wyke 1997: 18–21, Winkler 2009b: 94–121 and Dorgerloh in this
volume, with further bibliography. On Intolerance, see Hansen 1991: 173–98.
19 20
Foster 2010: 34. Burgoyne 2011a: 10.
 Homer in silent cinema 153

German defeat and loss in the Great War were felt most strongly. Like
other German films of the period, it can be seen as ‘part of a widespread
discourse that sought to work through the traumatic experience of war and
national defeat’,21 evoking ‘fear of invasion and injury’, and exuding ‘a
sense of paranoia and panic’.22 If epic films of both the silent era and of
later periods commonly help celebrate an imperial and expansionist
national identity, Helen does not provide its spectators with symbolic
solutions to troubling experiences brought about by war and military
defeat. Although, like other war films or history films of the period, it is
interested in authenticity, and, like war films, adventure films or melo-
dramas, it plays with generic formulas in various ways, it also features
expressionistic and futuristic costumes, harsh lighting effects, fragmented
or unexpected story lines, and extreme psychological states triggered by
defeat, deceit and betrayal. Offering a strong sense that decline is inevitable
and that there is ‘no choice other than the cataclysm of anarchy or a
tyrannical regime’,23 it provides a preoccupation with national history which
is openly political, yet focused on the ‘grandeur of doom’,24 devoid of the
celebratory political tone usually associated with the canon of film epic.
If epic films are often seen as vehicles for community-building narra-
tives, and their critical success depends on their ability to appeal to critics
normally keen to rehearse arguments for their ‘political bad faith and
cultural vulgarity’,25 their commercial success depends largely on their
ability to appeal to broader, international audiences. Accounting for both
critics and international audiences can cause considerable friction between
(and within) film narratives and the promotional discourses that surround
them. The critical acclaim and international success of the 1911 Odyssey
provides a notable exception to this rule. ‘The outlook is for an indefinite
run for these reels’, reads a report from a cinema in Boston on the
phenomenal success of the film in the USA.26 The film appeals equally
‘to mass and class’, notes another review from New York.27 All types of
spectators were targeted by the film’s immense publicity discussed above,
from right-holders and exhibitors to academics (‘Endorsed by every Col-
lege and University Professor in America’, reads an advertisement for the
film),28 librarians (‘The magnificent motion picture portrayal . . . roused an

21 22 23
Kaes 2009: 146. Kaes 2009: 3. Kracauer [1947] 2004: 88.
24 25
See Kracauer [1947] 2004: 88. Burgoyne 2011a: 3.
26
The Moving Picture World, 11 May 1912: 552.
27
The Moving Picture World, 30 March 1912: 1194.
28
The Moving Picture World, 30 March 1912: 1193.
154 Pantelis Michelakis

interest in this immortal book which was felt by the librarians of every city
where it played’),29 lovers of sensational melodrama (who ‘will delight in
the spirited story of the wanderings of Ulysses’)30 and, last but not least,
‘schools and colleges, the churches and lyceums’.31 ‘Make your appeal
direct to the children – and bless the law that requires the child to be
accompanied by an adult’, as an article for exhibitors puts it succinctly.32
According to the film’s publicity, invitations to the American premiere of
the film were sent even to ‘President Taft, Col. Roosevelt, Attorney General
Wickersham and the Principals of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell and
Columbia Universities’.33
In a review article published in the Moving Picture World, the American
film lecturer and trade journal critic W. Stephen Bush undertook to
explain how a foreign film could meet with such critical acclaim and
commercial success.34 Bush claims that The Odyssey provides education
in a very broad sense that combines entertainment and instruction. He
argues that, as such, the film appeals to different communities of specta-
tors, including ‘readers’ and ‘students’ of Homer on the one hand and ‘the
masses’ or ‘general public’ on the other hand, in a way that ‘leaves the critic
silent in admiration’. The agency of the film is powerful, he claims,
marking ‘a new epoch in the history of the motion picture as an actor in
education’. But Bush also makes the film mediate invisibly between ‘every
human being’ and ‘the genius of Homer’ through ‘feeling’, ‘influence’ and
the ‘beauty of form’. And he proceeds by establishing an analogy between
the ‘primitive’ audience of Homer ‘who knew nothing of libraries and of
all the aids of modern education and who had to be moved chiefly by
the beauty of form’ and ‘the masses of the people today’, making a case for
the power of aesthetics to move peoples across social divides, ages and art
forms. On top of these broad claims and generalisations, Bush makes
the even bolder claim that Homer, in his cinematic guise, is the educator of
all America. That such a claim about the educational power of cinema could
be made with the help of a foreign film that was setting the benchmark for
the nascent national industry is quite unique in the history of American
cinema. There is no room here for the ambivalence shown by critics towards
cinema’s preoccupation with history and its aspirations to cultural authority

29
The Moving Picture World, 2 May 1914: 643.
30 31
The Moving Picture World, 24 February 1912: 666. Ibid.
32
The Moving Picture World, 9 March 1912: 860.
33
The Moving Picture World, 10 February 1912: 486.
34
The Moving Picture World, 16 March 1912: 941–2. On Bush and his contributions to the critical
function of the trade press from 1908 to 1916 see Stromgren 1988.
 Homer in silent cinema 155

that we find in the post-Second World War period, where, ‘blurring the
line between legitimate culture and popular forms, the epic embodied the
worst excesses of middlebrow culture’.35 Nor do we find here any of the
post-war derision of European epics for their ‘inauthenticity’ and ‘betrayal
of European high-art traditions’ or scorn for their transnational orientation.36
The Odyssey does not focus thematically on the national motifs of much
epic cinema such as ‘the legend of a people, the battles and treaties that
define a sacred landscape, and the emergence of particular heroic and
sainted figures’.37 Instead it features themes related to the individual, to
travelling to foreign lands, to family values and homecoming. Free of
geographically or culturally-specific references, it becomes suitable for
circulation across and beyond national and cultural boundaries. It is
precisely through the fact that this silent epic does not showcase a glorious
national history or a common religion, language or ethnic background that
it becomes central in debates about cinema and its ability to bring together
a socially and culturally heterogeneous body of spectators in the name of a
common past and a shared identity.
While Helen homogenises its national audiences as victims, The Odyssey
homogenises its international audiences as an educated middle class
steeped in the Western literary canon. If the sense of belonging fostered
by Helen is based on a political understanding of the canon that refuses to
be celebratory, The Odyssey is based on the cultural and aesthetic founda-
tions of the canon. Méliès’ Island of Calypso: Ulysses and the Giant
Polyphemus is a short film made several years before the consolidation of the
national cinemas of the late 1910s and the 1920s and before the emergence
of the first multi-reel blockbusters of the early 1910s. However, its preoccupa-
tion with trick cinematography provides a useful entry point for thinking
about another feature of film epic, namely the concept of spectacle. Epic films
offer their spectators an immersive spectacle to be enjoyed from a close but
still safe distance. At least as early as The Fall of Troy, the ‘balcony of history’38
becomes the literal balcony of a royal palace from which the spectators can
watch in awe the spectacle of an ancient city wrapped in flames. Méliès’ film
offers a similarly immersive but much less safe form of spectacle filled with
thrills and surprise. Odysseus, presumably on the island of the film title, arrives
in front of a cave and falls asleep. He is woken up by Calypso and her female
companions who emerge out of the cave and welcome him with their music
(Figure 9.4.1). He then faces the giant Polyphemus whose threatening hand

35 36
Burgoyne 2011a: 9. Burgoyne 2011a: 9.
37 38
Burgoyne 2011b: 83. Barthes [1954] 1999.
156 Pantelis Michelakis

Figure 9.4.1 Figure 9.4.2

Figure 9.4.3

Figure 9.4.1 Calypso and her female companions find Odysseus asleep outside her cave in Georges
Méliès’ L’île de Calypso: Ulysse et le géant Polyphème (1905).
Figure 9.4.2 Odysseus faces the threatening hand of giant Polyphemus.

Figure 9.4.3 Odysseus blinds Polyphemus.

and one-eye face also emerge from the same cave (Figure 9.4.2). Odysseus
blinds Polyphemus (Figure 9.4.3) and, despite Calypso’s reappearance and
attempt to make him stay, he departs in a hurry.
What are we to make of this cohabitation of Calypso and Polyphemus
on the same island and in the same cave? Or of the blinding of Polyphemus
and its affinities with the blinding of the moon in A Trip to the Moon
(Le voyage dans la lune, 1902)? On the one hand, the film foregrounds generic
affinities between the cinematic vamp and the cinematic monster, science
fiction and mythology. On the other hand it plays out sexual anxieties:
the womb-like cave begins as a site of dream-like pleasures, but it soon
becomes associated with the nightmarish threat of annihilation posed by
 Homer in silent cinema 157

Polyphemus’ reduction to a searching hand and a monstrous face. Odysseus

seeks to deal with the threat posed by the cave by puncturing Polyphemus’
eye with his phallic spear, but, instead of blood, a semen-like liquid pours
out of that eye. In A Trip to the Moon, the moon is conquered by a
spaceship that lands in its eye, disrupting its ability to look back at ‘us’.
I would argue that Island of Calypso: Ulysses and the Giant Polyphemus
offers a similarly powerful but more subtle example of how Méliès’ cinema
disrupts the reciprocity of the gaze between spectators and spectacle. If
Méliès’ fixed camera gives the impression of representing the gaze of the
‘man in the front row’ of a theatre, as it has sometimes been argued,39 and
if his direction and impersonation of the heroic protagonist reinforces
that sense of spectatorial control, the breaking of the reciprocity of vision
paradoxically challenges the superiority of the spectator over the spectacle.
Odysseus may escape the world of the cinema physically unharmed, but he
flees away from it in fear. Like him, the audience gains from the encounter
with the feminine and the monstrous of cinematic fantasy in ways that
question its expectations, that is in ways more akin to the later genres of
horror and science fiction than that of epic.

Homeric epic

Silent films related to Homer challenge homogenising assumptions not

only about epic as a film genre but also about Homer’s poems and the
history of their interpretation. The generic diversity of early cinema breaks
down the totalising and canonical work of Homer into component parts
that are spread across and reconfigured within a number of artistically and
culturally contingent cinematic modes and forms. Homer’s name can
perform a number of different functions in relation to the complex process
of reception that situates early films within and against Homer’s history of
interpretation: it can symbolise this process, but it can also ignore or
conceal it. As in antiquity, the name ‘Homer’ can be used not only for
the Homeric poems themselves but also for other narratives of the myth of
the Trojan War.40 A purist strategy would reject as non-Homeric films on
the Trojan War that break down and broaden the spatial and temporal
framework of the Iliad and the Odyssey or downplay the primacy of their

39
Sadoul [1947] 1973, quoted and discussed in Gaudreault 2011: 38.
40
On the name ‘Homer’ applied indiscriminately to both the Homeric poems and the poems of
the so-called ‘epic cycle’ already in pre-classical Greece, see Burgess 2001.
158 Pantelis Michelakis

narratives in favour of formal and thematic preoccupations more familiar

from other poems of the epic cycle, including action, romance, the exotic
and the miraculous.41 An alternative approach would be to question the
possibility or usefulness of a clear distinction between Homer’s Iliad and
Odyssey and other poems of the epic cycle which may have served as
sources of inspiration for the films under consideration or which can be
used as a basis for intertextual analysis. For instance, one could explore the
reasons for which the authority of Homer features so prominently in the
publicity of films which may have otherwise taken little interest in the plots
or characters of his poems.
Another possibility would be to challenge the priority of the dialogue
between films and ancient texts over a dialogue between films and their
modern contexts, from novels, theatre plays and paintings to wider histor-
ical, technological and ideological practices and processes associated with
the culture of modernity and its fascination with Homer. The French
Return of Ulysses of 1908 interacts not only with the Odyssey but also with
other dramatic and non-dramatic works inspired by it, works which its
screenwriter, Jules Lemaître, composed around the same period.42 Even the
poster advertising the film introduces it as the product of a member of the
French Academy, rather than Homer.43 Similarly, The Private Life of Helen
of Troy invites us to think not only of Homer’s poems but also of John
Erskine’s almost contemporary novel which shares with the film its title
and on whose success the film sought to capitalise (despite its many
differences from it). And the film Helen draws not on a humanistic,
classicising Homer, but on the ‘strange, brutal and threatening’ Homer of
Friedrich Nietzsche,44 anticipating Sigmund Freud’s pessimistic reading of
the Iliad in his Civilization and its Discontents by several years.45
The critical discourses around films of the silent era provide useful
insights into the reception processes that connect cinema to Homer as a
canonical author of Western literature. The crossing of chronological,
generic and artistic boundaries can be presented in reviews in terms of
impoverishment and loss: ‘Helen of Troy is a legend whose life has passed,
like an old coat, from king to courtier, from courtier to servant, from
servant to beggar. Homer wrote about a fine and glittering lady; Marlowe

41
See, for instance, Solomon 2007. On the uniqueness of Homer’s poems in relation to the epic
cycle, see Griffin 1977.
42
Carou 2002: 108–10.
43
See ‘Le théâtre cinématographique à Neuilly’, L’Illustration no. 3427, 31 October 1908, available
at http://mounetsully.com/2011/08/12/le-theatre-cinematographique/, accessed 1 June 2012.
44 45
Porter 2004a: 15. Porter 2004b: 332–5.
 Homer in silent cinema 159

found lines like golden bells, for a casual queen; John Erskine made the
legend into a matrimonial farce, and now the matrimonial farce has
become a cinema, played against Maxfield Parrish walls and valleys, by
Maria Corda, a pretty little blonde girl with an affected way of showing her
teeth.’46 Conversely, processes of canonisation can be ignored, and hier-
archical distinctions between different media or between artistic value and
market value can collapse in celebration of continuity. For instance, in a
trade journal buying a film print of the Odyssey is presented as an invest-
ment for exhibitors with the help of a logic that elides the distinction
between the film and Homer’s poem: ‘The kind of pictures to buy are those
that will stand the test of time. Something that will be as valuable in the end
as in the beginning. The story of the Odyssey is two thousand seven
hundred and sixty-two years old. It must be a pretty good story to last
that long. But that is not all. It may last for several thousand years more.’47
Finally, films such as A Polynesian Odyssey or An Odyssey of the North
demonstrate Homer’s encounters with storytelling traditions and litera-
tures that are not necessarily Western. Such encounters can be considered
as colonising, imposing a Western narrative on non-Western stories, or as
illustrating the tensions between competing images of Homer as ‘the apex
of a literary history that is broadly experienced as Western’ and Homer ‘as
a traditional bard [embodying] the timeless, worldwide realm of storytell-
ing’.48 An Odyssey of the North, for instance, which is based on Jack
London’s turn-of-the-century story with the same title, gives voice to the
sole survivor of an Alaskan sailing family who narrates his story of
wandering in pursuit of his wife and her abductor.49 At the same time,
however, the nickname ‘Ulysses’ is attributed to him by those listening to
his story. It may well be that ‘genteel regionalism at the turn of the century
wanted the voices of the dispossessed to be heard’,50 but this is not to say
that the search for regional qualities did not also seek to impose on them
‘universal’ structures of meaning.
The Homer of early cinema is not only a canonical figure of the Western
literary tradition. The Fall of Troy begins with a white-bearded bard holding
a lyre in his hands reciting in front of an attentive audience (Figure 9.5).
The image of the bard performing in front of an audience reappears in

46
Time Magazine, 26 December 1927. On the tone of this review, see Wilner 2006: 202.
47
The Moving Picture World, 18 May 1912: inset between 650 and 651.
48
Haubold 2009: 447.
49
The story is published in London 1900. For a summary of the film and for contemporary
reviews, see Gevinson 1997: 732.
50
Auerbach 2006: 65–6.
160 Pantelis Michelakis

Figure 9.5 Homer in performance at the beginning of Luigi Romano Borgnetto and
Giovanni Pastrone’s The Fall of Troy (1911).

The Odyssey and in Helen. This image engages with a primarily pictorial,
rather than literary, tradition for the representation of the epic bard in
performance that goes back to antiquity. What is static in paintings can
now be made more vivid and lifelike, being set literally in motion. And
what is only a script in the literary tradition, awaiting its performance and
interpretation by readers, can now appear at the moment of its realisation,
complete with a bard and an audience. At one level, of course, this plays with
the paradoxes of translating words into images inherited from the pictorial
tradition. At a different level, however, early cinema claims for itself not just
the visuality of pictorial representations of Homer’s poetry but also the
textuality of written epic (not least through intertitles). Even more import-
antly, it claims for itself the orality of Homeric poetry, the sense of a
performative event associated with the bard’s recital of epic poetry in front
of an audience. Silent film returns to processes of pre-literary production
and dissemination of knowledge associated with orality not because of any
interest in how alien they are for a post-literary culture but because of their
perceived relevance to it. Like epic bards, silent cinema adopts a ‘rhetoric of
traditionality’ that facilitates the interplay between film viewing and
audience.51
What attracts early cinema to this image of the epic bard in recital is not
its potential contribution to the vision of film as a universal pictorial
language. Orality holds the promise of recovering not the lost indexicality

51
On the rhetoric of traditionality and on the interplay between oral performer and audience, see
Scodel 2002.
 Homer in silent cinema 161

of language but a whole process of artistic production and dissemination

based on the liveness of performance, repetition and the fostering of a
sense of a community. In this sense, the appeal for early cinema of the oral,
performative tradition of archaic epic is quite different from the appeal for
cinema of the pictorial languages of ancient Egypt, Israel and Babylon.52
Ong speaks of a post-literary form of orality which ‘has striking resem-
blances to the old in its participatory mystique, its fostering of a communal
sense, its concentration on the present moment, and even its use of
formulas . . . Like primary orality, secondary orality has generated a strong
group sense, for listening to spoken words forms hearers into a group, a
true audience . . . secondary orality generates a sense for groups immeas-
urably larger than those of primary oral culture.’53 Early cinema’s instant-
aneity and complexity, then, must be viewed ‘as the spatio-temporal
equivalent of Ong’s “sounded word”, which “exists only when it is going
out of existence . . . [and] is not simply perishable but essentially evanes-
cent, and sensed as evanescent”’.54 Ong’s examples of secondary orality
include media such as the telephone, radio and television. However, early
cinema too illustrates ways in which, in a post-literary world, orality is
remediated through a technologically based but performance-oriented
event of images and sounds.
In fact one could go so far as to argue that early film does not simply
represent the orality of archaic Greek epic but also helps define it. There is
no more obvious way to illustrate this than touching very briefly on Mil-
man Parry’s research into South Slavic heroic songs, to which the role of
storage and retrieval technologies of sound and vision was central. Parry’s
audio recordings and his 1935 film footage of the Yugoslav singer Avdo
Medjedovic, one of ‘the earliest ethnographic films’ ever made, have
received little attention in this respect.55 The way, however, in which they
helped define the content they were supposed to document is profound,
informing as they did the very rhythm and structure of versification
(octosyllabic when dictated as opposed to decasyllabic when sung).56 From
Parry’s ‘kino’ to recent scholarly work discussing epic formulas in terms of
‘the cuts of montage or as a kind of zooming in on a particular feature of a

52 53
On which, see especially Marcus and Lant in this volume. Ong 1982: 136.
54
Joyce 2002: 336 quoting Ong 1982: 32.
55
Sound recordings by Milman Parry and what his fieldnotes refer to as a ‘kino’ can be found in
the CD that accompanies Parry 2000. They are also available in the Online Database of
Harvard’s Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature. On Parry’s ‘kino’, see Mitchell & Nagy
2000: vii.
56
Scaldaferri 2011: 20.
162 Pantelis Michelakis

larger scene’,57 film technologies, practices and techniques have served as

an often ‘transparent’ or ‘natural’ feedback loop for the scholarship on
Homeric orality.
There is another aspect of early cinema as a subject of historical enquiry
that can be associated with Homer’s epic poetry. The material specificity of
early films challenges the fixity and rigidity of the cinematic artwork in
ways that raise methodological issues similar to those associated with the
multiformity of the Homeric texts. Some of the films in question are lost,
others damaged, shortened or re-edited for distribution in different con-
texts. Some exist in multiple copies, and each copy is different not only in
terms of its condition of preservation but also in terms of overall length,
number and order of scenes, and number, subject matter and language of
intertitles.58 The drive to police the boundaries of the filmic narrative and
to protect the interests of right holders is well documented in trade
journals: ‘Wm. J. Burns, the world’s most noted detective, announced a
new departure in his work – he has entered the film industry, throwing his
power and prestige into the protection of a company controlling a repro-
duction of Homer’s “Odyssey”.’59 But similarly well documented are the
fluidity and the shifting, open-ended and evanescent boundaries of film
narratives as they circulate through time and space. Noa’s Helen
reappeared in Germany four years after its original release in a shortened
version under the title The Hero of the Arena (Der Held Der Arena, 1928).
Seven years later it was re-released in the USA, under the Italian title La
Regina di Sparta (The Queen of Sparta), in a dubbed version destined for
showing primarily in ‘Italian-populated neighbourhoods’ and ‘arty type
cinemas’.60 The sets and costumes of The Private Life of Helen of Troy were
recycled, at least in part, in Vamping Venus (with a reviewer noting the
‘third or fourth-cousin resemblances’ between the two films),61 and its plot
reappears in Manu Jacob’s French novel of the same name which was
published in the immediate aftermath of the film’s release (a novel, then,
based on a film that, in its turn, draws on a novel and a play that engage
with various stories around the Trojan War).62 Under the deceptive title
Quo Vadis?, a 1913 film in three reels seems to have been ‘purely and

57 58
Elmer 2009: 48. See Dixon and Stichele in this volume.
59
The Moving Picture World, 10 February 1912: 486.
60
The Film Daily, 8 March 1931: 11.
61
From an unidentified clipping in Audrey Chamberlin scrapbook no. 22, p. 35.
62
Jacob 1929.
 Homer in silent cinema 163

BO BO1 LJ MI α δ A

RJ1 δ1

RJ β

L1 L2

Figure 9.6 A stemma providing the genealogy of the surviving film prints for Luigi
Romano Borgnetto and Giovanni Pastrone’s The Fall of Troy (1911), after Marotto &
Pozzi 2005: 111. The surviving prints are held in Amsterdam (A), Bologna (BO),
London (L), Milan (MI) and Rome (RJ).

simply a combination of St. George and the Dragon, Homer’s Odyssey and
a reel of film supposedly setting forth the life of Saul, or Paul, of Tarsus’.63
Film archivists often draw on the critical methods of recension and
emendation to analyse the complex genealogy of film prints. Consider,
for instance, the use of a stemma to provide the genealogy of existing prints
for The Fall of Troy in Marotto & Pozzi 2005: 111 (Figure 9.6). However
fascinating technically and aesthetically restorations of films such as The
Odyssey and Helen might be, they should not be confused with the quest

63
The Moving Picture World, 9 August 1913: 621.
164 Pantelis Michelakis

for a ‘definitive’ or ‘original’ version (the master copy identified as ‘X’ in

Marotto & Pozzi’s stemma), nor should they detract from the rich and
adventurous history of the films’ dissemination. On the one hand there is
the archival drive to fix films through storage, retrieval, and digital or other
forms of preservation. On the other hand, to speak of early films on Homer
as ‘capturing the imagination’ of a whole nation or as ‘being forgotten’ by
film-makers for several generations are not just turns of phrase but
attempts to situate them within a cultural framework based on memory,
rather than history, and on repetition through variation.

Conclusion

This chapter began with a short, late twentieth-century film conceptual-

ising in terms of a homecoming Odysseus’ arrival at the shores of early
cinema. By way of conclusion it will focus on a short, late nineteenth-
century story which, among other things, conceptualises the final moments
of Hector in the cinematic medium to come. Just three weeks before the
first public film show by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière on 28
December 1895, Scribner’s Magazine published a story by Brander Matthews
entitled ‘The Kinetoscope of Time’. The story is named after a proto-
cinematic viewing machine, Thomas Edison’s then novel peep-show box.
The protagonist of the story walks from kinetoscope to kinetoscope,
experiencing a whole stream of visions. In marked contrast to the
darkened, placeless and timeless space where the narrative unfolds and
the viewing occurs, the visions themselves are all easily identifiable, despite
the fact that they are not identified by name: the dance of Salome, Nora in
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the duel of
Faust and Valentine and so on.64 Among these visions there is the duel
between Hector and Achilles from Homer’s Iliad, book 22:
and then there came a full clear light as of a cloudless sky, and I saw the walls of an
ancient city. At the gates of the city there stood a young man, and toward him
there ran a warrior, brandishing a spear, while the bronze of his helmet and his
armor gleamed in the sunlight. And trembling seized the young man and he fled in
fear; and the warrior darted after him, trusting in his swift feet. Valiant was the
flier, but far mightier he who fleetingly pursued him. At last the young man took
heart and made a stand against the warrior. They faced each other in fight. The

64
On the scenes of this story and the association of its motifs with the emerging cinema –
especially its promise to capture time – see Doanne 2002: 1–3.
 Homer in silent cinema 165

warrior hurled his spear and it went over the young man’s head. And the young
man then hurled his spear in turn and it struck fair upon the centre of the warrior’s
shield. Then the young man drew his sharp sword that by his flank hung great and
strong. But by some magic the warrior had recovered his spear; and as the young
man came forward he hurled it again, and it drove through the neck of the young
man at the joint of his armor, and he fell in the dust. After that the sun was
darkened; and in a moment more I was looking into an empty blackness.65

The vision begins and ends with a focus on one of the characters embedded
in it, the ‘young man’ with whom it is introduced, and whose death at the
end plunges the viewer into darkness. As long as the young man is alive,
the protagonist of the story and the readers of the story remain in the full
light ‘of a cloudless sky’. But even at the end of the show, internal and
external ‘viewers’ are reassured that the empty blackness they are looking
into is not as permanent as that of Hector’s death. The proto-cinematic
vision of Achilles and Hector in the press of 1895 could not anticipate the
complexity of the films discussed in this chapter. But as part of a story
produced at a point in time when the primacy of textual narratives was
challenged by the emergence of new visual technologies, it re-enacts
textually (and, through the lithograph that accompanies the text, visually)
the effects of a novel way of experiencing Homer soon to be identified with
cinema. First, it provides an immersive and sensorially stimulating experi-
ence, making graspable what is only a fleeting and elusive moment in time
and space. Second, it maintains a representational quality, focusing not on
the meaninglessness and randomness of everyday life but on a significant
segment of a larger discursive whole. In ‘The Kinetoscope of Time’, the
vision of the duel between Achilles and Hector stands for memorable
combat scenes of the past. It also stands for the whole Iliad and more
generally for Western classics. Like the Homer of cinema to come, this
vision holds the promise of unmediated access to ‘the classics’ while also
being instrumental in the process of their canonisation through techno-
logically assisted repetition. And like the Homer of early cinema, it displays
the workings of a process of canonisation based on fragmentation and
remediation.

65
Matthews 1895: 737–8.
part ii

Movement, image, music, text

10 | Silent Saviours: representations of Jesus’ Passion
in early cinema
caroline vander stichele

In The Bible on Film: A Checklist, 1897–1980, Richard H. Campbell and

Michael R. Pitts mention close to seventy silent films released between 1897
and 1930 that deal with topics related to the New Testament, including
blockbusters such as Ben-Hur or Quo Vadis?1 Most of these films were either
produced in France (17) or the USA (37). The rest elsewhere in Europe
(Denmark: 1, Great Britain: 3, Italy: 6, Germany: 3). The majority of these
films feature scenes from the life of Jesus, with a large number focusing
exclusively on the Passion, a theme which continued to resurface well into
the sound era.2 Apart from the Passion story, the Nativity was also quite
popular and so were the miracle stories. A few films even have Jesus perform
a miracle in modern times, such as the raising of a dead girl struck by
lightning in The Mysterious Stranger (France, 1911).3 Although most films
utilising the New Testament relate to Jesus, some of them foreground other
characters, notably Salome, Mary Magdalene, Paul and Satan.4
From the very beginning, however, the Passion narrative attracted most
attention. Of the seven films that according to Campbell and Pitts came out
before 1900, six were recordings of Passion plays, some of which have
unfortunately been lost. This seems to be the case with a short film directed
by Léar [Albert Kirchner] (La Passion, France, 1897), and with another film
that was produced by Gaumont (La Passion, France, 1898).5 The first actual
filming of a Passion play took place in Horitz, Bohemia (in what is now the
Czech Republic) and was produced in 1897 by Marc Klaw and Abraham
L. Erlanger.6 It was followed in 1898 by two other Passion plays produced in

1 2
Campbell & Pitts 1981: 73–110. Campbell & Pitts 1981: 110.
3
Campbell & Pitts 1981: 80.
4
For example, Salome (USA, 1908, dir. J. Stuart Blackton); Mary Magdalene (Kennedy Features,
USA, 1914); A Daughter of the Hills (USA, 1913, dir. J. Searle Dawley), featuring the apostle Paul;
Satan (also known as The Dream of Humanity and Satana, Italy, 1912, dir. Luigi Maggi).
5
According to Musser (1993: 435) the first film consisted of twelve scenes and was filmed in the
spring of 1897. Campbell & Pitts 1981: 74 mention ‘Gaum’ as the film company which produced
the second film. This is most probably a mistake and the company should be Gaumont, which
started producing films in 1896 (see: www.gaumont.fr, accessed 1 June 2012).
6
For a more extensive discussion of the Horitz ‘Passion Play’, see Musser 1993: 435–9. See also
Kinnard & Davis 1992: 19–20; Barnes Tatum 2004: 3; Grace 2009: 17. Campbell and Pitts 169
170 Caroline Vander Stichele

the USA, one by Sigmund Lubin (The Passion Play), and the other by
Richard Hollaman, entitled The Passion Play of Oberammergau, which
was in fact shot on the roof of the Grand Central Palace in New York.7
The seventh film that came out before the turn of the twentieth century
featured a miracle story, Christ Walking on Water (Le Christ marchant sur
les flots, 1899) and was made by the French film producer Georges Méliès,
who also directed The Wandering Jew (Le juif errant, 1904) based on the
novel with the same title by Eugène Sue about a Jewish shopkeeper who is
doomed to wander the earth after refusing Jesus some water on his way to
Calvary. In this film, the Jew in question is shown haunted by a vision of
that particular event, which appears in the background.8 Both stories may
have appealed to Méliès in the first place because of the possibility they
offered to use special effects.9 In Méliès’ corpus, in fact, a far more
important character than Jesus is Satan, a role the filmmaker even liked
to play himself.10
As this short overview makes clear, from the very beginning of cinema
the life and especially the Passion of Jesus was a recurring theme on screen.
In more recent years some of this material has become available on DVD.11
Of these films Cecil B. DeMille’s popular and well-known silent version of
King of Kings (1927) has already received ample attention in other publi-
cations.12 I shall focus, therefore, on two lesser known but equally

mention two films that came out in 1897 and are probably identical with the Horitz Passion Play.
The first one is entitled La Passion and is described as a film of the Oberammergau Passion Play,
produced by Lumière and directed by H. Hurd. The second film is entitled The Passion Play and
was filmed on location in Horitz. According to Musser, however, Charles Smith Hurd was the
American representative of Lumière who initiated the recording of the Horitz Passion Play,
while the Horitz actors were promoted in the USA as the Austrian Oberammergau Company
(Musser 1993: 435–8). Musser further notes that even in 1900 the Oberammergau play itself
could not be filmed because the participants refused to cooperate (445). It seems therefore more
likely that both titles refer to the same recordings of the play in Horitz, rather than to two
different productions.
7
See further Musser 1993: 439–44; Barnes Tatum 2004: 3; Lang 2007: 33; Grace 2009: 17–19.
8
Available on DVD in the series Georges Méliès – Le Premier Magicien du Cinéma, DVD no. 6
(‘Méliès encore. 26 nouvelles découvertes [1896–1911]’, Lobster Films, Paris, 2010).
9
See also Malthête 1992: 226, who calls it an excuse to use superimposition.
10
Cf. Schreck 2001: 16–19. Méliès did so, for instance, in The Devil’s Manor (Le manoir du diable,
1896), The Devil in a Convent (Le diable au couvent, 1899) and The Four Hundred Pranks of
the Devil (Les quatre cents farces du diable, 1906), available on Georges Méliès – Le Premier
Magicien du Cinéma – DVD nos. 1–6 (Lobster Films, Paris, 2008–10).
11
This is the case with The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905), From the Manger to the Cross
(1912), and Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings (1927).
12
See, for instance, Butler 1969: 39–42; Barnes Tatum 2004: 47–59; Kinnard & Davis 1992: 40–5;
Stern, Jefford and Debona 1999: 29–57; Solomon 2001a: 181–3; Lang 2007: 63–74; Grace 2009:
24–9.
 Silent Saviours 171

interesting films that originated in Europe. The first one is a French film
entitled La vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ (1905, dir. Ferdinand Zecca and
Lucien Nonguet), which was distributed in both Europe and the USA.13 The
second film under discussion here is Leaves from Satan’s Book (Blade am
satans bog, Denmark, 1921) by Carl Theodore Dreyer – Denmark’s first
internationally acclaimed director – which relates Satan’s involvement in
four historical events, including the betrayal of Jesus. I have chosen these
two films because they both feature scenes from the Passion story, which
facilitates a comparison between the two. My choice is further motivated
by the fact that the first film dates from the beginning of the silent era
whereas the second came out closer to its end, and also by the fact that they
were produced in countries with different confessional traditions, the first
predominantly Catholic and the second Protestant.
As a biblical scholar, I focus on the episodes devoted to the Passion story
in both films with two aims: to analyse how they relate to the underlying
biblical stories; and to compare their approaches to this material. Both
visual and textual forerunners will also be taken into consideration in order
to show that representations of Jesus in early cinema are not straightfor-
wardly visual renderings of biblical narratives, but are mediated by the
Bible’s reception history in Western culture at large, including literature,
art, photography, devotional imagery and the traditional Passion plays,
which proved to be highly influential on the earliest cinematic representa-
tions of the Passion. After I have explored the particular aspects of the
Bible’s reception on which these films draw, I shall compare them as filmic
renditions of the Passion and draw some conclusions about the similarities
and differences that have emerged.

The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ

The first long film about the life and Passion of Jesus came out in 1905.14 It
was produced in France by Pathé Frères, at that time the leading film

13
Campbell & Pitts 1981: 75–6. Data on its date of release, however, vary from source to source.
Dixon (in this volume) dates the Pathé production to 1906. The ‘Filmography’ in Cosandey,
Gaudreault and Gunning 1992: 362–4 has 1903. Pearson 2005: 69 mentions an earlier film on
the Passion produced by Pathé, which came out in 1900, without however identifying its
director(s).
14
For 1906 as the release date see note 13 above. Also, for arguments in favour of a later dating
of the material on both DVDs, see Boillat & Robert 2010: 38–42. Their arguments are based
on a comparison with two copies of the Pathé film conserved at the Cinémathèque suisse.
172 Caroline Vander Stichele

company of the world. According to Campbell and Pitts the original

French version (in black and white) was entitled La passion de notre
seigneur Jésus Christ and was remade in 1908 under the title La vie et la
passion de Jésus Christ. It was further expanded and re-released in 1914
under the titles La passion and The Life of Our Saviour, with both the old
and new material hand coloured.15 In an interview Germaine Berger, who
worked as a film colourist with Pathé from 1911 to 1927, mentions that
due to its popularity the film had to be retinted on an annual basis.16
A further proof of its popularity is that footage was later recycled in the US
production Behold the Man (1921),17 in which a mother tells the story of
Jesus to her children. Only the part of the narrative set in the present was
in fact new, while the embedded story about Jesus came from the earlier
Pathé film.18
This episode illustrates the complexity of reconstructing the film’s
trajectory and also raises the question of how original is the footage that
has survived, but the pre-history of The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ is
actually even more complex. The original copy of the film, for instance,
was black and white, but tinted or toned afterwards.19 Scenes were also

According to the authors, the Swiss copies consist of material that can be dated between 1902
and 1905, while the material on the DVDs most probably dates from 1907.
15
Campbell & Pitts 1981: 75–6, 78. A restored edition, based on two 35 mm original prints, was
released on DVD in 2003 under the title The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ. The film was
produced for DVD by David Shepard, recorded by Philip Clavert and published by Film
Preservation Associates in the series Sacred Classics of the Silent Screen. The DVD states that it
reproduces the 1905 version, which it claims was stencil coloured. The DVD also includes title
cards in English, but it is unclear if these were part of the original footage used or added later.
A second version was released on DVD in 2004 under the title The Life and Passion of Christ
(by Passport Video), equally claiming to reproduce the 1905 version and stating that it ‘contains
scenes coloured by hand’. Apart from a few differently coloured scenes, the two versions are
identical. The accompanying musical scores however differ. The 2003 version comes with a
digital stereo score, compiled and performed by Timothy Howard at the 100-Rank Aeolian Pipe
Organ, Pasadena (California) Presbyterian Church. The 2004 edition comes with ‘a new
musical score by Los Angeles composer Shawn Alan Klaiber’ (back cover, no details given) for
piano and orchestra.
16
Dana & Kolaitis 2009: 183.
17
The DVD released in 2011 under the title Behold the Man! by Synergy Entertainment
erroneously claims to feature the 1921 version. In fact, it features The Westminster Passion Play –
Behold the Man from 1951, which was released in the USA under the title Behold the Man!
18
Campbell & Pitts 1981: 96.
19
Different colouring techniques were used at the time, tinting by hand or stencil and toning.
These techniques were applied on black-and-white films. Both hand-colouring and stencilling
were used by Pathé in the first decade of the twentieth century. By 1908 Pathécolor, a
mechanical stencilling system, was introduced. For a detailed discussion of these techniques, see
further Read 2009.
 Silent Saviours 173

added to the film in the process, although it is not always clear which ones.
According to the information on the back cover of the DVD released by
David Shepard in 2003, eighteen scenes were made by Ferdinand Zecca in
1902, with another ten added in 1904, and another three by Lucien
Nonguet before it was released in 1905. The source for this information,
however, is unclear. It is also not clear which scenes were original and
which ones were added later. Moreover, in the earliest years, Passion
films were sometimes sold per scene or in parts to exhibitors who could
then include that material in a larger programme.20 Raynaud notes in this
respect that The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ was available in four
pieces which could be bought separately. Also, new scenes were added to
the different versions of the film until 1914 as they became available.
Exhibitors could purchase them separately to complete, with this new
material, the scenes they already had. Precisely because the story was
reproduced in the format of separate scenes, the material could thus be
expanded in different directions by adding more scenes to those already
available without disrupting the story line. However, as a result of this
procedure, one can find footage from different times and in different
styles combined in one single film. According to Raynaud, exhibitors did
not consider this problematic because they were more concerned about
the logic and coherence of the story than about differences in style of the
material, and presumably so were the spectators.21 Also, as Gunning
observes more generally, ‘the goal of the Passion play was to illustrate
and recall a well-known story rather than create a self-contained diegesis
with narrative flow’.22
With these preliminary observations in mind, I shall analyse in what
follows the version entitled The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (referred to
hereafter as Life and Passion) which was released on DVD in 2003 and
claims to reproduce the 1905 version of Pathé’s Passion story.23 For
convenience, I shall first give a short overview of the content of the whole
film, before focusing on the Passion narrative and analysing in more detail
two of its scenes, which I will compare later with the corresponding scenes
from Dreyer’s film.

20
See Musser 1993: 445–6, who also gives a list of scenes included in seven early Passion films
available in the USA. As Gaudreault 2005: 210 notes, ‘The tableau aesthetic, which governed the
assemblage of pictures at the time, allowed for such versatility, in so far as the autonomy of each
scene created a narrative that proceeded by leaps and bounds, relying very little on the
interaction between its diverse constituent elements.’
21 22 23
Raynaud 1992: 139. Gunning 1992: 107. See note 14 above.
174 Caroline Vander Stichele

Life and Passion consists of thirty-five scenes preceded by a title card in

English.24 These scenes can be divided into three groups on the basis of
their content. The first group (scenes 1–9) relate events that correspond
with the so-called infancy gospels. This term is used to refer to the stories
in the first chapters of the gospels of Matthew and Luke about the
beginning of Jesus’ life, such as the annunciation of his birth to Mary in
Luke 1:26–38 and the flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15). The second
group (scenes 10–20) consists of events from Jesus’ public life, starting with
his baptism (10) and ending with his entry into Jerusalem (19) and the
cleansing of the temple (20). The third group (scenes 21–35) details events
from the Passion narrative, starting with the Last Supper (21) and ending
with Jesus’ Resurrection (34) and Ascension (35).
The scenes in question mostly take the form of tableaux vivants, remin-
iscent of the so-called mystery plays evoking the passion of Christ that date
from the Middle Ages.25 This format was also used in the Passion play at
Oberammergau, which was performed outdoors.26 Most of the scenes in
the film, however, are recorded indoors against a painted background,
although a few outdoor scenes are included as well (which may be later
additions). The camera usually focuses on the whole scene, rather than on
particular characters. Notable exceptions are the Ecce Homo depiction of
Christ in scene 27 (Jesus given over to the people) and of Veronica in scene
28 (Jesus falls under the weight of the cross).27 With a few exceptions,
scenes are usually between thirty seconds and two minutes long.
As far as the content of the scenes is concerned, several factors may have
played a role in the selection of the material in question. A pragmatic
consideration is that scenes may have been selected in relation to the

24
These title cards feature red letters against a black background and often also include the Pathé
logo, the cockerel, with the words ‘marque déposée’ (registered trademark). This is the case with
the title cards of the two scenes under discussion. Sometimes the cock also appears in black and
white somewhere in the background of the scenes themselves. This is for instance the case in
the ‘Last Supper’ scene, but not in the scene of ‘Jesus on the Mount of Olives’.
25
Raynaud 1992: 137–8.
26
The earliest photographs of such tableaux, notably of the Last Supper and the High Council,
were taken as early as 1870. Cf. Koetzle 2010:19. Koetzle also notes that by the turn of the
century, photographic images on postcards were ‘probably the most popular form of visual
communication’ (22). Photographs of the 1890 performance can be found in Perez 2002: 46–7.
The catalogue does not identify the scenes as being from Oberammergau, but a comparison
with other images from Oberammergau makes this inference most likely. See Koetzle, von
Altenbockum, Walther and Mayer 2010.
27
As Gunning observes (1992: 111 n.11), ‘the neutral background in each of the closer shots
underscores their semi-detachable nature from the diegesis, frequently found in the emblematic
medium or close shots that open and close many early multi-shot films’.
 Silent Saviours 175

capabilities and limitations of the medium. Thus, the lack of speech and
limited information on the title cards require that scenes have to be well
known and easily recognisable. For the same reason, stories centring on
events are more likely to be represented than those in which the spoken
word is of central importance (as, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount).
On the other hand, certain stories had the potential to exhibit the capabil-
ities of the ‘new medium’ by using special effects. Thus, for example, in
scene 15 Jesus is shown walking on water and in the final scene (35) he is
taken up into heaven.
A second set of factors determining the selection of the scenes of the film
may have to do with the role certain stories play in (Catholic) Church life.
It thus comes as no surprise that scenes were included which relate to
important liturgical feasts such as Christmas, Easter and Ascension.
Another factor may have been the role that well-known biblical characters
play in them, such as Mary Magdalene or Lazarus. The most prominent
character in this film apart from Jesus himself, however, is his mother,
Mary. This is hardly surprising in light of the rising importance of Marian
devotion in France at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the
twentieth century, which started with the apparitions in Paris (1830) and
Lourdes (1858). In that same time period, the role of Mary was also
confirmed by the dogma of the Immaculate Conception issued by Pope
Pius IX in 1854.28 These events may well explain the selection of the stories
in group one, in which Mary plays a prominent role, the inclusion of the
wedding feast in Cana, where she appears as mediator (scene 11; John 2:1–
11), and her appearance in the final scenes of the Passion narrative, from
Calvary to the ascension (scenes 29–35).
Another element of popular devotion which is more specifically related
to the Passion story, and which clearly informed the film, is the so-called
fourteen Stations of the Cross. This is a series of devotional pictures or
sculptures often found in or around churches, depicting scenes of the
Passion, starting with Jesus’ condemnation to death and ending with his
burial. Some of these stations have no foundation in the biblical text, but
are nevertheless included in the film. This is the case, for instance, with the
fall of Jesus under the weight of his cross (scene 29; stations 3, 7 and 9),
Veronica wiping his face (scene 29; station 6) and Jesus meeting his mother
on his way to the crucifixion (scene 30; station 4).29

28
See Maeckelberghe 1991:87–146.
29
If evidence is needed for the popularity of these Stations of the Cross, they were included in a
series of photographs entitled ‘Twelve scenes from the Life of Jesus’ (1902), with tableaux
176 Caroline Vander Stichele

Out of a total of thirty-five scenes in Life and Passion, thirteen relate

directly to the Passion narrative, starting with the Last Supper and ending
with Jesus’ burial. The scenes as named on the title cards in the film are as
follows:

21. The Last Supper

22. Jesus on the Mount of Olives; Judas’ kiss
23. Jesus before Caiaphas
24. Peter denies Christ
25. Jesus before Pilate
26. The scourging, the crowning with thorns
27. Jesus given over to the people
28. Jesus falls under the weight of the cross
29. Calvary
30. Christ put on the cross
31. Agony and death of Christ
32. Jesus taken from the cross
33. Jesus put into the tomb

A closer look at this material shows that information from all gospels is
used in the film. Most often elements from different gospels are simply
combined. Where the gospels happen to differ from each other, preference
is given first to one then to another. Such a harmonising30 approach in
relation to the gospels reflects the idea that all gospels basically tell the
same story. I shall illustrate this further in my more detailed analysis of
scenes 21 and 22. I have chosen these two scenes because they correspond
closely with material I shall discuss from Dreyer’s film below.
In scene 21, entitled ‘The Last Supper’ (coloured, c. 1 min.), Jesus and his
disciples enter the room and sit down at a large table. Last of all enters
Judas, who takes a seat at one end of the table and keeps to himself. Jesus
breaks bread and gives it to his disciples. After eating it, he pours wine.
Then they stand up and drink the wine. When seated again, a visibly
younger disciple at his left hand leans against Jesus and addresses him.
Jesus stands up and raising his arm with a pointed finger says something

depicting scenes from the Passion story. See Perez 2002: 48–9. They were also included in the
Oberammergau passion play. See pictures of the 1910 and 1922 performances in Koetzle, von
Altenbockum, Walther and Mayer 2010: 104–9.
30
A gospel harmony in the technical sense of the word is a work in which different gospels are
woven together to form one single narrative about Jesus.
 Silent Saviours 177

that clearly disturbs the disciples.31 Finally, he points at Judas and shows
him the door. Judas looks disturbed, makes a sweeping gesture and hurries
out. Then Jesus and the remaining disciples also leave the room.
This scene combines elements from different gospels. The breaking of
the bread and drinking of the wine, for instance, are only mentioned in the
synoptic gospels (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22) and not in the gospel of
John. The announcement of Jesus’ betrayal is made in all four gospels, but
only in Luke (22:21–3) is that announcement made after they have supper.
The rest of the scene is based on the account in John 13:21–30, where the
disciple reclining next to Jesus is identified as ‘the one whom Jesus loved’
(v. 23), traditionally understood to be John and usually represented in this
scene as a younger man.32 John’s gospel is also the only one in which Jesus
directly addresses Judas, saying ‘Do quickly what you are going to do’
(v. 27). In the film, Jesus does not say a word to Judas but in pointing at
him and showing him out identifies him as the betrayer.
The setting of this scene is clearly inspired by Gustave Doré’s ‘The Last
Supper’ (see Figures 10.1 and 10.2). As in Doré’s engraving of the Last Supper,
here there are columns in the background, suggesting an antique setting.33
There are also heavy curtains, an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling and jars
standing on the table and on the floor. Jesus is sitting in the middle. Some
disciples are sitting with their backs turned to the viewer, at the left end of
the table and at the right. Such a strong influence is not so surprising,
because Doré’s illustrations of the Bible were already very popular at the
time. The first edition of the Bible with plates by Doré was published in
France in 1866, and translations in English and German soon followed. His
illustrations also influenced biblical scenes in other films, notably D. W.
Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) and Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Command-
ments (1923, 1956). What Elliott argues with respect to the Victorian novel
seems to hold true here as well: book illustrations shaped film art and are
‘visible pictorial precursors of film montage’.34
However, some differences can be observed between Doré’s representa-
tion of the scene and that in the Pathé film. For example, in the film the

31
Raynaud 1992: 140 n.11 notes that ‘pitchmen’ were present at screenings of silent films to fill
out gaps with comments and explanation and to animate the narrative with background noises.
It is therefore possible that Jesus’ words were cited or explained to the audience, or else the
presumption is that spectators were sufficiently familiar with the story to know what he was
saying.
32
For his identification and representation, see Hall 2008: 180.
33
See The Doré Bible Illustrations 1974: 202. Cf. also Rose 1974: vii.
34
Elliott 2003: 96.
178 Caroline Vander Stichele

Figure 10.1 Gustave Doré, The Last Supper, woodcut, 1866.

Figure 10.2 The Last Supper: Jesus announces that someone will betray him in Pathé’s
The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905).

younger disciple is situated at Jesus’ left-hand side, while Judas is sitting on

his own at the opposite side of the table, thus strategically set apart.35 This
positioning is not unusual. It already occurs in representations from the
early Renaissance. The film may thus simply conform to this earlier

35
According to Hall 2008: 195, Judas usually appears dark-haired and bearded.
 Silent Saviours 179

tradition, though another likely reason may be the need for clarity: Jesus
pointing to one single person leaves no room for confusion, which might
occur if Judas were seated with other disciples, as in Doré’s picture. The
change, then, may well have been informed by the new medium of film,
which allows for the development of a scene in time in contrast to the more
static representations of paintings, drawings and photographs. Since Judas
is still seated at the table, Doré’s picture can be understood to capture the
moment before the actual identification of Judas as the betrayer within the
narrative flow of the film.
The second scene under discussion, entitled ‘Jesus on the Mount of
Olives. Judas’ kiss’ (c. 1 min. 45 sec., in black and white), shows Jesus
arriving at the Mount with his disciples. Two of them (who can be
identified from earlier scenes as John and Peter) accompany him, while
the others stay behind. Then Jesus tells the two to go away and stays
behind alone. He is shown praying in agony and kneeling down at a
rock, on which an angel appears holding a cup. The angel disappears
again, and Judas arrives on the scene with a group of soldiers. He points
at Jesus, who stands up and says something. Then Judas steps forward
and kisses him on the cheek. When the soldiers arrest Jesus, Peter
rushes forward with a sword, ready to attack, but Jesus tells him to
drop it. One of the soldiers throws a purse on the ground, which is
picked up by Judas. Then Jesus is taken away, followed by his disciples.
Finally, Judas appears again on the scene eagerly holding the purse in
both his hands, but looking at it again, he grasps his head with one hand
and runs off.
As in the Last Supper scene, elements from the four parallel gospel
stories are combined again here. According to Mark 14:33 and Matthew
26:37, Jesus takes three disciples with him to pray, Peter, James and
John. The appearance of an angel to the praying Jesus, however, is only
mentioned in Luke 22:43, and only in Mark 14:45 and Matthew 26:49 is
Judas actually said to kiss Jesus. Other elements from the scene are
derived from the gospel of John, such as the fact that Judas arrives with
soldiers (18:3) and that Peter is identified as the one drawing his sword
and being rebuked by Jesus (vv. 10–11). The result of this combination
of elements from different gospels is that the characters of Peter, John
and Judas are foregrounded, thus increasing the dramatic impact of the
scene. This is also the case with the appearance of the angel to Jesus in
the garden. That the angel holds a cup is not mentioned in the gospels,
but may be informed by the prayer of Jesus in the garden in which he
asks God to take away this cup from him (Matthew 26:39, Mark 14:36,
180 Caroline Vander Stichele

Luke 22:42).36 Doré’s engraving may also have served as a source of

inspiration, in this case for the setting of the scene among the olive trees
and for the angel appearing to Jesus, but the similarities are less striking
here than in the case of the Last Supper.37
The film thus offers a depiction of the life and Passion of Jesus that is
informed by the biblical sources, yet clearly mediated by art and Catholic
devotion. Taking the form of a collage of scenes introduced with title cards,
it presupposes an audience that is familiar with the underlying story. In
line with traditional iconography and Passion plays, the scenes reflect a
harmonising reading of the gospels, and as such draw from the cultural
reservoir of interpretations and images available at that time.38

Leaves from Satan’s Book (1918–21)

The second film I want to discuss in this chapter is the Danish silent film
Leaves from Satan’s Book, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, who is more
famous for his later films, notably The Passion of Joan of Arc (La Passion
de Jeanne d’Arc, 1928), Ordet (1955) for which he received the Golden Lion
in Venice, and Gertrud (1964).39 Leaves from Satan’s Book was his second
film and was inspired by D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) and Marie
Corelli’s novel The Sorrows of Satan (1895). The script of the film was
written by Edgar Hoyer, but rewritten by Dreyer himself, who also
lengthened the Christ episode.40
The film has the same structure as Griffith’s Intolerance in so far as one
theme is developed and illustrated with events from four different time
periods. However, while in Griffith’s film the four storylines are inter-
woven with each returned to more than once, Dreyer’s film separates them
into four distinct and consecutive episodes. The only event that the two
films have in common is the Passion of Christ. Apart from the story of

36
In traditional representations of the scene from the Renaissance onwards, the angel holds either
a chalice and a wafer or the instruments of the Passion. See Hall 2008: 11. In Doré’s
representation of the scene, however, the angel is shown arriving to comfort Jesus, but does not
carry any attributes with him. See Doré 1974: 204. The 1922 version of the Oberammergau play
also featured an agony scene with the angel holding a chalice. See Koetzle, von Altenbockum,
Walther and Mayer 2010: 87.
37
The Doré Bible contains three pictures related to this scene: ‘Jesus praying in the garden’, ‘The
agony in the garden’ and ‘The Judas kiss’: The Doré Bible Illustrations 1974: 203–5. In Doré,
more than in the film, the character of Judas is demonised.
38
An interesting question in this respect that would need further investigation is to what extent
the Horitz Passion Play, which came out in 1897, informed Pathé’s Life and Passion.
39 40
Schepelern 2004: 141–6. Bordwell 1981: 15, 206.
 Silent Saviours 181

Jesus, Griffith focuses on the destructive force of intolerance in ancient

Babylon, sixteenth-century Paris and modern America. In Dreyer’s film,
the figure of Satan takes central stage. He appears first of all as a Pharisee in
first-century Jerusalem during the life of Jesus, then as the Grand Inquisi-
tor of the Spanish Inquisition, in the third episode as an officer during the
French Revolution, and finally in Dreyer’s own time as a dissident monk
during the Russo-Finnish War of 1918.
Dreyer was not the only filmmaker eager to document Satan’s terrible
influence in the world. Around the same time Satanas (1920), from the
German director F. W. Murnau, explored the same theme. Unfortunately,
apart from a short fragment, that film has been lost.41 As far as is known,
however, it did not include the figure of Jesus.42 Howard Gaye did some-
thing similar on the other side of the ocean with Restitution (USA, 1918,
also known as The Conquering Christ), another film which has largely
been lost. Here Satan’s evil doings are followed from the creation story till
the end of time and the film’s narrative includes the crucifixion.43 Worth
mentioning in this respect is also the earlier Italian film Satan (1912, dir.
Luigi Maggi; also known as Satana and The Dream of Humanity) which
has the same structure as Dreyer’s film in that Satan’s work is documented
in four historical periods, including the life of Jesus.44 Whether this was
coincidental or deliberate, however, is not clear.
Leaves from Satan’s Book opens with title cards on which appear in
white letters on a black background the phrase ‘The legend of Satan’. In
this legend, Satan is presented as the fallen angel, who is punished by God
for tempting the first human beings and is now commanded to ‘Go among
men in fashion of a man and tempt them to do against My will’ (intertitle).
This representation of Satan corresponds with that in Corelli’s novel. There
Satan appears in the author’s own time (Victorian England at the end of
the nineteenth century) incarnated in the character of Prince Lucio

41
According to The Progressive Silent Film List by Carl Bennett (www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/S/
Satanas1920.html, accessed 1 June 2012), the fragment is from the first episode of the film and
is kept at the film archive of the Cinémathèque Française.
42
For a synopsis of the film, based on the screenplay, as well as two film stills from the first
episode, see Eisner 1973: 123–7. The first episode, entitled ‘The Tyrant’, takes place in ancient
Egypt, the second (called ‘The Prince’) is taken from Victor Hugo’s novel Lucrèce Borgia, and
the third is set during the 1917 Russian Revolution.
43
Schreck 2001: 30–1.
44
See Campbell & Pitts 1981: 83, who also mention that the film was inspired by John Milton’s
Paradise Lost and Friedrich Klopstock’s Der Messias (1773). Whether this film has survived is
uncertain. Cf. The Progressive Silent Film List by Carl Bennett (www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/S/
Satan1913.html, accessed 1 June 2012).
182 Caroline Vander Stichele

Rimanez, who tells the story of Lucifer to Geoffrey Tempest (the novel’s
main character). Lucio himself recalls the punishment Satan received from
God for rebelling against him: ‘Each human soul that yields unto thy
tempting shall be a new barrier set between thee and heaven; each one
that of its own choice doth repel and overcome thee, shall lift thee nearer
thy lost home!’45 Corelli, in turn, seems to have found inspiration for this
image of Satan in a variety of sources, including the temptation story in the
gospels of Matthew (4:1–11) and Luke (4:1–13), but also Christopher
Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1592) and John
Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667).46 Corelli’s novel, however, does not feature
the Passion story that Dreyer uses in his film for Satan’s first incarnation.
In what follows, I shall give a synopsis of the first episode of Dreyer’s
film and then analyse in more detail two scenes that correspond with the
ones from Pathé’s Life and Passion which I discussed earlier. In this initial
episode, Satan appears as a Pharisee inciting Caiaphas to eliminate Jesus.
The Pharisee on screen resembles traditional depictions of Satan in that he
has a goatee.47 In the meantime Jesus and his disciples are at the house of
Simon the leper. Here, the spectator sees a woman anointing Jesus’ head
and feet, against which Judas protests but, in response, Jesus reproves him.
Judas leaves the room, upset, and meets Satan, who invites Judas to come
and see him again the next day at the Golden Gate. There Satan tells Judas
that he is God’s chosen tool, but Judas refuses to cooperate with him. In the
following scene, Jesus meets with his disciples for the Passover supper and
announces that one of them will betray him. After the meal, he goes to
Gethsemane with them. A crowd arrives, including the temple guard and
Roman soldiers. Judas steps forward and kisses Jesus, who is taken captive
and led away, while Judas is rewarded with money by the Pharisee/Satan.
The episode closes with two title cards. The first one states: ‘But Satan, the
fallen angel, whose whole heart was set upon finding favor again in the eyes
of the Almighty – he was grieved to see his evil work completed.’ This is
followed by a close-up of Satan and a close-up of a crying Judas. The final
title card reads: ‘And his grief was the deeper, because it had fallen to his lot
to deliver the Son of Man into the hands of human tormentors.’

45
Corelli 1998: 53.
46
Keating 1998: xvii. See also Corelli 1998: 373–4, where Lucio/Satan recalls the temptation story:
‘Face to face I stood with Him on the mountain-top, and there fulfilled my vow of temptation.’
47
This feature, as well as other features of goats such as cloven hoofs and horns, is related to
classical depictions of Bacchus and satyrs who, since the Renaissance, came to signify paganism
as an enemy of the Church. Cf. Hall 2008: 281.
 Silent Saviours 183

Figure 10.3 The Last Supper in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Leaves from Satan’s Book
(1921).

The two scenes from this episode of Dreyer’s Leaves from Satan’s Book
that correspond with the ones discussed earlier from Pathé’s Life and
Passion are the Last Supper and the betrayal by Judas in the garden of
Gethsemane. The Last Supper scene is about two minutes long. It opens
with a tableau vivant. Jesus and his disciples are sitting at a long table, two
disciples with their back turned to the viewer: one at the far right end and
the other at the far left end, namely Judas. One visibly younger disciple,
who can be identified as John, is seated at Jesus’ right-hand side. This is
followed by a series of medium close-ups of Jesus announcing that one of
them will betray him and of a group of four disciples seated to the left.
These are followed by a facial close-up of one disciple to the right, who asks
Jesus: ‘Master, is it I?’ Jesus shakes his head. When John is represented as
asking the same question, his response is also negative. Then follows a
close-up of Judas, who is looking down, nervously crumbling the bread in
his hands (a close-up of his hands follows). Jesus dips a piece of bread in
his wine cup and gives it to Judas, who takes the bread and then leaves.
The opening shot of the Last Supper (Figure 10.3) clearly recalls the
famous fresco of Leonardo Da Vinci from the Santa Maria della Grazie in
Milan. In both cases, Jesus is shown seated at the middle of a long table, his
arms stretched out before him with the palms of his hands turned upwards.
Moreover, as in the painting, the table is positioned in a room with three
windows at the back.48 No effort is made to create an historically accurate
depiction of the location and costumes. That the scene is situated in the
distant past is mostly suggested by the costumes of the characters, who are

48
See Grubb 1996: 84. A similar framing of the scene was also used in the Oberammergau
performance of 1910. See Koetzle, von Altenbockum, Walther and Mayer 2010: 82–3.
184 Caroline Vander Stichele

dressed in long robes. The apostles are wearing dark undergarments, some
of them, including Judas, with a lighter upper garment. Only Jesus is
dressed in a pure white undergarment with a contrasting dark upper
garment. The Pharisee wears a headcovering in the form of a turban and
a distinctively striped upper garment. The characters themselves are proto-
typical representations of the apostles, in that they have beards. The only
characters in the film who do not have beards, and are thus set apart, are
John and Judas.49 In Da Vinci’s painting, they are both sitting at Jesus’
right-hand side. In the film, this is the case with John but not with Judas,
who is seated on his own at the other side of the table. In the painting Judas
can be identified because he has darker skin and darker hair than the other
disciples and because he holds the purse. In the film, he looks and acts
differently from the other disciples and is thus equally set apart. Moreover,
certain facial features, such as the hooked nose and bulging eyes of the
actor playing Judas, reflect Jewish facial characteristics as they became
prominent in art from the seventeenth century onwards.50 The contrast
with John, who has a straight nose, fair facial features and blond hair, is all
the more striking.
The tableau setting serves as a frame for the whole scene in which the
interaction between Jesus and the disciples takes place. This interaction is
displayed in the form of close-ups and intertitles. The words spoken are
both available to be read on the intertitles and to be seen in the form of
movement on the lips of the characters.51 Some close-ups are given
heightened intensity through the use of the iris, a technique which blends
out the background so that the figure or face appears cut loose from its
surroundings. Dreyer used this technique often in his earlier films to create
a sense of ‘despatialisation’, as Bordwell puts it.52 In the Last Supper scene
of Dreyer’s film, this technique is used, for instance, for the close-ups of
Jesus when he announces that someone will betray him and when he dips
the bread in the cup before giving it to Judas. It is also used for the close-
ups of Judas when Jesus announces the betrayal. The use of the iris thus
underscores the dramatic effect of the interaction between the betrayer and
the betrayed.

49
See further Hall 2008: 195. The representation of the apostles with beards is part of a long-
standing tradition that goes back to at least the fourth century and may be inspired by pagan
representations of philosophers.
50
Maccoby 1992: 112.
51
Elliott 2003: 95. It also shows that the dichotomy often constructed for silent cinema between
word and image is a false one. See also Shohat 2004: 43.
52
Bordwell 1981: 51.
 Silent Saviours 185

The biblical material drawn on for this scene mostly consists of elements
selected from different gospels. This can also be determined from the
wording in the intertitles, which closely corresponds with that in the
gospels but is not identified as such on the title cards. A comparison shows
that the opening line corresponds with Luke 22:14: ‘When the hour came,
he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him.’ Similarly, the
words of Dreyer’s Jesus (‘Verily, I say unto you – one of you will betray
me’) have parallels in Mark 14:18, Matthew 26:21 and John 13:21, and the
reply of the disciple (‘Master, is it I?’) in Mark 14:19: ‘They began to be
distressed and to say to him one after another: “Surely, not I?”’ The words
that Dreyer’s Jesus is represented as saying to Judas when he gives him the
piece of bread in turn correspond with John 13:27: ‘Do quickly what you
are going to do.’ As a result, the scenario of this scene stays fairly close to
the biblical narratives, but its focus is decidedly on the betrayal rather than
on the defining moment of the Last Supper: the breaking of the bread and
the drinking of the wine. The breaking of the bread is solely done in order
to give a piece of it to Judas. The cup in front of Jesus is shaped in the form
of a chalice, thus reminding the viewer of the Eucharist.
A link is established between Judas and Satan in the gospels of Luke and
John, which state that Satan entered Judas and thus drove him to betray
Jesus (Luke 22:3, John 13:27). This negative depiction of Judas as inspired
by Satan is reproduced in Dreyer’s film, but here Satan materialises as a
force outside Judas rather than inside him. This is further elaborated in the
second scene under discussion here, which takes place outdoors, in the
garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus has gone with his disciples (c. 5 min.).
When they arrive there, he leaves them behind and continues on his own
to pray. He comes back, finds them asleep and goes away again to pray.
This scene is followed by shots of the disciples and of the soldiers on their
way to the garden to arrest Jesus. Then the Pharisee appears together with
Judas. After a few close-ups of the Pharisee, disciples and soldiers, Jesus is
shown alone again, praying on his knees in the garden. The Pharisee puts
one hand on Judas’ shoulder and points him away with the other. Judas
obeys and walks off. Jesus appears again and finds his disciples still
sleeping. They wake up and want to follow him, but he tells them to stay
behind and leaves them in order to meet those who are arriving to arrest
him. He meets them on the road. When he presents himself to them, they
draw back. A soldier whispers something to Judas, who nods, walks up to
Jesus and kisses him. A facial close-up of the Pharisee/Satan shows him
nodding approvingly. Then Jesus is arrested and led away. Judas stays
behind. The Pharisee/Satan walks up to him and gives him a purse. Judas
186 Caroline Vander Stichele

opens the purse and takes out some coins, throws them on the ground,
sinks on his knees and cries, while Satan walks away.
In this scene Dreyer again alternates long shots with close-ups of the
characters involved, in this case the group of soldiers on their way to arrest
Jesus, the disciples who fall asleep when Jesus is praying in the garden
and facial close-ups of the Pharisee and Judas. There is more action and
movement in this scene than in the previous one but less dialogue
and fewer title cards. Here too the iris technique is used, in this case
for the soldiers and Judas, thus foregrounding the main agents in the
arrest of Jesus.
This scene, more than the previous one, is a combination of both biblical
and non-biblical elements. Biblical elements relate to the character of Jesus.
Thus he prays to God to take away the cup from him. The wording is a
combination of elements from different gospels, notably Mark 14:36 and
Luke 22:42. The words that Jesus addresses to Judas are informed by Luke,
the only gospel in which Jesus asks: ‘Judas, is it with a kiss that you are
betraying the Son of Man?’ (22:48). Other elements have their source in the
gospel of John: the soldiers drawing back when Jesus presents himself to
them (John 19:6) and the identification of Peter as the disciple who draws
his sword (John 18:10). But in the gospel Peter’s gesture takes place during
the actual arrest, while in the film Jesus faces those who will arrest him
alone. Elements that relate to the interaction between Judas and Satan,
however, are fictional. That is also the case with the conversation between
the soldier who asks the Pharisee/Satan: ‘How am I to know Jesus?’ and
Satan’s reply, ‘The kiss of friendship shall be the sign.’ It is also remarkable
that Judas gets his reward from Satan himself after betraying Jesus rather
than before, as is the case in Matthew 26:14–15 where he is paid by the
chief priests.
The resultant combination of biblical and fictional elements is clearly
informed by Dreyer’s agenda to show how Satan is active at different times
in history. The overall picture of Jesus that emerges in both word and
image is that of a stately, sovereign Christ who knows what will happen
and faces his destiny. As in the gospel of John, Judas is portrayed as an
agent of Satan himself. Yet Dreyer pictures him more as a tragic figure in
the hands of Satan than as the stereotypical villain he so often appears to be
throughout history.53 However, more problematic in Dreyer’s depiction of
both Satan and Judas is that he uncritically reproduces longstanding

53
There have, however, always been traditions that depicted Judas in a more favourable light as a
tragic hero. See Paffenroth 2001: 59–110.
 Silent Saviours 187

stereotypes in Christian tradition. Portraying Satan as a Pharisee continues

the negative portrayal of Pharisees as Jesus’ opponents, while the stereo-
typing of Judas as a prototypical Jew perpetuates Christian anti-Semitism.

Silent Saviours: a comparison

To conclude, I would like to discuss similarities and differences between

the two films and how they can be interpreted. As far as similarities are
concerned, the approach to the biblical story is thematic in both cases, in
that elements from different gospels are combined to dramatic effect.
Moreover, traditional iconography has informed the visual representation
of characters and settings. What both films also have in common is the use
of tableaux vivants for the Last Supper scene, drawing on pre-existent
models from art. This includes the representation of Jesus and his apostles
as well as the negative depiction of Judas. As Shohat notes, in Western art
Jesus was ‘gradually de-Semitised, his appearance remodelled as an Aryan,
deemed more appropriate for a supreme being within a white normative
ethos’.54 Judas, on the other hand, was increasingly caricatured as a Jew or
stereotyped in another way to make him stand out as ‘different’ from the
other apostles.55
Apart from these common elements there are also striking differences in
the way the ‘new medium’ of film is used between c. 1905 and 1921. One
such difference is related to the balance between image and word. In
Pathé’s The Life and Passion, title cards are merely used to announce the
content of the scene that follows. In Dreyer’s Leaves from Satan’s Book,
however, intertitles play a very different role. Not only do they occur more
often, they also structure the story and include words spoken by the
characters involved. As noted earlier, in Dreyer’s film these words closely
resemble sayings from the gospels. As a result, the biblical sub-text is now
foregrounded. Apart from developments in the use of the medium itself,
this difference may also relate to the respective cultural milieus of the films,
insofar as Life and Passion reflects in its iconography a Catholic approach
to the story, while Leaves from Satan’s Book is situated in a largely
Protestant environment with its strong preoccupation with the Word.

54
Shohat 2004: 37.
55
See Paffenroth 2001: 50–1. Paffenroth also notes that, in DeMille’s The King of Kings, Judas is
beardless and Roman-looking in contrast to Jesus and his disciples who are bearded and appear
very Semitic (158 n.104).
188 Caroline Vander Stichele

Other than that, the medium of film itself may also serve different
purposes. Situated at the beginning of the entertainment industry,
Pathé’s film reflects a strong commercial preoccupation, expressed in its
use of different techniques of tinting and toning and in its use of special
effects, both of which formed major attractions of the medium in its early
stages.56 The use of colour, however, may also reflect the visual aesthetics
of a Catholic context. Simultaneously, the choice of the subject indicates an
effort to establish film as a ‘serious’ medium.57 Dreyer shared that interest,
but resisted the commercialisation of the medium. As Bordwell notes,
‘Within Western film production, Dreyer constructed his artistic person-
ality around a single problem: that of art in mass production.’58 Dreyer’s
ambition to use the medium of film as a purer form of artistic expression is
indeed visible in Leaves from Satan’s Book, especially in the way he uses the
camera and light, as well as tableaux, individual shots, and close-ups of
faces to increase dramatic effect.59
Last but not least, the comparison between the French Life and Passion
and the Danish Leaves from Satan’s Book may also reflect differences in
cultural practice specifically related to the different attitude of Catholics
and Protestants towards the relative importance of the W/word versus the
image. Catholics with their tradition of visual images and Passion plays
were rather quick to embrace the new medium of film to proclaim the
Good News, while Protestants were initially much more reluctant to do
so.60 The representation of Christ by an actor proved especially problem-
atic on screen and evoked protest from conservative groups, not only
generally in countries such as the United States but also in the specific
case of Dreyer’s film.61 This denominational difference, however, gradually
breaks down over time. Film as the ‘absence of presence’62 became an
acceptable compromise for those who resisted the ‘live’ representation of
Christ by an actor on stage. The silent Saviour thus embodies the presence
of absence, but at least he can move viewers in other ways.

56
See further Abel 1993 and Dixon in this volume.
57 58
Raynaud 1992: 136–7 and Pearson 2005: 70. Bordwell 1981: 23.
59
See further Bordwell 1981: 37–59, for a more detailed discussion of the way in which Dreyer
constructs space in his early films, more specifically the combination of tableaux with close-ups
of faces.
60
See the discussion in Musser 1993: 447–51 and André 1992.
61 62
Bordwell 1981: 207. Musser 1993: 448.
11 | The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907)
jon solomon

The 1907 film Ben-Hur produced by the New York film company Kalem
had an extraordinary impact. It ran only 1,000 ft in length (approximately
15 min. at 18 frames per second), was produced in about one week, and
had limited publicity and a truncated distribution, but this led to a four-
year legal battle over copyright that ended up in the United States Supreme
Court and established the legal precedent for American film copyright.1
Its legacy affects not only every film that has derived from a novel but the
copyright of the tens of thousands of films that postdate 1911. This chapter
will explore the circumstances that gave rise to the conflict over copyright,
the legal issues it raised, and their significance for the early film industry,
but along the way it will also explore some of the difficulties (and the
stratagems needed to overcome them) in documenting even the most basic
data concerning the production of early silent cinema.
The Supreme Court brief includes a short description of the film:
Ben Hur. Scenery and Supers by Pain’s Fireworks Company, Costumes from
Metropolitan Opera House. Chariot Race by 3d Battery, Brooklyn. Positively the
Most Superb Moving Picture Spectacle Ever Produced in America, in Sixteen
Magnificent Scenes.

This description has provided the basis for many subsequent descriptions
in histories of film, but, despite its publication by the Court, it is not
accurate. It merely repeats verbatim Kalem publicity (Figure 11.1).2
It was not coincidence that this film fomented such an important legal
dispute. Despite its having been published in 1880, sales of Lew Wallace’s
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ were still very substantial, and it already had
a legacy of licensed dramatic adaptations. Though Lew Wallace and his
publisher Harper vigorously protected the copyright, in 1889 Wallace
had scripted and approved the ‘Ben-Hur in Tableau and Pantomime’,

1
A Shepard’s Summary via a LexisNexis Academic search for 222 U.S. 55 [Kalem Company v.
Harper Brothers] reveals 354 citations to date.
2
Similar wording appeared in advertisements placed in The Billboard, 7 December 1907:
100 and The Moving Picture World, 7 December 1907: 649. 189
190 Jon Solomon

Figure 11.1 Kalem advertisement for Ben-Hur (1907) in Moving Picture World,
December 1907.

the Clark & Cox production of which played the Midwest and East Coast for
nine years, providing Wallace with a steady income from royalties.3 By 1893
Wallace had condoned E. T. Paull’s ‘Chariot Race, or, Ben Hur March’, and
Wallace also personally approved the foundation of the Tribe of Ben-Hur, a
fraternal organisation and insurance company. In 1898 Marc Klaw and
Abraham Erlanger convinced Wallace to grant them permission to dramatise
the novel on Broadway.4 Debuting in November 1899, the Klaw & Erlanger

3
Wallace signed an agreement with David W. Cox, Albert S. Miller and William S. Brown
on 19 March 1889, and then the royalty agreement (10 per cent) with Harper on 25 September
1889. The relevant Harper documents reside at Butler Library, Columbia University.
4
A vivid eyewitness description of the Klaw & Erlanger production is available in Morseberger &
Morseberger 1980: 460–4, and a text is preserved in Mayer 1994: 205–90. See also Scodel
in this volume. For critical reaction and a survey of productions, see McKee 1947: 177–88.
 The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907) 191

Ben-Hur was a colossal production, the largest and most successful

spectacular ever mounted on the early twentieth-century stage, running
until 1920 and playing abroad as well. It is important to point out that
during these two decades Wallace and Harper also declined a number of
offers to dramatise the novel. These included proposals from a variety of
impresarios, ranging from distinguished legitimate theatrical personalities
(Lawrence Barrett) to circus-like showmen (the Kiralfy Brothers). Their
focus at the time was to maintain control over their artistic property, which
is the main reason the Kalem infringement became such a problem,
particularly now that Klaw & Erlanger also had a stake in the Ben-Hur
property.
Wallace (and then his estate after his death in 1905) earned a 10 per
cent royalty from the Klaw & Erlanger production, which was still going
strong in 1907. That was the year that two Biograph managers, Samuel
Long and Frank J. Marion, decided to become independent New York
film producers. They convinced George Kleine, the Chicago businessman
who specialised in optical camera equipment, to invest in their new
company, naming it K-L-M from the initial letters of their last names.
The nearly contemporary 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica reports that
Kalem began operations on 12 April and was incorporated on 2 May.5
Kalem soon hired actor Sidney Olcott as a director, and then Marion
turned the job of scenario writing over to actress Gene Gauntier
(née Genevieve Liggett).6
However, there are difficulties lurking behind this apparently straight-
forward narrative of the company’s launch and its ownership. The afore-
mentioned 1911 Britannica article specifies that of the fifty shares of
stock issued, twenty-nine went to Marion, ten to Long, ten to Kleine,
and one to employee Walter Hatt, but in reporting the incorporation of
this new ‘photographic business’, the New York Times for 30 April 1907
omits Kleine’s name entirely.7 Gauntier wrote an autobiographical account
of her early career at Kalem for Woman’s Home Companion in 1928, and
there she recalled that Kalem had begun making films already in February,
and that originally Long and Marion had an investment of $2,000 and that

5
‘Production as the Nickelodeon Era Begins: 1905–1907 – New Production Companies’, The
Encyclopedia Britannica, available online at http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/1923/
Production-as-the-Nickelodeon-Era-Begins-1905–1907.html, accessed 12 March 2011.
6
For Kalem, see Horwitz & Harrison 1980: xiii–xiv; Slide 1994: 47–64; Harner 1998: 188–207.
For Olcott, see also Foster 2000: 221–3 and Jacobs 1939: 122–5. For Gauntier, see Menefee 2004:
71–82 and Azlant 1997: 237–9.
7
New York Times, 30 April 1907: 12.
192 Jon Solomon

Kleine contributed $3,000.8 Charles Foster, Olcott’s friend and biographer,

had known his fellow Canadian personally since the 1940s and claims that
in writing the biography he had access to personal files and Kalem records.9
He says that Marion had only $300 to contribute to Kalem, Long the $600
he borrowed from relatives, and that Kleine provided the rest of the capital
required to purchase a camera, film, and lighting equipment.10 Gauntier
says Kalem’s first film was The Sleigh Belle, Foster says Sleigh Bells. Eileen
Bowser in The Transformation of Cinema says Kleine provided only 20 per
cent of the funding, that Kalem’s first production was released in the spring,
and that its title was The Runaway Sleighbelle, which is still not quite
correct.11 Kalem’s first advertisement in The Moving Picture World
appeared in the issue of 6 July 1907, and there they list as the first film in
their catalogue A Runaway Sleighbelle.12 Sorting all this out is beyond the
scope of this chapter and the study of classical antiquity in the cinema, but
it puts us on strong notice that even autobiographical sources from actual
participants, biographical sources associated with actual participants, and
otherwise authoritative secondary sources are all suspect in reporting
important details, even such factual details as distribution of shares,
amounts of financial investment and film titles – Ben Hur (without the
hyphen) providing a perfect example of an incorrect title. Nonetheless, we
must attempt to sort out the material relevant to the film itself.
Gauntier recalls how she became involved in the production of Kalem’s
Ben-Hur. She writes:

[Marion] explained that the Pain’s Fireworks Company, which had been exhibiting
a spectacle all summer on the racetrack at Sheepshead Park, was closing for the
season. Here was a great opportunity to produce Ben Hur [sic] using the Pain
Company’s props, supers and standing scenery. Would I have the scenario ready in
two days? It was October. The fall rains might begin at any time.13

So far her recollections do not disagree with the description publicised by

Kalem and featured in the Supreme Court brief, but then she contradicts
the information about the costumes, location, and supers:

Mr. Olcott and I went to the racetrack, found the props impossible and the supers
inadequate, hurried back to Swain’s Agency and interviewed people for the cast
and for extras, and late in the evening rushed down to Elliott’s and remained until
after midnight selecting props and hundreds of costumes.

8 9
Gauntier 1928: 7. Foster 2000: 221–2.
10 11
For slightly different amounts, see Harner 1998: 188–207. Bowser 1990: 24–5.
12 13
The Moving Picture World, 6 July 1907: 283. Gauntier 1928: 7.
 The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907) 193

Earlier Gauntier specified that Gus Elliott was ‘an old German down in
St. Mark’s Place’. As for the Metropolitan Opera in Kalem’s publicity, this
seems like advertising hyperbole, as is the line that says ‘Positively the Most
Superb Moving Picture Spectacle Ever Produced in America, in Sixteen
Magnificent Scenes.’ And yet, Gauntier’s recollections were published, and
presumably written, more than twenty years after the fact, so it is possible
that she confused the production of one film with that of another. Kalem
was producing films at the rate of nearly one per week.
As for the location of the shoot, Gauntier recalls that it was at Sheepshead
Park, but The Billboard and The Moving Picture World advertise-
ments for 7 December 1907 inform their readers that the film was shot
at Manhattan Beach. Manhattan Beach is just south of Sheepshead
Bay, which used to extend further east towards Coney Island until the
highway construction of the 1930s. Unfortunately, a different Kalem pub-
licity statement in the same issue of The Billboard locates the shoot at
Coney Island.14
Gauntier also says that she and Olcott were dissatisfied with the props
and supers supplied by Pain’s Fireworks. Beginning in 1879, Henry Pain of
Britain’s Pain’s Fireworks Company established an elaborate amphitheatre
for summer entertainments – with performances by John Philip Sousa’s
bands, dance recitals, high-wire acts and, of interest to us, chariot races.15
Chariot races were not strange to American popular entertainments.
Circuses had been using chariots for years, and the Kiralfy Brothers, whose
request to dramatise Ben-Hur Wallace had rejected, instead produced a
Neronian spectacular with chariots in 1888.16
According to Gauntier’s account, the chariots Kalem used for its film
were provided by Pain’s Fireworks, so the origins of the film may be as
simple as this: a popular entertainment that recreated the ancient Roman
town of Pompeii for modern visitors by day and then ‘destroyed’ it each
night in a spectacular fireworks display (Figure 11.2), and included chariot
races as part of its programme, was being closed down for the season in
October of 1907, and the opportunity of ready-made chariots, horses and
trained charioteers suggested to Frank Marion that Kalem could produce a
film version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. But the Supreme Court brief

14
‘The Kalem Company’, The Billboard, 7 December 1907: 74.
15
E.g. ‘The Burning of Rome: Pain’s Exhibition at Manhattan Beach Excels All Previous
Spectacles’, Brooklyn Eagle, 20 June 1902: 10.
16
‘Rome Upon Rails: Preparations for Kiralfy’s Great Spectacle Advancing Rapidly’, New York
Times, 8 June 1888: 9. The article reports that the chariot track will be 1,200 feet in
circumference.
194 Jon Solomon

Figure 11.2 Pain’s Last Days of Pompeii, Manhattan Beach, card, c. 1900.

and the Kalem advertisement claim that the chariot race was re-enacted by
the ‘3d Battery, Brooklyn’. One might think that Brooklyn’s Third Battery
was an artillery unit and less likely to maintain a chariot detail, but an entry
in the 1909 World Almanac cites twenty-seven members of Brooklyn’s
Third Battery as the holders of the military endurance record for riding
fifty miles in six hours, so clearly horsemanship – at least without the
chariot – was an integral part of their training.17 Complicating matters is
the assertion in Kalem’s self-promotion in The Billboard for 7 December,
where we read the claim that ‘we used the trained four-horse teams of the
13th Heavy Artillery of Brooklyn’. And yet, at the military tourney held in
Madison Square Garden on 12 January 1897, the ‘chariot races’ did not
include horses but men four-abreast pulling a chariot 176 yards.18
I think we can be relatively sure here that Kalem used Pain’s chariots. The
Billboard and The Moving Picture World advertisements for 7 December
inform us that the film was co-directed by Frank Oakes Rose. Contemporary
newspaper accounts make it clear that Rose was the stage manager for
Pain’s spectacular dramaturgy.19 And Gauntier explains in some detail
how Rose was at first in charge of directing the shoot:

17
The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1909, 1908: 204.
18
‘At the Military Tourney: Light Battery D Got the Most Applause’, New York Times,
13 January 1897: 6.
19
E.g. ‘Picnic Lasted Twelve Hours: Employes [sic] of Pain’s Fireworks Company Spend a
Pleasant Day at South Greenfield’, Brooklyn Eagle, 2 August 1898: 5.
 The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907) 195

The weather turned cold with a biting wind coming in from the sea, and the people
had been called for eight o’clock in the morning. When I arrived a little before
noon they were shivering in their thin Roman costumes and nothing had been
accomplished. Not a scene had been taken. Chaos reigned and Mr. Rose was like
a madman. He had never even seen a motion picture taken, knew nothing of
technique or camera limitations, and had reduced Max Schneider, our cameraman,
to despair with his impossible suggestions. Olcott sat on the fence of the racetrack
kicking his heels . . .

At last Marion came to him, almost with tears in his eyes. ‘For the love of Mike,
Sid, get into this and get something done. That man doesn’t know the first
principles of pictures.’

Sid twitched his eyebrows and laughed but he jumped down from his perch, which
was promptly taken by Mr. Rose who was wiping nervous perspiration from his brow.

‘Gad, that’s the hardest thing I was ever up against’, said the man who had
produced a dozen spectacles. And there he sat for the rest of the day, learning
how moving pictures were made.

. . . Fast and furiously Olcott drove his crowds and they, sensing an intelligent
guiding hand, ceased milling and stampeding and settled down to constructive
action. Three days it kept up and at the end of that time, exhausted but happy,
we had the picture ‘in the box’. And the next day it rained.

Although this story is anecdotal, it gives us a vivid, eyewitness account

of the first attempt to adapt Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ to film, reading
almost like a 1930s backstage musical with its production problems and
personal rivalries, complete with the pleading producer, hard-boiled dir-
ector and herded masses of suffering, underpaid actors.
An additional suggestion that the charioteers were Pain’s comes from
Time’s 1935 obituary of Henry Pain, which mentions that he had produced
‘The Chariot Race of Ben Hur’.20 There is otherwise no evidence whatso-
ever that Harper, Wallace, or the Wallace estate ever licensed such a
chariot race, and it is impossible to believe that they would not have
known about or ignored such a high-profile copyright violation, especially
in the New York area. And none of the many newspaper accounts of Pain’s
productions or extant paper ephemera, such as tickets and programmes,
imply that the spectacle was a licensed adaptation of Ben-Hur, so perhaps
the film shoot had stuck in his memory.
If we can trust Gauntier’s memory here, we can also use this passage
to pinpoint when the shoot took place. The Record of Climatological

20
‘Milestones’, Time, 25 February 1935.
196 Jon Solomon

Observations from the archive of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration’s National Climatic Data Center contains the records from
the New York Central Park Tower station for October 1907.21 It clearly
shows that temperatures remained relatively mild through to 18 October;
the low for the entire month until then had been 43 F on 15 October.
Then early morning temperatures began to dip into the 30 range, creating
the chilly mornings Gauntier describes. There was no precipitation what-
soever except for two days of trace rainfall [0.01 inch] during the eighteen
days from 9 October to 26 October. On 27 and 28 October over two inches
of rain fell [1.74, 0.73]. Therefore, the shoot must have been on Thursday,
Friday and Saturday, 24 to 26 October.22
As for post-production, neither Gauntier nor Olcott discusses the sub-
sequent editing of Ben-Hur, but Kalem was one of the first studios to shoot
films with a pre-approved script. The task of writing what Olcott called a
‘scene and story sequence’ was usually Gauntier’s, and this provided in
advance the logical continuity found in many of their films, including
Ben-Hur.23 (This aspect of their production process will not go unnoticed
by the Supreme Court, as we shall see.) This suggests that Olcott shot
exclusively or at least primarily only the footage he needed and perhaps
did so in sequence. However, the film itself reveals at least one instance of
duplication, where it repeats the footage for the beginning of the chariot
race as the ‘Dash for the Finish’. On the other hand, the 1911 Encyclo-
paedia Britannica entry tells us that Kalem was also known at the time
for its innovative use of intertitles.24 The eight intertitles inserted into the
Ben-Hur footage are elaborate, including Kalem’s signature silhouetted
cartoons on each, expanding the visual horizon of the film to include an
image of a Roman galley at sea. No doubt that demanded some additional
production time. The aforementioned advertisements in The Billboard and
The Moving Picture World then appeared in the first week of December,
meaning about forty days between shooting and exhibition.
The Billboard and The Moving Picture World advertisements contain
two different illustrations of racing chariots, display a variety of font types

21
www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-eb/datasets/GHCND/stations/GHCND:USW00094728/detail,
accessed on 1 June 2012.
22
According to the following day’s Brooklyn Eagle (7), the 8 a.m. temperature on Saturday 26
October was 40 ; that at 12 noon 47 .
23
Foster 2000: 226: ‘The few films made by Olcott that remain in archives contrast sharply
with their intelligent continuity when compared to those of most other directors whose material
had no pre-set pattern.’
24
This followed the procedure Marion introduced into Biograph productions.
 The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907) 197

and sizes, and jam their copy with hype, lists of cast, crew and technical
details, a list of scenes and contact information for Kalem and Kleine
Optical as well as London ‘selling agents’. A small line in The Billboard
advertisement asserts (ironically) ‘Copyright by Kalem Company, Inc.’
Two lines in the advertisements need further identification:
– The advertisements credit ‘Mr. Harry Temple’ as director. Harry Temple
was on the board of directors of Pain’s Fireworks. Much to his
chagrin, he was in charge the day of Pain’s greatest disaster, Election
Day, 4 November 1902, when a mortar exploded in Madison Square,
with eighteen fatalities and eighty-five injuries.25
– The ‘Chief Charioteer’ (presumably the role of Judah Ben-Hur) was
played by Herman Rottjer [also known as Rottger]. He has three
credits in the Internet Movie Database: Ben-Hur (1907), Bunny’s
Mistake (1914) and Love’s Old Dream (1914), the latter two being
Vitagraph comedy shorts. According to the German-language
Wikipedia, he was killed in the First World War in a poison gas attack.
The claim that there are ‘Sixteen Magnificent Scenes with Illustrated Titles’
is misleading, and a bit confusing. In the advertisements only fifteen seem
to be listed in three different fonts, and at least one is duplicated: ‘The
Chariot Race’ is listed separately, as are the six parts of the race (and in
the film itself ‘The Dash for the Finish’ is difficult to differentiate from
‘The Finish’).26 This still adds up to only fifteen scenes, so it seems we are
supposed to count ‘Ben Hur adopted by Arrias and proclaimed a Roman
Citizen’ as two. The inaccurate spelling of the name of [Quintus] Arrius as
well as the irregular capitalisation in this [these two] title[s] suggest that
despite the effort exerted to insert the cartoons into the intertitles, there
was not enough effort expended to proofread the printed advertisements.
Nor do the advertisements coordinate precisely with the intertitles used in
the film itself. There the scenes are identified and divided by eight inter-
titles, the subdivisions of ‘The Chariot Race’ (Figure 11.3) being omitted,

25
Cf. ‘15 Killed, 70 Hurt in Madison Square’, New York Times, 5 November 1902: 1. Additional
casualties were reported in the following days. Subsequent newspaper articles about the arrest, trial
and hundreds of thousands of dollars of lawsuits seem to concentrate on the Democrats, William
Randolph Hearst (in honour of whose victory the fireworks had been commissioned) and the
City of New York, dismissing most of the guilt felt by Temple and Pain. Temple was still part of
Pain’s in 1911 when the company was finally forced into bankruptcy by this and other incidents,
followed by additional lawsuits and the ‘Sane Fourth’ movement (that is, the 4th of July without
fireworks), e.g. ‘Sane Fourth Wrecks Pain’s Fireworks Co.’, New York Times, 16 March 1911: 1.
26
grand triumphal entry of chariots and athletes; the start; first time by; second
time by; the dash for the finish; the finish.
198 Jon Solomon

Figure 11.3 Intertitle from Ben-Hur (1907).

and the four ‘scenes’ – the family of hur / an unfortunate accident;

ben hur, rescuer of arrius / adopted and freed from slavery –
reduced to two intertitles. Some of the wording is different, for instance
‘Ben Hur in Chains to the Galleys’ becomes in the film simply ‘Ben Hur to
the Galleys’, and ‘Ben Hur adopted by Arrias and proclaimed a Roman
Citizen’ becomes ‘Ben Hur – Rescuer of Arrius – Adopted and Freed from
Slavery’.
The film consists entirely of a dynamic tableau-style composition cap-
tured by a static camera. The narrative proceeds as follows in the copies held
by the Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art in New York:

INTERTITLE: Jerusalem Rebels at Roman Mis-Rule

A crowd of agitated citizens in the street greets Ben-Hur and responds to
his gestured speech. They grow angry as a Roman procession approaches,
and soldiers force them out of the way. They continue showing their
disdain as they follow the procession. [1 min. 54 sec.]27

INTERTITLE: The Family of Hur – An Unfortunate Accident

Ben-Hur is caressed by his mother on an upper-level patio of the house
of Hur. Tirzah (or a servant) brings her the water and towel she has
summoned, and she in turn gives it to Ben-Hur to wash his hands. He
speaks to her at length, gesturing outwardly. [1 min. 6 sec.]

27
The timings are based on the digitised copy purchased from the Library of Congress in 2009.
 The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907) 199

INTERTITLE: Wounding of the Procurator

With the camera set back further, now showing the patio and the open
doorway to the house, Ben-Hur, standing beside his mother, incites the
street crowd armed with clubs. They menace the Roman standard bearers
as they march past. Ben-Hur knocks a tile loose from the parapet onto
the head of the Roman Procurator in the procession. Messala points up to
Ben-Hur who moves out of view behind the balustrade. There is a melee
in the street, and the Roman soldiers push the crowd out of the way.
[1 min. 9 sec.]

INTERTITLE: Ben Hur to the Galleys

With the camera set closer again, Ben-Hur protects first his mother and
then Tirzah. Messala appears on the patio, pointing accusingly at Ben-Hur
and summoning two soldiers to arrest him. Additional soldiers grab the
women by their arms. Ben-Hur protests repeatedly, but Messala repeatedly
orders the women to be led away. [1 min. 44 sec.]
With the camera set back even further to reveal the door at street level,
Messala emerges first, followed in sequence by three women, each held
captive by two men, and then Ben-Hur struggling with the two men
holding him by the arms, as Messala taunts him. [1 min. 12 sec.]

INTERTITLE: Ben Hur – Rescuer of Arrius – Adopted and Freed

from Slavery
Outside a portico in the Roman Forum, three men observe as a four-horse
chariot rides past twice. A beggar sits in front of the steps to the portico.
Two couriers run up the steps. A crowd gathers as Ben-Hur and Arrius
appear and mount the portico. Arrius addresses the saluting crowd and
places a medallion around Ben-Hur’s neck. He bows and the crowd hails
him repeatedly. [2 min. 8 sec.]

INTERTITLE: Ben Hur and Messala – The Challenge

In an open area before a grand staircase and colonnade [of the Fountain
of Castalia outside Antioch], young men are at play while citizens and
Roman soldiers stroll about. Ben-Hur enters with Balthazar and Iras. The
crowd bows to Balthazar. Messala recklessly drives a chariot towards
200 Jon Solomon

the crowd. Ben-Hur halts it, and this precipitates the challenge between
Ben-Hur and Messala. [1 min. 17 sec.]

INTERTITLE: The Chariot Race

The crowd, standing near a covered tribunal, salutes as a procession of
Roman standards and soldiers approaches and passes, followed by four
four-horse chariots. After the procession has lapped around and returned
into the frame, the standard bearers and soldiers move to the side. The race
begins with two chariots abreast. The crowd watches and cheers as the
chariots make four passes, the fourth duplicating the footage from the
start of the race. The crowd appears to rush onto the track after the finish.
[3 min. 52 sec.]

INTERTITLE: Ben Hur Victor

The crowd hails Ben-Hur as he strides in front of his chariot and bows
before them. He is crowned victor. Messala, borne on a stretcher, raises his
arm as well. [42 sec.]

December 1907 is too early to find contemporary critical reviews, but

a descriptive summary was published in the same issue of The Moving
Picture World as contained the Kalem publicity.28 The writer explains the
visual narrative in great detail, sometimes describing more than the film
contains, e.g. ‘Ben Hur is consigned to the galleys, where he is loaded with
chains. Here he signalizes himself by saving the life of Arrias, who publicly
adopts him as his son . . .’
Gene Gauntier offered a critique of her own film in 1928, comparing it
in part to the MGM 1925 version of Ben-Hur:

Of course viewed by present standards it was an atrocious film. Imagine producing

Ben Hur in approximately one thousand feet and ‘sixteen magnificent scenes’
as the advertisement read! The chariot race was the great climax and ‘sold’ the
picture. But there were no water scenes, no galley shots. Nevertheless, crude as it
was, it was a step forward and a fine advertisement for the Kalem Company.29

We know a bit about the film’s distribution. The decision of the Appeals
Court states specifically:

28
‘The Kalem Company’, The Moving Picture World, 7 December 1907: 651.
29
Gauntier 1928.
 The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907) 201

Figure 11.4 Photo of Ben-Hur (1907) exhibition.

The defendant advertises this film as suitable for giving public exhibitions of the
story of Ben Hur, and sent advertisements to, among other persons, proprietors of
theatoriums. At least 500 exhibitions have been given in such theatoriums, an
entrance fee being charged.30

These 500-plus exhibitions may have been limited to a period of approxi-

mately ten to twenty weeks (Figure 11.4). At least, Kalem advertisements
cease to list the film by mid February 1908. The New York Times reports
that Harper, Klaw & Erlanger and Henry Wallace had brought suit
against Kalem and Kleine Optical already by 13 March 1908,31 and the
United States Circuit Court’s decision in their favour was released
on 5 May.32 Nonetheless, in mid September 1911, Klaw & Erlanger had
to bring suit against a certain John Noonan for exhibiting Ben-Hur the
previous week. Noonan admitted at the hearing that he had obtained the
films from Harry K. Lucas of Charlotte, North Carolina, an independent
film dealer who rented films unlicensed by the MPPC – the Motion
Picture Patents Company, the powerful but short-lived monopoly of

30
Harper & Bros. et al. v. Kalem Co. et al. [Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit – 169 F. 61].
31
‘Theatrical Notes’, New York Times, 14 March 1908: 7: ‘They allege that the defendants, without
authority, are producing the play in cheap theatres in the city with machines belonging to the
Kleine Optical Company. Damages and an injunction are asked for.’
32
‘Must Pay Royalties on Moving Pictures’, New York Times, 6 May 1908: 5.
202 Jon Solomon

film producers.33 This proves that there were illegal copies of the Kalem
film still in some form of distribution as much as four years after its
initial release.
Ultimately the film itself was not nearly so influential as the legal decisions
it engendered. The May 1908 decision from Judge Emile Henry Lacombe of
the United States Circuit Court declared that Kalem had violated copyright
law by exhibiting a film composed of scenes from a copyrighted book (and
play). Still photographs representing characters from the novel did not
involve any copyright infringement, nor did a series of photographs, but
‘when the moving pictures are thrown upon the screen’, he specified, they
represent pantomimes and are therefore subject to the copyright guidelines
established for theatrical productions.34 He also cited the guidelines under
Section 4952 of the Revised Statutes of 1901, which stipulated that the author
of a printed book also has the sole right of dramatising it.35
The report in the trade paper Variety for 9 May 1908 adds that this
decision

will have great effect upon the contemplated ‘living moving pictures’ which have of
late been in anticipation by film manufacturers. Under the Court’s decree, royalty
must be paid for productions of copyrighted articles, and this may interfere to a
considerable extent with the manufacturer’s plans.36

Despite the negative decision, Kalem continued into 1908 with such films
as The Days of ’61, based on N. J. W. Le Cato’s 1888 novel, Tom Burton; or,
The Days of ’61; and versions of H. W. Longfellow’s Evangeline,
N. Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and The Merry Widow. According to
David Robinson in From Peepshow to Palace: The Birth of the American
Film, only the last was injuncted.37
Kalem, now a member of the MPPC trust, appealed against the decision.
According to the court document, attorney Drury W. Cooper argued that
the Kalem representation was only an exhibition of pictures, not a dra-
matic performance, and because the film was not a written product, the
statute concerning moving pictures was unconstitutional in that Congress
had the constitutional right to regulate only ‘writings’.38 David Gerber

33
‘Stop “Ben Hur” in Films’, New York Times, 21 September 1911: 13.
34
‘Must Pay Royalties on Moving Pictures’, New York Times, 6 May 1908: 5.
35
Cf. Thomas 1979 and Hover 1909.
36
‘Film Makers Must Pay For Copyrighted Productions’, Variety 10.9, 9 May 1908: 11.
37
Robinson 1997: 155.
38
Harper & Bros. et al. v. Kalem Co. et al. [Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit – 169 F. 61].
‘Ben Hur Pictures Stopped By Court’, Macon Daily Telegraph, 28 March 1909: 8.
Plate 1 Le Festin de Balthazar (Balthasar’s Feast, Gaumont, France, 1910, dir. Louis
Feuillade). Still frame from original 35mm stencil colour nitrate print.

Plate 2 Shot following the shot in Plate 1, showing the legendary ‘writing on the wall’,
Le Festin de Balthazar. Still frame from original 35mm stencil colour nitrate print.
Plate 3 Giuditta e Holoferne (Judith and Holofernes, Cines, Italy, 1908). Still frame
from an original nitrate tinted print.

Plate 4 Giuditta e Holoferne (Judith and Holofernes, Cines, Italy, 1908). Still frame
from an original nitrate tinted print.
Plate 5 King Midas entertained by Pan in La Légende de Midas (The Legend of King
Midas, France, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade). Still frame from original 35mm stencil colour
nitrate print.

Plate 6 King Midas allows his barber to see his donkey ears in La Légende de Midas
(The Legend of King Midas, France, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade). Still frame from original
35mm stencil colour nitrate print.

Plate 7 King Midas ashamed of his donkey ears in La Légende de Midas (The Legend of
King Midas, France, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade). Still frame from original 35mm stencil
colour nitrate print.
Plate 8 Moïse sauvé des eaux (Moses Saved from the Water, France, 1911, dir. Henri
Andréani). Still frame from original 35mm stencil colour nitrate print.

Plate 9 ‘Pharaoh, who does not know that God has chosen the child as Israel’s
liberator, gives his daughter his consent to accept it under the name of Moses’, Moïse
sauvé des eaux (Moses Saved from the Water, France, 1911, dir. Henri Andréani). Still
frame from original 35mm nitrate print.

Plate 10 Moïse sauvé des eaux (Moses Saved from the Water, France, 1911, dir. Henri
Andréani). Still frame from original 35mm nitrate print held at the British Film Institute.
Plate 11 Herbert Schmalz, Zenobia’s Last Look upon Palmyra, oil on canvas, 1888.
(Also appears as Figure 3.1.)

Plate 12 Berlin, underground station Klosterstraße, southern entrance hall.

Photograph, 2011 (Marcus Becker, Berlin). (Also appears as Figure 3.3.)
 Plate 13 Cover to souvenir programme: Imre Kiralfy’s The Fall of Babylon, Boston,
1891. (Also appears as Figure 6.3.)

Plate 14 Triumphant procession as depicted in souvenir programme for Imre Kiralfy’s The Fall of
Babylon. (Also appears as Figure 6.4.)
Plate 15 French poster for Manfred Noa’s film Helena (1924), released in France as Le
siège de Troie. (Also appears as Figure 9.2.)

Plate 16 Odysseus’ ship and its encounter with Scylla in Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe
de Liguoro and Adolfo Padovan’s Odissea (1911). (Also appears as Figure 9.3.)

Plate 17 The Last Supper: Jesus announces that someone will betray him in Pathé’s The
Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905). (Also appears as Figure 10.2.)
 Plate 18 Pain’s Last Days of Pompeii, Manhattan Beach, card, c. 1900. (Also appears as
Figure 11.2.)

Plate 19 Film advertisement, France 1932, Imp. Jules Simon S.A., Paris. (Also appears as Figure 13.2.)
 The Kalem Ben-Hur (1907) 203

argued that moving pictures were a relatively new invention, to be included

within the constitutional guideline. On 16 March 1909, the Circuit Court
of Appeals Judge Henry Galbraith Ward upheld the decision:
Such a composition, though its success is largely dependent upon what is seen,
irrespective of the dialogue, is dramatic. It tells a story which is quite as intelligible
to the spectator as if it had been presented to him in a written narrative.39

Although the Constitution does specify ‘writings’ (section 8, article 1), the
original Copyright Law of 1790 had been extended periodically to include
engravings and etchings (1802), paintings and photographs (1870), and
in 1891, as we have seen, authors ‘and their assigns’, that is Harper and
Klaw & Erlanger in this case, to whom was given ‘the exclusive right to
dramatise their copyrighted works’.
The Motion Picture Patents Company financed Kalem’s appeal to
the United States Supreme Court and ultimately paid their $25,000 fine.
The case was argued between 31 October and 1 November 1911, and
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes delivered the opinion.40 Here attorney
Cooper argued that Kalem did not infringe on the Ben-Hur copyright
holders because Kalem was creating a new artistic product, entirely differ-
ent from a written book. Another argument was that Kalem was not
responsible for exhibiting the film, only producing it. Holmes ruled that
a moving picture did indeed fall under the Constitution’s prescription for
written material, especially since ‘they employed “a man”’ to write it – not
an accurate description of Gene Gauntier, and, ironically, pinpointing the
scenario which Kalem was so proud of. Also, Kalem could not be absolved
of the responsibility of exhibiting their product just because others were
doing it for them.
The result was immediate and widespread, and beneficial to the industry.41
The legal use of copyrighted properties flourished, and competent
screenwriters would now become important components of the filmmak-
ing process. Kalem would produce another 1,500 films, and the Wallace
estate would later sell the film rights to Ben-Hur for $600,000. Most
importantly, while film producers now had to pay a royalty to reproduce
copyrighted written material cinematically, this also meant that their films
could be copyrighted. Many of the early battles over illicit ‘dupers’ and
pirates would dissipate.

39
See 1note 38 above. 40
Kalem Company v. Harper Brothers [222 U.S. 55].
41
Cf. Hovet 2001: 283–94.
204 Jon Solomon

Copies of the Kalem Ben-Hur for the most part disappeared on account
of the permanent court-ordered injunction. Even the Library of Congress
did not own a complete copy for many years. But the Museum of Modern
Art (New York) and the Library of Congress (Washington) now have
complete copies, and a century later we can appreciate this film as an
important early representation of a ‘feature’ film derived from a popular
novel, an ambitious and worthy film in its day.
12 | Judith’s vampish virtue and its double
market appeal
judith buchanan

The early film industry was characterised by conflicting market needs. On

the one hand was the commercial imperative to thrill and to titillate; on the
other, the public relations need to edify and to educate. Though production
output testified to the centrality of both, it was the second of these impera-
tives, the need to assert the ‘improving’ potential of moving pictures, that
conspicuously claimed the column inches in the trade press. Early cinema’s
self-styled ‘uplift movement’ explicitly sought to redeem the industry from
charges of scurrility and degeneracy by making films of cultural value.1
Needless to say, though, the impulse to find a higher artistic and moral
register did not dispel the commercially driven need for films to maximise
popular appeal by providing visual and narrative thrills.2 Caught between
two powerfully felt, but potentially antithetical, central institutional aspir-
ations, it was understandable that the moving picture industry should have
seized gratefully upon material able to satisfy both needs at once.
Of the range of literary, biblical, classical and contemporary subjects
to which filmmakers turned to help respectabilise the medium, none was
better placed to answer the riven institutional need than the apocryphal
Judith – establishing her bifurcated credentials in this respect by drawing
explicitly upon her dual identity as duplicitous siren and godly widow. In the
style of her performance within the drama, she could be invited to ‘quote’,
and even temporarily to become, the much-enjoyed cinematic figure of the
deadly screen vamp – harnessing the erotic potential of an uninhibited
performance of titillating danger encoded in specifically female form.
Judith’s performed vamping was also, of course, encased within a biblical
narrative that ostensibly promoted the values of piety and moral purpose
throughout. As the Book of Judith had already amply demonstrated in its
multiple interpretations in literature, theatre and fine art across the centuries,

1
Discussion of the film industry’s uplift movement has been extensively conducted elsewhere.
See, in particular, Uricchio & Pearson 1993: 41–64. The role of Shakespeare films as part of
the campaign to respectabilise the industry is discussed in Buchanan 2009: 57–60, 75, 107–12,
137–8.
2
As one example of the argument for ‘moral’ and ‘quality’ cinema ranged alongside the
simultaneous need in films for ‘some sort of thrill’, see Hover 1911: 84–6. 205
206 Judith Buchanan

a transgressive frisson cannily couched as spiritual purpose was a market

winner. And Judith proved able to straddle the treacherous chasm between
the morally suspect and the thoroughly edifying with unrivalled poise.

Judith’s cultural profile, 1896–1919

The central narrative of the Book of Judith is well known. A pious and
God-fearing Jewish widow in the besieged town of Bethulia, Judith argues
against those advocating surrender, dresses herself strategically to allure,
slips out of the city and into the enemy’s camp, ensures she is desired
by Holofernes the besieging Assyrian general, gets him drunk, decapitates
him, returns to Bethulia, displays his head with theatrical aplomb to
general acclaim, choreographs a military victory over the besieging army,
is hailed a hero and then lives out her remaining days in quiet, and chaste,
seclusion. Unsurprisingly, the conspicuous paradoxes inherent in the story
(murderous sexuality mixed with ardent piety), its sensational character
(defenceless widow slays drunken general) and symbolic appeal (woman as
seductress, warrior, avenger, revolutionary, patriot, politician, priest) have
made of it one to which writers and artists of all media have been
repeatedly drawn across the centuries. Its symbolically freighted character
makes of it, in Mieke Bal’s terms, an ideo-story – a story that can be invited
to mean quite decisively different things to different interpretive commu-
nities.3 Consequently, its narrative and visually suggestive elements have
provided rich pickings as its compelling central character has been repeat-
edly reconfigured to provide an interpretive filter through which successive
generations might reflect on female virtue, sexuality, violence, piety and the
citizen’s obligations to the state in time of need.
Even in the context of Judith’s ongoing popularity across the centuries,
the years 1896–1919 witnessed a peculiarly heightened burst of interest
in the story. This reinvigorated and intensified attention found expression
in, for example: American writer Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s long narrative
poem Judith of Bethulia (1896), American composer George Whitefield
Chadwick’s Judith opera (1901), two Judith paintings from Austrian
Symbolist Gustav Klimt (1902, 1909), a new American play by Samuel
Alfred Mills (1902), the first publication (1903) of Alexander Serov’s
nineteenth-century opera Judith, a new stage play from Thomas Bailey
Aldrich (1904), American author Thompson Buchanan’s sentimental

3
Bal 1989: 11–24.
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 207

novel Judith Triumphant (1905), a new and lavishly illustrated collector’s

edition of the Book of Judith featuring twenty-two coloured lithographs by
Lovis Corinth (1910), plays from German writers Martin Schütze (1910),
Otto Burchard (1915) and Sebastian Wieser (1918) and from celebrated
English writer Arnold Bennett (1919). Significantly, these years also saw
the release of three Judith films:
– the 1908 one-reel Giuditta e Oloferne / Judith and Holofernes from Rome-
based production company Cines, directed by Mario Caserini, starring
Maria Caserini;4
– the 1910 two-reel Judith et Holopherne from French company Gaumont,
directed by Louis Feuillade, starring Renée Carl;5
– the 1913/14 four-reel Judith of Bethulia from American company Bio-
graph, directed by D. W. Griffith (his last production for Biograph),
starring Blanche Sweet.6
Against the background of a flurry of contemporary engagements with
Judith, this chapter focuses centrally on these three films. In discussing
them, I analyse the ways in which Judith was cinematically presented in the
silent era, holding in a tense truce as she so eloquently does, competing,
even antagonistic, cinematic traditions. In the course of this analysis,
I glance intermittently at the artistic, poetic and theatrical legacies that
directly or indirectly inform the films. However, I begin the examination of
Judith’s cultural potency, profile and semantic pliability across cultural
forms with a consideration of the biblical source upon which both the films
and other artistic interpretations draw.

The apocryphal Judith: narrative structure and

narrative strain

In her narrative roles, the apocryphal Judith provides, in effect, a point

of symbolic mediation between Old Testament predecessors and New
Testament successors. In her self-conscious performance of a strategically
wily and self-sexualising threat to the head of her enemy, she inherits and
expands the role of the temptress-murderess Jael who makes a deadly attack

4
A one-reel print, shorn of intertitles in its surviving form, is held at the BFI National Archive, London.
5
A two-reel print, with German intertitles, is held at the BFI National Archive, London.
6
The Griffith film was subsequently also re-released in a slightly longer version under the renamed
title Her Condoned Sin (1917), including some original footage omitted from the film’s initial
release. The earlier release is currently commercially available on French DVD from Bach Films.
208 Judith Buchanan

upon Sisera’s head while he sleeps (Judges 5); redeems that of Delilah who
offers up Samson’s head of hair to his enemies while he sleeps (Judges 16);
and partly anticipates that of the later (extra-biblically named) Salome who
is tasked to demand the decapitated head of her mother’s enemy when she
has found favour through her own performed feminine charms (Mark 6).
Even in the context of such diverse female biblical company, though, Judith
constitutes an improbable biblical heroine. She is not herself a ruler, king, or
prophet, nor is she even the daughter of, or consort to, power. She is a
widow, a personally respected but power-marginalised character in society,
plucked from the ranks for a specific task and then, in the biblical account,
explicitly and emphatically returned to them. Her story therefore represents
a temporary, but vibrantly potent, showcasing of the unlikely candidate,
drawing her into the spotlight, putting her under pressure and watching
her perform magnificently in it as the saviour of her people, but then
requiring her to melt back if not quite into obscurity then certainly into
gentle and self-effacing retirement once her task is complete.
Judith’s story may be read, and has frequently been read, as a forceful
challenge to patriarchal assumptions about action, narrative agency and
the right progress of stories: the men from Bethulia serve principally as
emasculated foil to Judith’s resourcefulness, resolve, energy, commitment,
faith, personal courage and even military vision. But the biblical telling of
Judith’s tale also exhibits an acute anxiety about the possible implications
of its own story in terms of social organisation and political power. As if
aware of the hornets’ nest of social and gender subversions it can poten-
tially stir up, in its closing sections the story therefore works hard to neuter
and contain the heroine it has radically unleashed upon the preceding
narrative. Mapping the biblical account’s late, conservative rowing back on
its own earlier gender-transgressive impulses provides a useful backdrop
against which we may then read some of the early film industry’s inter-
pretive interventions into that self-revising account.
‘The Book of Judith’ introduces Judith as:
the daughter of Merari, the son of Ox, the son of Joseph, the son of Oziel, the son
of Elcia, the son of Ananias, the son of Gedeon, the son of Raphaim, the son of
Acitho, the son of Eliu, the son of Eliab, the son of Nathanael, the son of Samael,
the son of Salasadai, the son of Israel.

And Manasses was her husband, of her tribe and kindred, who died in the barley
harvest . . . (8:1–2)7

7
All quotations from the Book of Judith taken from the King James Version (KJV).
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 209

This looks, at first glance, like a conventional introductory genealogy,

tracing the patrilineal heritage in order to place the character – if, in this
case, via a fictitious genealogical route – ultimately as a child of Jacob, that
is of Israel, and so as one of the children of God.8 But the introductory
insistence upon Judith’s androcentric placement alerts us also to a minor
but significant break from convention here. For this sort of direct-line
genealogy is, in fact, the convention for male biblical characters: female
ones, by contrast, are more usually given a primary familial placement
through a husband, brother or cousin and then contextualised through his
line (see, for example, the indirect genealogies of Deborah, Jael, Susanna,
Miriam, Esther and even Mary).9 In Judith’s introduction, though, it is she
who is given the direct genealogy and her husband who is declared ‘of her
tribe and kindred’ (my emphasis). Even while she is apparently being
defined by her placement within patriarchal structures, therefore, Judith
has already performed her own first, sly act of gender displacement,
appropriating the male position in the line of descent and thereby relegat-
ing her (dead) husband to being defined as adjunct to her.
From this minor act of purely symbolic displacement, many more
gender subversions then follow, acts that are rendered fully conspicuous
within the narrative as Judith incrementally appropriates male authority
and function. When the (male) city elders advocate surrender, for example,
she explicitly tells them that what they are doing is ‘not right’ (8:11); she
takes it upon herself to defeat the Assyrians and to do so without male
assistance; she seizes and uses a general’s own sword against his own
person (13:6,8); she makes a detailed military plan that is successfully
implemented by her countrymen (14:1–4); she is crowned with the victor’s
wreath and feted as conquering hero by her people (15:12–13); and, as a
result, she is implicitly, and inescapably, reconstituted as heir apparent for
the political and military leadership of the otherwise seemingly rudderless
city of Bethulia.
However, if everything through to the end of the story’s penultimate
chapter (chapter 15) would seem to declare Judith a sexual adventuress,
supremely eligible leader of the city and supplanter of men, the book’s final
chapter then works hard to defuse the perceived air of confrontational
challenge that the unrivalled efficacy and popularity of her figure have
previously posited. In chapter 16, therefore, after the heady drama of her
Assyrian venture and glorious reception back in Bethulia, Judith then

8
For a discussion of Judith’s genealogy, see van Henten 1995: 247.
9
Judges 4; Susanna 1; Exodus 2, 15; Esther 2; Matthew 1.
210 Judith Buchanan

retires from public life, rejects all would-be lovers (16:22) and lives out her
days chastely and quietly, ‘wax[ing] old in her husband’s house’ (16:23).
To seal her conservative containment materially as well as symbolically,
when she dies, she is then, we are told, ‘buried . . . in the cave of her
husband Manasses’ (16:23). Finishing the story in this way reels Judith
back in fully to a socially unthreatening position: that is, she is not just
dead, but dead in a manner explicitly governed once more by conventional
social structures and patriarchal authority – buried in her husband’s tomb.
The tremors of gender-political challenge generated by the preceding story
are thereby comprehensively quelled by its close. And so it is that the
book’s vibrant heroine is checked from inadvertently exceeding her brief to
be narratively compelling and so prevented from becoming, by default,
a figure of potential social disruption.
Though challenging at every turn the containing implications of its
androcentric framework, Judith’s story is, therefore, firmly book-ended,
from birth-line to burial, by her placement within a world of men. More-
over, as if aware of the interpretive dangers inherent in showcasing such a
radical version of womanhood, the uncompromising narrative of sexual
charade, brazen deception, faux-seduction, decapitation and military
opportunism that plays out between those striking end-markers is also
punctuated throughout by an ardent insistence upon the godly piety of
its heroine. We are told on several occasions that ‘she feared God greatly’
(e.g. 8:8), and, lest we need further reassurance, are reminded that her
actions, however seemingly outré, are pursued ‘with a good heart’ (8:28);
let it not be thought that her highly sexualised appearance on leaving
Bethulia was for any other purpose than ‘to the glory of the children of
Israel and to the exaltation of Jerusalem’ (10:8); and at the potentially most
compromising moment in Holofernes’ tent, Judith herself once again
asserts that all is being done ‘for the exaltation of Jerusalem’ (13:4). In this
way, the narrative anticipates and attempts to deflect possible alternative
interpretations of its racy, convention-breaching, explosive tale, indemni-
fying its heroine against the potential moral judgements of both harlotry
and monstrosity and so affirming by rhetorical assertion the rightness of its
own conservatively containing narrative framework.
Inevitably, though, the earnest attempts to ward off alternative possible
readings of Judith from its narrative territory cannot but inadvertently
advertise the account’s anxiety about the possible seductive power those
readings might hold if allowed the oxygen of more permissive exposure.
In this way, the discernible tension in the telling of the story, as it strains to
keep out perspectives that might compromise its ostensibly conservative
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 211

agenda, teasingly make part-visible the interpretive alternatives it is

attempting to quash. As a consequence, many subsequent creative inter-
preters of Judith’s story have felt drawn to that which is officially inadmis-
sible in this tale – the very reading of action and character that the
narrative has been at pains to suppress. In different ways, and to different
degrees, the film versions from the early cinema period interrogate aspects
of the conservative curbs placed upon the biblical account’s dynamic
heroine, probing what the repeated assurances about Judith’s morality
and the final ardent containment of her person might be trying to hold
in check.

Giuditta e Holoferne / Judith and Holofernes

(Cines, 1908, dir. Mario Caserini)
When the Italian production company Cines adapted the story of Judith
for film in 1908, the limited available footage and concomitantly circum-
scribed storytelling possibilities of the one-reel format necessarily made
editorial choices central to their project. From the range of possible exci-
sions, it is no surprise that Cines should have chosen to omit the narra-
tively de trop opening and closing sequences in which Judith quietly lives
out her devout widowhood in private space. Lacking both action and
spectacle, these scenes were easily expendable without sacrificing narrative
coherence. More than that, cutting them ensured the film could sustain
pace, intensity and drama through to its final, action-packed frame.
But the excisions also, inevitably, did more than adjust the rhythmic
cadences and sustain the spectacular pitch of the story: they also incidentally
revised its gender politics. In the absence of the biblical coda (chapter 16) in
which Judith withdraws from the public eye, in the Cines film she finishes
the story victoriously displaying the head of the conquered Holofernes upon
the Bethulian battlements. This final image celebrates Judith as unabashed
victor, bowed down to by the grateful Bethulians and, as a consequence,
iconically displacing Ozias and the other city elders in both civic and military
supremacy. In doing so it creates an ending that is both more theatrically
framed and more socially challenging than that of its narrative source in
which, resealed into privacy, widowhood and inactivity in its closing stages,
Judith is explicitly reconstituted (almost de-constituted) sexually, socially
and politically. Allowing her to end the drama in public space as visually
splendid and politically central, by contrast, licenses female power to
triumph without apology at the end of this film. Inevitably, as received in
the film’s international distribution in 1908 and 1909 – a period in which the
212 Judith Buchanan

Figure 12.1 The inspiring angel appears to strengthen Judith’s resolve in Giuditta e
Holoferne (1908, dir. M. Caserini).

fervent, and rising, discourse about women’s suffrage and female political
empowerment was taking hold across Europe and the USA – Cines’ editorial
decision to omit the biblical insistence on Judith’s re-containment and self-
effacing piety, and to close instead on this celebratory image of undiluted
glory, had contemporary resonance.10
While empowering Judith in its closing cameo, however, the Cines film also
interpolated an angel into the story, an interpolation which, conversely,
suggested a tempering of some of Judith’s agency and personal potency.
The angel itself was configured as a woman in a long dress with wings, a
serious demeanour and some weighty gestural power. By a process of simple
stop-motion shooting, the angel appears intermittently through the film, to
inspire Judith with heavenly strength and purpose: motivating her to embark
on her mission in Bethulia by pointing the way that she should go; renewing
her resolve to appear sexually accommodating when she finds herself over-
come by physical revulsion for Holofernes; and subsequently, when Judith’s
murderous nerve fails at the climactic moment, appearing again, like Hamlet’s
ghost, to whet her almost blunted purpose (Figure 12.1). (The angel’s ghostly
Hamletian resonances seem the more conspicuous given the release of a film
of Hamlet by Cines in the same year.)11
There is no such metaphysical occurrence in the biblical story: it is
driven purely by human capacity and human purpose. Whereas the God
of Abraham and Isaac appears intermittently to male biblical figures

10
The potency and topicality of the debates is evidenced in, for example, Catt 1911 and
Burton 1991.
11
On that film, see Buchanan 2005: 51–2.
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 213

through the Old Testament (in angelic form, in a burning bush, in a still
small voice, in a fiery furnace), the female ones are very rarely divinely
privileged by instances of theophany.12 Old Testament female characters
are instead typically left, like the apocryphal Judith, to intuit godly purpose
and act on their own human initiative and raw nerve. It is in part this
withholding of direct female access to Yahweh across the biblical story
that then throws enhanced visual, narrative and spiritual significance upon
the annunciating angel’s in-person appearance to Mary at the opening of
the gospel accounts.
By iconographically anticipating the groundbreaking spectacle of the
Annunciation, the angel’s appearance to Judith in the Cines film inevitably,
therefore, invites speculation on possible parallels discernible across the
visually rhymed figures of Judith and Mary. The association is not new:
in Catholic iconography and religious life, Judith has frequently been
used as an anticipatory prototype for the Virgin Mary with whom she is
symbolically aligned. In 1515, for example, Titian explicitly courted the
association by painting a Judith whose overriding serenity, reverential
quality and maternally nurturing pose in cradling the head of Holofernes
had all but reconfigured her as a Madonna figure, the Jesus child incongru-
ously replaced by a severed head.13 The inevitable result of the suggestive
association is to elevate the symbolic import of Judith’s story, thereby
drawing from it an anticipatory, spiritual significance about both delivery
and deliverance (of a people, of humanity) with more extensive emblem-
atic weight than it might otherwise own.
Whereas the engine for the action in the apocryphal account is exclu-
sively Judith’s own insight, will and purpose, the introduction of the angel
in the Cines film also throws purpose onto a metaphysical plane. Poten-
tially, this might detract from the energy of the human spiritedness that
the biblical Judith displays, robbing her of personal pluck, reinvesting her
impressive resolution in the godly messenger and leaving her a mere
puppet in a heavenly plan. In practice, though, the angel’s primary effect
in the film is less to diminish Judith than to help signal her psychological
complexity. In the apocryphal account, just prior to killing Holofernes,
Judith prays for strength: she ‘approached to his bed, and took hold of the
hair of his head, and said, Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, this day’
(13:7). Subsequent interpreters have seized gratefully upon the possibility

12
The isolated exceptions are Hagar (Genesis 16) and Manoah’s wife (Judges 13).
13
Titian’s painting is widely accessible in reproduction. For further critical discussion of Judith’s
Mariological identity, see Ciletti 1991: 42–5.
214 Judith Buchanan

that the need to utter this prayer might testify to an acknowledgment of a

counter-impulse within Judith not to proceed with her bloody project,
an impulse she here solicits help to defeat. As a visualised expression of
the suggestion of reluctance at which Judith’s prayer for strength might
glance, the intermittently appearing angel in the Cines film thus becomes
a modern pointer to, and the cinematic display of, a degree of self-
interrogation in the biblical Judith that many later exponents of the text
have wanted to discern in her.
Caravaggio’s memorably striking 1599 painting, for example, famously
depicts a Judith visibly caught by contradictory impulses: on the one hand
she resolutely holds the sword to Holofernes’ throat; on the other she leans
tensely away, as if semi-repulsed by her own actions, her face etched with
distaste.14 The depicted duality enriches the emotional landscape of the
scene and invites reflection on the contested mindworld of its subject. What
is Judith needing to suppress in order to see through this task? What is the
personal cost to her in enacting it? How will she subsequently reflect on the
complex horror of this moment? The painting explicitly and imaginatively
licenses questions for which the biblical account makes no space.
Maria Caserini’s performance as Judith in the Cines film is not as
readably expressive as is Caravaggio’s Judith. In keeping with its moment,
the film is shot exclusively in long shot from a static, frontally placed
camera, giving us a clear sense of posture, gesture and the demeanour of
characters within the scene, for example, but limited access to nuances of
facial expression. In deference to this, Caserini is not required to shoulder
the full performance burden of depicting a Judith in two minds about
whether to proceed. Instead, one of those minds is here given external
representation in angelic form. And so it is that the psychological division
present within Judith in the Caravaggio painting is also on offer in the
Cines film, though now schematically divided, in the interests of visual
clarity, between Judith’s own hesitancy or doubt on the one hand and her
doppelgänger-angel’s unwavering decision on the other.

Judith (Gaumont, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade)

It may have been the international distribution of the Cines film that first
suggested Judith as a suitable source for adaptation to the French produc-
tion company Gaumont, but the two-reeler that Gaumont then produced

14
Caravaggio’s painting is widely accessible in reproduction. For further critical discussion on this
painting, see, for example, Stocker 1998: 18–19, 110, 118.
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 215

was a decisively different film, as interested in its own cinematic power to

iconise key visual moments as it was in plot. ‘[N]o one can recall a picture . . .
so rich in settings and costumes, so beautiful in colors, so fine in
photography and so cleverly produced and acted’ gushed its promotional
materials, and with some justification. It is a film whose set-dressing glories,
beautifully designed cameos, measured cinematography and weighty acting
are conspicuous. But the broader benefits of such a film for the industry also
formed part of its marketing:
‘Judith’ can conciliate motion pictures with the better cultured classes, with the
ministers and the different authorities . . .

When we will call the attention of the public to ‘Judith’, the ministers and
authorities will say: ‘Yes, “Judith” is a beautiful and instructive picture . . .’15

Given the suspect reputation of the moving picture industry in some

quarters – in relation both to the nature of its output and the opportun-
ities for vice provided by darkened auditoria – the reviewer’s discussion
of forces that needed ‘conciliating’ was apt, as was his awareness that
the industry needed to find a way of connecting with new audiences
in order to effect that conciliation. The Gaumont Judith is, therefore,
here being offered as a representative champion of the will to reach out
beyond the industry’s standard market base to a ‘better class of patrons’
with more finely tuned sensibilities. Relevantly (if decorously omitted from
the discussion here), that same targeted audience had the capacity to pay
a higher admission price in due course in exchange for a quality product.
Whereas Cines had shoehorned the action into the compressed format
of the one-reeler, Gaumont’s increased available footage (in its two-reeler)
made possible a less frenetic approach to narrative progression, and, for
Gaumont, licensed some eloquent and effective moments of expectant
pause and unhurried, visual dwelling. One of the film’s most arresting
shots uses its narratively de trop duration as central to its visual force and
interpretive operations. It is the scene in which Judith is strategically
preened and adorned before going forth to ensnare Holofernes. Director
Louis Feuillade shot the scene in ways that specifically remember the
apocryphal account both in its detail and in the attenuated delight it takes
in that detail. In the Book of Judith, Judith’s specifically sexualised allure is
strategically fashioned in an incrementally slow process of reconstruction
as she reassumes her ‘garments of gladness’ (10:3). In the King James

15
Ruth 1910: 551–2.
216 Judith Buchanan

Figure 12.2 The strategic construction of Judith (Renée Carl) as seductress in Judith et
Holopherne (1910, dir. L. Feuillade).

Version (KJV), the attentive enumeration of her adornments gives the

joyous impression of grammatical as well as decorative overload:
and she put about her her bracelets, and her chains, and her rings, and her
earrings, and all her ornaments, and decked herself bravely, to allure the eyes of
all men that should see her. (10:4)

The syntactically superfluous conjunctions – ‘and her chains, and her

rings, and her earrings and all her ornaments’ (my emphases) – create a
sense of almost breathless admiration for the excess of this cumulative
bedecking. It is, in fact, difficult not to read this as testifying to a narrative
voice quite taken with the makeover process it is relating.
The Gaumont film takes its cue for this sequence from the delight implicit
in the biblical account’s voyeuristic observation of Judith’s self-adornment
and creates a scene that is indulgently patient in preparing Judith for the
performance to come. Renée Carl’s regally poised Judith is attended by three
female attendants who unhurriedly bathe her feet, prepare her hair and add
rings and bracelets to her outstretched arms with all the evolving force of the
biblical account’s piled-up ‘ands’. We see the processes by which the figure
who will enact the plot is being created and are allowed time to relish the
detailed forethought invested in her performative presence (Figure 12.2). Her
strategy ‘to allure the eyes of all men that should see her’ (10:4, my emphasis)
therefore, in this film production, necessarily extends to the off-screen, as well
as to her carefully targeted on-screen, audience. When the climactic moment
comes, Renée Carl’s Judith bears herself with authority and strikes with
decision, modulating her bearing and posture with a poetic weight that makes
every gesture forcefully, almost balletically, eloquent. Unlike Caravaggio’s
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 217

Figure 12.3 Judith the widow in still and cloistered seclusion in Judith et
Holopherne (1910, dir. L. Feuillade).

riven Judith, or Cines’ doubter in need of angelic spurring to hold her to

her task, Carl’s Judith is a woman impressively in command of herself who
needs negotiate no internal struggle to complete her mission.
Sadly, the end of the Gaumont film is lost, and so we cannot know
definitively whether this Judith ended the film triumphant in public space
or returned to the quiet existence where we first encountered her near the
beginning of the film sitting in sequestered solitude. However, given other
careful acts of visual symmetry in this film, and Feuillade’s interest in the
structured closure of other films from a similar moment, it is tempting to
imagine that the film’s beautifully cadenced and unhurriedly measured early
scene of Judith sitting by the window in her house, as if awaiting her own
narrative awakening (Figure 12.3), would, for the close of the film, have been
imitatively answered with a book-ending image of comparable quietness.

Judith of Bethulia (Biograph, 1914, dir. D. W. Griffith)

The marketing for biblical and classical films of the early cinema period
typically promoted them as films with a double address, simultaneously
looking backwards to a real or mythic past, and outwards to a real (or
mythic) contemporary present and future in need of inspiration from an
edifying brush with the ancient world. The marketing for all three Judith
films fitted the pattern in this respect. The Cines film, for example, was
given the following advertising puff for its April 1908 American release:

“JUDITH AND HOLOPHERNE” Will shortly be released. To those lovers of the

classics; of the literature and history of an age when the World Power centered in
218 Judith Buchanan

some one tribe, when the cycle of human events turned upon the whim of a single
individual; of a period when come those traditions which quicken the glory,
courage and power of modern man, in whatsoever walk of life – this film is a
tribute. Out Next Week.16

The film was on offer as a cultural commodity that denoted tradition and
quality – thereby courting the approval of ‘lovers of the classics’ perceived
to be in need of wooing to be drawn to the film industry in this period.
But it also provided an exemplum to inform ‘the glory, courage and power
of modern man’. The close alignment of the words ‘traditions’ and
‘modern man’ perfectly caught the perceived selling point of such films:
the double appeal to a classical heritage on the one hand and a claim to
modernity on the other.
D. W. Griffith’s spectacular feature-length film Judith of Bethulia
(copyrighted 1913, released 1914) was also sold on its winning
combination of the value of the old and the pertinence of the new:
‘[a]ncient in story and settings, it is modern in penetrative interpret-
ation’ wrote Moving Picture World.17 And in both its ‘ancient story and
settings’, and in the modernity of its ‘penetrative interpretation’
(a modernity yet more conspicuous here than it had been in the earlier
releases), this film drew only indirectly upon the apocryphal account.
Its principal, and explicitly credited, source was Thomas Bailey
Aldrich’s successful four-act stage play Judith of Bethulia: A Tragedy
that had premiered at the Tremont Theatre, Boston to considerable
acclaim on 13 October 1904.18
Whereas Gaumont’s Judith had taken on almost Gentileschi-inspired
decisiveness in Holofernes’ tent,19 her predecessor in the 1904 Aldrich play
was caught in a perfectly poised dilemma between the competing claims of
duty and desire (a tussle most strikingly emblematised in the work of
Pierre Corneille). Aldrich’s Judith found the Assyrian general not offen-
sive, as was habitual for Judiths, but on the contrary, and despite her own

16
Moving Picture World, 25 April 1908: 361 – front page advertisement (fonting retained).
17
Moving Picture World, 7 March 1914: 1242.
18
The film also drew for some effects and plot points upon Paolo Giacometti’s five-act drama
The Tragedy of Judith that had, since 1866, been popular in Isaac C. Pray’s English translation
on the American stage. For a discussion of both Aldrich’s and Griffith’s debts to Giacometti,
see Mayer 2009: 112–17.
19
Artemisia Gentileschi’s 1612 painting ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes’ famously depicts a Judith
resolutely and undeflectably engaged in the material task of severing Holofernes’ head. The
scene is fuelled by a retributive anger that seems to emanate discernibly from incidents in
Gentileschi’s own well-known, traumatic biography. See Bal 2005.
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 219

better judgement, specifically desirable. Unlike the Cines film, therefore, it

is not a physical repulsion she has to overcome in herself in order to
endure Holofernes’ overtures, but rather an ardent desire for him that she
has to fight down to be able to kill him. In the lead-up to the climactic
moment, Aldrich’s theatrical Judith articulates her disquiet at the wretched
contest she identifies within herself:

Oh, save me, Lord, from that dark cruel prince,

And from mine own self save me! For this man,
A worshipper of senseless carven gods,
Slayer of babes upon the mother-breast,
He, even he, hath by some conjuror’s trick,
Or by his heathen beauty, in me stirred
Such pity as unnerves the lifted hand . . .
(Aldrich, Judith of Bethulia III.ii. 124–30)

As Holofernes sleeps, Judith then has to acknowledge that the ‘pity’ she has
guiltily identified as stirring in her in response to the ‘heathen beauty’ of
the man before her is of a sort that provokes considerably more than just
fellow feeling. Assailed by a dream of the alternative life she might have led
with Holofernes were she not bound by ties of kindred and nation, she is
thrown into an agonising soliloquy that alternates between indulging a
fantasy of sexual temptation and berating herself unsparingly for doing so:

My lord? . . . He sleeps! . . . Unending be his dream!

...
This man – this man, had he been of my race,
And I a maiden, and we two had met –
What visions mock me! Some ancestral sin
Hath left a taint of madness in my brain.
Were I not I, I would unbind my hair
And let the tresses cool his fevered cheek,
And take him in my arms – Oh am I mad?
Yonder the watch-fires flare upon the walls,
Like red hands pleading to me through the dark;
There famished women weep, and have no hope.
The moan of children moaning in the streets
Tears at my heart. O God! Have I a heart?
Why do I falter?
(Aldrich, Judith of Bethulia III.ii. 163, 172–84)

Here was meat for an actress with ambition, and popular American stage
actress Nance O’Neil proved well able to capitalise on the character’s
220 Judith Buchanan

fraught duality for the play’s inaugural run in 1904. In response to the
paradoxical encounter of antithetical traits discerned in her performance,
one reviewer was hardly able to contain his enthusiasm:
The Boston stage has not in many days witnessed anything so sensuous, so
seductive, and yet at the same time, so free from coarseness. She practised the wiles
of a Cleopatra, a Circe, or a Lorelei, and through it all there was not the slightest
detail to which the most fastidious might take exception.20

Such responses were symptomatic of Judith performances. She was

‘seductive’ and yet she was ‘free from coarseness’. She was a ‘Circe’ and
yet offered nothing to which even ‘the most fastidious could take excep-
tion’. The theatrical performance legacy that screen actress Blanche Sweet
received in taking on the role for Griffith’s Aldrich-inspired film
was, therefore, one already marked by, and celebrated for, winning
contradiction.
Alongside the spectacular crowd scenes for which Griffith justly became
famous, the other principal strength of the film commented upon in review
was the vivacious energy, quiet dignity and emotional variety of its central
performance. Blanche Sweet’s facial expression, wrote Variety, ‘is an
inspired piece of pantomime’.21 In comparison with the previous two
Judith films, the opportunities for emotional vicissitudes were considerably
enhanced both by the significantly longer length of the film (four and half
reels of it) and by the psychological and moral complexities inherited from
the stage. The Aldrich play made the compelling duty/desire tussle the
central engine of Judith’s performance in the Assyrian camp. This fertile
performance premise was a gift for any actress, and filming at a moment
in which closer focal lengths were now a standard part of the cinematic
grammar ensured Sweet was able to maximise its benefits. Without the
self-expressive assistance of speech, and without even the narrative aid of
an explanatory intertitle, in the course of her pantomimic deliberations
over the sleeping body of Holofernes (Henry B. Walthall), she milks the
nuanced performance possibilities of vacillation, introspection, amorous
melting, lustful desire, self-accusation, guilty horror and renewed reso-
lution (Figures 12.4.1–5). It is in every way a bravura performance, requir-
ing the camera to map a fast-changing emotional terrain. Despite the
intensity of the distracting temptation Sweet’s on-screen Judith experiences,

20
Crosby 1904, quoted in Mayer 2009: 117 (where the review is erroneously dated 25 March
1904). The Aldrich play opened 13 October 1904. I am grateful to Professor David Mayer for
his generous and gracious assistance in revisiting the reviews from the Harvard Theatre
Collection and so enabling the date correction here.
21
Variety, 27 March 1914: 20.
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 221

Figure 12.4.1

Figure 12.4.2 Figure 12.4.3

Figure 12.4.4 Figure 12.4.5

Figure 12.4.1–5 Blanche Sweet as Judith in emotional turmoil over Holofernes’ sleeping form in
D. W. Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia (1914).

though, she then has no need of a theophanic appearance finally to set

aside impediments and recommit to the task before her. Rather, it is an
earth-bound vision that convicts this Judith of her own waywardness
in having been temporarily diverted, a vision that shows the collective
suffering of her own besieged people. As spectators, we see the wretchedness
222 Judith Buchanan

of the thirsty and the slaughtered Bethulians through images conjured

directly by Judith’s guilty imagination. And it is this vision of suffering
unassuaged and tyranny unopposed that then invests Judith with sufficient
strength to act, and to do so in fierce defiance of her own counter-desires.
But the Griffith film also exceeds Aldrich in its psychologically investi-
gative instincts by adding a further layer of complexity to Judith’s interior
life. In preparing herself to slip over to the Assyrian camp, the apocryphal
account tells us that Judith assumes her ‘garments of gladness, wherewith
she was clad during the life of Manasses her husband’ (10:3). In the
surviving fragment of the Old English poetic epic about Judith, she was
insistently reconfigured as a virgin (a ‘blessed maid’, ‘virgin bright’, ‘match-
less maiden’, ‘valiant virgin’, ‘prudent damsel’, ‘wily maid’, ‘daring damsel’,
‘holy virgin’, ‘maid of God’, ‘mettlesome maid’, ‘virgin fair’, ‘bright
damsel’). This, of course, adds to the purity of her person and so the
sensationalism of her encounter with the debauched Assyrian general.22
Reconfiguring Judith in such terms was, however, a decisive departure
from the biblical account’s equally insistent depiction of Judith not as
virgin but widow. In her strategic embassy to the enemy camp, the
apocryphal Judith is not constructing a sexual identity for herself so much
as re-constructing a look, and an identity, that she had previously known.
She re-enlists her clothes and jewellery (the same items ‘wherewith she was
clad during the life of Manasses her husband’) from the days before her
widowhood, in order to re-summon the sexualised identity that she has,
perforce, had to mothball since her husband’s death.
Having reassumed the symbols of her far less circumscribed identity of
old, might she not even feel some measure of social and sexual liberation in
the dangerous masquerade on which she then adventurously embarks?
Despite its efforts to keep Judith’s piety and moral purpose at the forefront
of the reader’s mind, the apocryphal account also hints at the exhilaration
the mission might well induce in her. Judith, for example, acquiesces to
Holofernes’ request that she should drink with him specifically, as she says,
‘because my life is magnified (emegalunthē) in me this day more than all
the days since I was born’ (12:18). As so frequently with Judith, her strategic
lie here is laced with self-revealing truths. What she wants Holofernes
to believe from her words is that her life is at its height by virtue of
being in his company. At the same time the narrative wishes to communi-
cate that this is a woman with a sense of destiny upon her, a woman whose

22
‘Judith’, Old English epic poem, surviving fragment, trans. Cooke 1888.
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 223

life is, in effect, realised in this moment through acting to save her people.
But there is another level yet to Judith’s disclosure that her life has taken
on dimensions never previously explored through being in the Assyrian
camp. Having put off her widow’s apparel, taken upon herself an assumed
(or recovered) identity and stepped out of her sequestration to participate
boldly and adventurously in the business of the world, this widow’s life has
been both literally and metaphorically enlarged: not just now spatially,
socially, culturally and sexually more permissive, it is, presumably, more
headily exciting than ever before also. Little wonder, perhaps, that Judith
might consider her life now ‘magnified’ (emegalunthē) as she choreographs
the circumstances to tap such impressive, and previously unrealised, cap-
acity in herself for both inventive strategy and cool-headed action in the
face of significant danger.23
The Griffith film dares to suggest that being released to define herself
in such newly expansive terms, after a period of significant self-denial, is
per se intoxicating for Judith. This becomes most evident in the film in a
sequence in her tent in the Assyrian camp as she prepares herself spiritu-
ally to meet Holofernes. Dressed in a shimmering, close-fitting dress and
adorned by an extravagant peacock headdress, she embarks with her
maidservant (Kate Bruce) upon a religious, liturgical rite of self-cleansing.
The maidservant is dressed in sober, modest, body-obscuring dark robes
directly reminiscent of those Judith herself wore in Bethulia at the start
of the film before bedecking herself for the Assyrian venture. Within the
visual scheme of the scene, therefore, the maidservant acts partly as a
visible recollection of the identity Judith has deliberately, if temporarily,
sloughed off. The two women go through the mimetic liturgy of the
apotropaic rite together, acting in perfectly synchronised harmony, Judith
happy to identify herself with her maid, and implicitly, through her, with
the piety of her own former chaste, widowed self also (Figures 12.5.1–3).
But the re-assumption of a sexual identity that Judith’s seductive outfit
represents in itself becomes a distraction for Judith, and almost unwittingly
she breaks both from the reminder of her former self, and from the gestural
self-alignment within the pious rite (Figure 12.5.4) in order to take some
physical pleasure in her own self and the identity she has taken it upon
herself to perform. The lure of this competing identity proves potent, and

23
The Greek verb ἐμεγαλύνθη (meaning to be enlarged or magnified) that Judith uses about
herself here is the same one that Luke later reports Mary as using in the Magnificat: ‘My soul
magnifies (megalunei) the Lord’ (Luke 1:46), once again confirming the Marian associations of
Judith’s story.
224 Judith Buchanan

Figures 12.5.1–2 Judith and her maidservant’s liturgical rite of self-cleansing in D. W. Griffith’s
Judith of Bethulia (1914).

Figure 12.5.3 Judith and her maidservant Figure 12.5.4 Judith breaks from alignment with
gesturally aligned. her maidservant.

Figure 12.5.5 Judith exults in her own desires Figure 12.5.6 The maidservant’s ongoing piety
and desirability. serves as the reminder of the identity Judith has
left behind, prompting her guilt.
 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 225

places her first hugging herself in an ecstatic space, symbolically and literally
removed from the religious observance of her maid (Figure 12.5.5),
and, inevitably and consequently, in due course then in a tormenting
one, aware of the antagonistically configured selves between which she
is now trying to mediate (Figure 12.5.6).
The film moment is telling, allowing us to see Judith’s subsequently
expressed desire for Holofernes as a desire as much for her own former,
and now more usually suppressed, sexualised self as for him specifically.
He, that is, is the perfect, and, more to the point, the perfectly available
release trigger for the passionate, desiring, and desired self that she finds it
liberating to rediscover. And, at the same time, he is also emphatically, and
perhaps conveniently, the thoroughly impossible point of desire for her; the
man who, more than any other, is categorically off-limits; the temptation
to which she cannot succumb. And as such, the film offers an investigative
performance reading of Judith’s character that is, to my mind, deeply
emotionally imaginative. The Apocrypha’s mulier sancta who can brilli-
antly enact a mimetically persuasive performance of the unsacred appar-
ently without in the process sacrificing one iota of her own sancta status is
not the Judith of this film. Rather Griffith’s and Sweet’s Judith becomes
embroiled in, and partly seduced by, the sensuality of the world in which
she dares to place herself. The effort then required to suppress her
unleashed passion is no longer simply that visited upon her by the narra-
tive’s conservative agendas; rather she herself is required, by sheer strength
of will, to rein herself back in after the brief but heady release from
disciplined self-abnegation that her mission made possible.
Following her triumphant return (Figure 12.6.1), the final moments of
the Griffith film place Judith back in her widow’s weeds within her own
Bethulian house once again. Her position by a window looking out once
again upon the lives of others reminds us of the multiple acts of trans-
gression, of literal and metaphorical boundary-crossing, that she has
enacted in the course of the drama and from which she must now retreat
(Figure 12.6.2). And the closing sequence movingly illustrates the commit-
ted effort involved in rededicating herself to a life of chaste piety as she
literally has to catch her own hyper-expressive, life-embracing hands to
bring them under control, requiring them to reform in a disciplined act of
divine supplication as cupped hands raised heavenwards (Figure 12.6.3).
The redesigned gesture, and the effort of mind and body required to bring
it into line, speak affectingly both of this Judith’s emotional trajectory and
of the ongoing narrative and gender-political obligations of every Judith.
The compelling emotional undercurrent of the final scene suggests that the
226 Judith Buchanan

Figure 12.6.1 Judith is feted in the streets of Bethulia as a conquering hero in

D. W. Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia (1914).

Figure 12.6.2 Judith reeled back in to her position looking out on the world through
a mediating window.

Figure 12.6.3 Judith recommits herself to an ongoing life of secluded piety.

 Judith’s vampish virtue and its double market appeal 227

resolution required to enact her sensational, but time-bounded, mission in

the Assyrian camp may yet be exceeded by the ongoing devotion she
will now need to fight down both transporting and horrific memories to
see through her self-denying, and un-time-bounded, life mission back in
Bethulia. In sympathetic engagement with this necessary process of dim-
inution from the heightened value and ‘magnification’ that her life had
temporarily assumed, the film’s emotively charged final iris closes upon a
woman with an appetite for adventure and a yearning for the sensual in life
now committing herself, in the pursuit of higher ends, to live out the rest of
her life without either.

Conclusion

In the early years of the twentieth century, an interest in Judith’s story and
person found repeated expression across the arts. In this intense burst of
attention, this one mythic biblical story caught the flavour and expressing
both the fantasies and the fears of a moment in the throes of fierce debate
about gender politics, legitimate and ‘appropriate’ public roles for women,
liberated and repressive sexualities and the cultural and political force that
should be allowed to the individual and collective female voice. These
debates, moreover, had real-world consequences in, for example, the
gradual opening up of women’s suffrage, and the labour market, across
Western nations. Judith’s story metaphorises and hyperbolises some of
these real-world debates, and, as an adaptive property, acts as a litmus test
for attitudes towards them. Both novelisations and theatrical versions, for
example, unequivocally confirmed the conservatism of the biblical ending,
Aldrich having her now ‘dwell apart, alone/ In mine house, where laughter
may not come/ Nor any light vain voices of the world’ (Judith of Bethulia
IV.i.117–19). The 1919 play by Arnold Bennett,24 emulating the 1905
Thompson Buchanan novel in this respect, even took the conservatively
enhanced step of marrying Judith off to the conveniently available, and
morally admirable Achior. This is a man by whom Bennett’s Judith
announces she will henceforth be ‘ruled’ and to whom she will henceforth
‘submit’ (Bennett, Judith III.ii.178, 194), thereby consolidating her social
and sexual containment even this side of the grave.

24
Arnold Bennett himself refused a knighthood in 1918; a spurning of public acclaim of a sort
that finds a parallel within his Judith play, on which he was working at the time.
228 Judith Buchanan

In the cinema, however, Judith proved a freer champion who could

answer the industry’s own impossibly contradictory institutional needs
with peculiar poise while wriggling free of some of the gender-anxious
array of containment gestures that biblical, theatrical and novelistic
accounts willed upon her. In the Cines film she was even allowed to end
the story in glory on the battlements, as the revolutionary leader of her
people, the very figure, in fact, that the biblical account is eager to insist she
is not. Even in the D. W. Griffith film, in which she finishes in self-denying
solitude once again, her quiet heroism, bought at an emotionally expensive
cost, remains beautifully and sympathetically iconised as an undiluted
force in centre frame rather than being subjected to male dominance
through remarriage, banished from potentially socially disruptive view,
or, more tellingly yet, entombed with her dead husband. As Judith puts
aside the sensual and reels herself back in to a life of duty in Judith of
Bethulia, the empathetically engaged camera remains imaginatively with
her in that process. Narrative perspective, therefore, does not withdraw
to reduce Judith to a mere symbolic, illustrative agent in the service of a
broader, allegorical tale; rather this Judith remains a fully sentient, and
pitiably burdened, individual through to the closing frame.
It is unsurprising, perhaps, that the cinema – more in line with some of
the fine art traditions with which it engages – should have balked at
neutering Judith (as the more word-based engagements with her story
tended to do) and instead sought out and celebrated elements within her
story made interpretively available through the self-subverting process of
effortful suppression in the biblical account. In all her contradictions, both
representational and market-led, Judith is narratively and visually glorious,
and it would be not just tepid in its gender politics but self-denying in
its pursuit of cinematic pleasures to make her retreat from both the centre
of the frame and the public eye. In the early twentieth century, the cinema
was, after all, itself becoming that eye, and, both aesthetically and politic-
ally, Judith looked rather well in it.
13 | Competing ancient worlds in early historical film:
the example of Cabiria (1914)
annette dorgerloh

When the epic film Cabiria (directed by Giovanni Pastrone) premiered in

April 1915 in Turin and Milan, film experts recognised that this was an
exceptional film, a ‘visual feast’.1 Not only was it the most expensive
production to date, but it also used sensationally new production methods:
for Cabiria, the specific means of representation inherent in the medium
of film were further developed and put to consistent use, above all in the
representation of three-dimensional space and the – conceptually original –
incorporation of historically ‘authentic’ landscape in the most lavish of sets.2
The film lasted well over two hours – a length previously thought impossible.
It was shot ‘on location’ – unusual for this period – in the Alps (Val di
Lanzo), in Tunisia, in Sicily and around the Mediterranean. Also new was
the consistent use of a ‘dolly’ (carello) which Pastrone had applied to have
patented in 1913. Especially long takes were mostly achieved with the help
of the dolly and also made use of a horizontal panning facility. As early
as 1960, George Sadoul pointed out how this use of a camera trolley was
well adapted for displaying the three-dimensionality of a picture to the
audience.3 Besides the main actors, an army of extras, both people and
animals (horses, sheep, camels and even an elephant), appear on the
superbly lit sets. In the field of film studies, a consensus was reached
relatively early that with Cabiria the young medium of film had definitely
been brought into the domain of high art.
By the time Giovanni Pastrone turned his attentions to the Cabiria
project, he had already made films about Giordano Bruno, Julius Caesar,
the Fall of Troy and Sherlock Holmes. Above all, he built on his experi-
ence with the three-dimensional set of The Fall of Troy (La caduta di
Troia, 1911) with the additional inclusion of a much larger number of
extras. Critics appreciated the expressive power of his Troy film and its

1
The editors would like to express their warm thanks to Annemarie Künzi-Snodgrass for
translating this chapter from the original German. She, in turn, would like to thank Antony
Snodgrass for his expert help with her translation. Since that translation, the chapter has also
undergone various revisions.
2 3
Solomon 2001a: 37–49; Brunetta 2009: 37–8. Sadoul 1960 parts 1 and 3.1. 229
230 Annette Dorgerloh

capacity to move audiences emotionally. By the standards of other pro-

ductions in early cinema, Cabiria was extremely well prepared. Pastrone
himself reports on this aspect in his memoirs: ‘I only needed three hours
to write down the script, but before that I had done some historical
research and had had drawings made of the costumes and the set.’4
Pastrone was assisted by established scenographer Luigi Romano
Borgnetto, who had already won acclaim with The Fall of Troy; addition-
ally, Pastrone was able to recruit the painter Camillo Innocenti for his
project.
On top of all that, a well-known writer and leading nationalist, Gabriele
D’Annunzio, took on responsibility for the screenplay.5 In the end he
may only have written all or some of the intertitles, but for Pastrone
it was nevertheless important and rewarding to grace his film with
D’Annunzio’s name. By contrast, he hid his own name behind the pseudo-
nym Piero Fosco.6 In order to ‘persuade distributors that I create art in
the grand style’, Pastrone saw himself forced, as he later observed, ‘to fall
back on some kind of rhetoric and on D’Annunzio’s personality’.7 The
high esteem for these intertitles was also reflected by their inclusion in
an accompanying pamphlet of high quality, with original graphics and
vignettes, and printed in the respective languages of the countries in which
the film was distributed (Figure 13.1),8 that was then placed on sale to
cinema-goers. For Cabiria, an all-round claim to the status of a work of art,
unprecedented for a historical film drama, was formulated and established
on the level of production, as well as in relation to its publicity and
presentation. This strategy was acknowledged early on in the field of film
studies, for example in Jon Solomon’s survey of ancient world films (first
published in 1978), and it has been reconsidered more recently in the work
of Paolo Bertetto and Gianni Rondolino (1998), and Natacha Aubert
(2009), as well as in the comprehensive critical appreciation Cabiria and
Cabiria edited in 2006 by Silvia Alovisio and Alberto Barbera and

4
Giovanni Pastrone on Cabiria; cited in Gregor 1969: 2.
5
D’Annunzio had an exceptional gift for expressing emotions through powerful vocabulary. He
was also involved in the successful advertising of the film: for its premiere in Rome, an aeroplane
flew over the city displaying a banner.
6
In early cinema, it was generally unusual to cite any names except those of the stars. The name
Piero Fosco is demonstrably used in the ‘talkie’ version of the film of 1931. See Schenk 1991: 59.
7
Giovanni Pastrone on Cabiria: cited in Gregor 1969: 2.
8
Gabriele D’Annunzio, Cabiria. Visione Storico del III. Secolo (German version by Karl
G. Vollmoeller), Turin, Italia Film, 1914, with Art Nouveau vignettes, 46 pages, 4to, bound in
carton with embossed frontal illustration. The brochure was produced in three differently priced
versions: see Schenk 1995: 3.
 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film 231

Figure 13.1 Cover of the programme for Cabiria.

published in connection with the restoration of the film (with the involve-
ment of Martin Scorsese) and its presentation at Cannes.9
In Scorsese’s 1999 documentary film, My Voyage to Italy, the director
talks about the strong impression Cabiria made on him in his youth: ‘I was
amazed by this movie, by how expressive it was. This was the same kind of
shock I felt when I first saw Paisan and Open City – only different.’ Like
neorealism, the early heroic epics were among the great creative stimulants
for the director, who saw them as the embodiment of his Italian-Sicilian
roots: ‘It was as if I’d found a secret door that led right to the heart of the
ancient world. Cabiria’s powerful images could only have come from a
country whose historical imagination stretched back thousands of years.’10
The action of Cabiria takes place in the third century BCE, during
the Second Punic War, around Catania and Syracuse in Sicily, and takes
in the conquest of Carthage by Scipio Africanus, with scenes set in
Carthage and Cirta (in western Numidia). The film’s storyline is loosely
based on Flaubert’s novel Salammbô (1862) which, with its exotic and

9
Alovisio & Barbera 2006, with further literature. Cf. also Radicati & Rossi 1977.
10
Martin Scorsese in his documentary film My Voyage to Italy (USA, 1999).
232 Annette Dorgerloh

explicit descriptions, had made a remarkably strong impression on the

European public. Salammbô deals with an uprising of mercenaries that
broke out in North Africa after the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic
War, from 241 to about 238 BCE. The eponymous heroine is the daughter
of the Carthaginian military leader who saves her city during the mercen-
aries’ war. Very soon adaptations of this theme appeared in all the arts.
In literature, painting, music and film, references abound to Flaubert’s novel
in which historical occurrences are combined with fictional characters. In
Cabiria, however, the elements borrowed from Flaubert are confined to the
core of the story, for the frame of the film is a different one, employing as it
does motifs from the historical novels The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward
Bulwer-Lytton (1834) and Cartagine in Fiamme by Emilio Salgari (Carthage
in Flames, 1908). In addition, Scipio’s biography, the biblical legend of
Samson, and (very topically) the military politics of Pastrone’s own country
came into it. The film’s narrative is all about Rome and the preservation and
expansion of the Roman Empire. This shift in content puts a spotlight on
the topical political situation in Italy at the time when the film was made.
In the background lies the Italo-Turkish war of 1911–12, with the bloody
and highly problematic annexation of Libya which was drawn out until the
summer of 1914.11 By forming part of the process of turning Roman history
and its wars into myth, Cabiria was also designed as a political statement.
The German sub-title of the film, which translates into English as ‘Struggle
for World Dominion’, clearly expresses this intent.
More than any other country, Italy harnessed ancient historical drama
to its own political ends or, alternatively, to the legitimation of these ends
through an appeal to what was perceived as history. But, in Cabiria, history
was combined in a special way with mythical and fairy-tale elements. In
what follows, I shall deal with the question of how the history constructed
in the film was reproduced in the scenography of its various settings.
Central to my discussion will be the question of competing ancient worlds,
that is to say the formal differentiation between the rival ancient centres in
which the narrative is played out (Catania and Syracuse in Sicily, Carthage
and Cirta in North Africa) set against the background of the revival of
Italy’s own imperial myth at the beginning of the twentieth century.
I am interested in the formal differentiation between the ancient cities
and its relation to Italy’s modern myth, which required the nation to be
differentiated visually from the cultural world of the Ottoman Empire

11
See Aubert 2009 and Altekamp 2000.
 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film 233

against which it was competing for control of the Mediterranean. The

reasons for these differing adaptations of form need discussion, especially
with a view to Italy’s African policies at the time. Apparently, ancient Rome’s
North African enemies (paralleling Italy’s in 1913–14) had to be clearly
differentiated from their opponents by the use of different stylistic refer-
ences. In this ‘Struggle for World Dominion’, we see that historiography,
archaeology, art history and modern imperial propaganda mesh in intri-
guing ways. In order to disclose the nature of the competition set up between
ancient centres, we should ask: which film locations were given classical-
Roman formal attributes? And how and why does the choice of form and
style for other places diverge so strongly from the historical record?
Pastrone and his scenographers drew on archaeological finds and philo-
logical studies, using museums such as the Louvre as sources for models.
Thus not only the environment of the Sicilian locations where some of
the action is set, but also in particular the world of the Carthaginians and
Numidians, was studied carefully in advance, in terms of artistic imagery as
well as history and philology. The choice of the names for the characters in
the film is already extremely telling.12 While Scipio, Laelius, Massinissa,
Syphax or Archimedes are sufficiently authenticated as historical individuals,
the names of Fulvio Axilla, Batto and Bodastoret, as will be shown, refer to
prototypes, each with a concrete historical-philological context. This is also
true, more indirectly, for the character of Maciste, reminiscent of Herakles
Makistios who was apparently revered in the city of Makistos in Triphylia,
Greece.13 This character is a variation on that of the strong-man Ursus
who, in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel Quo Vadis (1895) and its film versions,
protects the young Christian woman Lygia and in the end also saves her.
For the main character of Cabiria, on the other hand, mythical refer-
ences are more prominent: mention should be made of Prometheus, one of
the Cabiroi, and even more of their mother Cabiro, daughter of Proteus
and wife of Hephaistos. Cabiria’s new name, Elissa, which she receives in
the film from Sophonisba, is in turn a reference to Dido, the founder of
Carthage, whose second name was Elissa. The holiest place in Punic
Carthage was the Tophet, a place of burial and cult where, according to
legend, Elissa was said to have landed.14 The various deities worshipped are

12
As Berthold 1979: 52–4.
13
Here, mention must naturally be made of the long-running tradition of Maciste films. The
character of this good-natured hero led subsequently to its own genre, which experienced a
revival after the Second World War. All in all, fifty-two Maciste films were made.
14
See Huss 1985.
234 Annette Dorgerloh

also, in each case, rooted in their regions and correctly named. Battus,
Cabiria’s wealthy father, has a name common in Magna Graecia: one of its
bearers, Battus II the king of Cyrene, is mentioned by Herodotus, tellingly
with the epithet ‘the wealthy one’ (IV, 59). Another Battus, ruler of Melite
(Malta), gave shelter to the sister of Dido in the course of her flight. On
screen, the name of the deceitful inn-keeper Bodastoret (a very common
name in the Phoenician world) is written in correct Punic letters at the
entrance of his house. Readers of the Old Testament were reasonably
familiar with the fact that Carthage was connected to the cult of Moloch,
even if the bizarre idea of child sacrifice has to be firmly attributed to
legend. But did audiences of Cabiria know who ‘Gurzil’ was, the name
invoked by Massinissa during an oath? This Numidian deity, symbolising
war, is only attested by the North African grammarian Flavius Corippus
(of the sixth century CE).
Besides this obvious striving for historical accuracy, however, Pastrone
and his team had to develop new strategies for visualising those ancient
locations for whose form, at the time of production, no canonical ancient
account survived. Thus elements of Indian architecture (elephants included)
were used for the representative temple architecture of Carthage. It was
important to Pastrone that the splendour of the decorations should also be
clearly visible. To this end, he developed methods of his own to improve on
the lighting effects, a technique that was copied by D. W. Griffith and his
assistant Joseph Henabery in their filming of Belshazzar’s Babylonian palace
in the epic film Intolerance (USA, 1916). Cabiria put a definite end to the
trompe l’oeil backgrounds used in early film sets, with their theatrical artifi-
ciality. Not only was three-dimensional architecture used, it was also built in
a most extravagant way. The sets were supposed to be true to reality. The
results of recent archaeological research contributed freely to this ambition,
as well as to the costumes, which were given equally close attention. But even
so, the point of this film was to achieve, throughout, not the greatest possible
historical and archaeological exactitude, but rather a visualisation of histor-
ically important places and facts that was going to be convincing.

Colonialist politics, plot and decor

At the time Cabiria was conceived, Italy was a poor, industrially under-
developed country experiencing deep social conflicts. More than one and
a half million citizens had emigrated to America. Nationalist intellectuals
connected to the Association of Italian Nationalists (Associazione nazionalista
 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film 235

italiana) maintained that only a new colonial endeavour could solve Italy’s
social problems.15 The press seized upon this idea: seizure of Tripolitania
and Cyrenaica (the last two North-African provinces of the Ottoman
Empire, in what today is Libya) would be a natural extension of Italy
into Africa and offered fertile lands of plenty. In autumn 1911, Italy began
its military conquest of these territories. France had recently acquired
Morocco and therefore did not stand in the way. The Ottomans resisted
only nominally. Quick, early successes led to a national frenzy. In the long
term, however, securing these regions proved to be difficult because the
native peoples did not want to be ‘freed’ from Ottoman rule. Although the
Italian military attacked the North Africans brutally, Italy’s ambitions for
colonial power were increasingly thwarted.16 In these particular political
circumstances, Cabiria reconstructed a comparable situation – here with
Carthage and Numidia as Rome’s opponents. Yet, in the film, this conflict
is represented from the perspective of a triumphant Roman empire.
The film offered its (Italian) viewers the possibility of rising above the
problematic reality of the present by means of their glorious historical
past – they could essentially use it to dream of victory.
The propaganda aspect of Cabiria has been noted previously.17 What
I argue here is that this aspect affected production design including deci-
sions about specific elements of its visualisations. My primary thesis is
that in 1914, no enemies of Rome were permitted to exhibit any Roman
characteristics, even though at the time the film was being made, archaeo-
logical findings had already proven otherwise. A conscious and wilful
neglect of documented knowledge about ancient Mediterranean cultures
allowed for the construction of a hierarchy that clearly gave Graeco-Roman
stylistic forms a higher status than Egyptian-Oriental ones. Against the
historical record, the latter were used in the film to reconstruct the palaces
of Carthage and Cirta.
In Cabiria, there are several main characters, and the film alternates
between them. The eponymous character of Cabiria, who at the beginning
of the action is an 8-year-old girl, grows up on her father’s estate in Sicilian
Catania, the well-guarded daughter of the noble patrician Batto. His estate
depicts the epitome of Graeco-Roman civilisation, which is presented as

15
Already around 1885 Italy had unsuccessfully tried to conquer Eritrea and Somalia. The assault
on Abyssinia in 1896 ended in catastrophic defeat: Schenk 1991: 4–5.
16
See MacClure 1986. Not until the 1920s was Mussolini finally able to conquer Libya and
symbolically leave his architectural legacy in the country. For more on the role of Italian
colonial archaeology, see Altekamp 2000.
17
See Schenk 1991 and 2008.
236 Annette Dorgerloh

Figure 13.2 Film advertisement, France 1932, Imp. Jules Simon S.A., Paris.

existing only in Italy and not in North Africa. The film opens with the
return of the master of the house to his idyllic home. But the evening’s
peace is abruptly interrupted by a sudden eruption of the volcano Etna.18
This volcanic eruption is magnificently staged in Cabiria (Figure 13.2),
with images reflecting a dramatic spatial conception seen previously
in eighteenth-century paintings by, for example, Pietro Fabris or Joseph
Wright of Derby. But Italian cinematic history also offered immediate,
remarkable models with the films The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi
giorni di Pompei) by Luigi Maggi and Arturo Ambrosio, which achieved
world acclaim in 1908, and Enrico Guazzoni’s Quo Vadis? (a 1913 Cines
production) which triumphed in well-staged premieres at prominent
venues in Paris, London and New York. In Quo Vadis?, it is true, Guazzoni
still operated predominantly with a fixed camera but, to compensate, he
also employed various kinds of free movement in space, as well as massive

18
Major eruptions are known to have happened in the Roman period (in the years 350, 141, 135
and 126 BCE), but not at the time of the setting of the film, the period of the Second Punic War.
 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film 237

architecture which in part could be walked on and in. Mario Caserini

responded with his film version of The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi
giorni di Pompei), produced in 1913 – a little earlier than Cabiria – which
at its dramatic climax combines the decisive circus scene with the eruption
of Vesuvius in such a way that real shots of flowing lava with firework
explosions and collapsing architecture were edited together in quick
succession.
Pastrone, too, shows the destruction of Batto’s house by the earthquake
vividly and in great detail; here the solid architecture creates great effects in
its collapse. All the fervent prayers of the inhabitants cannot prevent the
inferno. In the general chaos, little Cabiria is separated from her parents,
but saved by her nurse Croessa. However, both are captured by Phoenician
pirates who carry them off to Carthage. There they are sold as slaves to the
high priest Karthalo who plans to sacrifice Cabiria, together with other
children, to the god Moloch. Croessa manages to escape and by chance
meets the Roman Fulvius Axilla who is a spy, living incognito with his
faithful servant Maciste at the inn run by Bodastoret. She is able to
persuade Fulvius and Maciste to save Cabiria. In a highly dramatic scene,
they creep into the temple of Moloch and at the last minute wrest the girl
from the priests’ hands. Pursued by the enraged priests, Fulvius and
Maciste manage to escape with Cabiria. Later, Cabiria ends up in the
palace of the Carthaginian princess Sophonisba. Cabiria grows up under
a false name in the princess’ court as her slave; she is now called Elissa.
In Cabiria, the – historically authentic – figure of Sophonisba stands for
a tradition of ancient oriental women rulers in historical film, a tradition
which was to culminate in the figure of Cleopatra; it is the quintessential
type of the femme fatale as a symbol for oriental culture. The introduction
of a live leopard reinforces her exoticism, a visually powerful motive which
was to become one of the core props for epic films set in the ancient world,
as for example for the Empress Poppaea, wife of the Emperor Nero, in
Mervin LeRoy’s 1951 film version of Quo Vadis. It can be said that, from
the start, the use of animal fur as part of clothing always signalled a
negative connotation for the character in question, and it is not surprising
that the African troops of the Roman army in particular were normally
furnished with such elements of decor.19 Massinissa, too, in the last part of
Cabiria has a costume which has a leopard skin worked into it. With the
huge earrings he is also wearing, his appearance becomes decidedly exotic

19
For example also in Carthage in Flames (Cartagine in Fiamme, Italy and France, 1959, dir.
C. Gallone), Quo Vadis (USA, 1951, dir. Mervyn LeRoy) and others.
238 Annette Dorgerloh

and effeminate, unambiguously recognisable as non-Roman – while, by

contrast, portraits on ancient coins depict him in Roman-style dress.
The historicising references in the visualisations of Cabiria are linked
with early twentieth-century artistic style to make very opulent filmic
images, thereby raising both novelistic and operatic material to a new
visual level. The comparatively high investment in advertisements for the
film was to pay off; Cabiria was a great success, both in Europe and in
the USA. It was celebrated everywhere as a turning point in both film
history and film scenography, even if not all critics appreciated the pomp
and extravagance. The new methods of film technology and scenography
were unanimously admired: Cabiria was, among other things, called the
‘last lyrical opera after Verdi’.20 Even years later, critics praised the film on
account of its visually persuasive power: ‘Antiquity with all its charms
arises before us, fitting and true to life as we have never seen it before’,
a Berlin critic wrote on the occasion of the film’s revival in 1920.21
Once we subject the ‘truthfulness to life’ of the locations represented
to closer scrutiny, it very soon becomes clear that they are largely fictive
constructs. It was comparatively easy to represent the location of the frame
story, the country estate near Catania on Sicily, thanks to the excavations at
Pompeii and Herculaneum. Critics emphasised positively that the houses
were not made of cardboard but solid material, as could be recognised when
they collapsed. Although there were a few archaeologically documented
visual sources for other locations in Cabiria, however, these were hardly
adequate for imagining the lost splendour of the ancient African cities of
Carthage and Cirta. Pastrone could have consulted the volume Cirta: ses
monuments, son administration, ses magistrats, published in Paris and
Constantine in 1895, which contained eight plates with photographs and
drawings of the ancient remains and a map of the contemporary city of
Constantine – but for very good reasons he did not.22 In that volume,
Carthage also appeared in and with Graeco-Roman architectural elements,
yet Roman enemies could not appear ‘Roman’ in the Italian film of 1914.
Pastrone did film at the original location of Carthage near Tunis, occupied

20
Toffetti 1995. 21
‘Oly’ (¼ Fritz Olimsky) in the Berliner Zeitung, 15 October 1920.
22
Cirta was renamed ‘Constantina’ in 313 by the Emperor Constantine and is today in Algeria.
Cirta lies on a plateau 650 metres above sea level, and its name derives from the Phoenician
word ‘kirtha’ (¼ city). In 203 BCE King Syphax, who reigned from Cirta over the western
part of the kingdom of Numidia, was defeated by the Romans and by his rival Massinissa, who
had become an ally of Rome against Carthage; Cirta then became capital city of Numidia
under the new king Massinissa. In 46 BCE Cirta was made capital of the Roman province of
Numidia. See Vars 1895.
 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film 239

by the French at the time, but Hasdrubal’s palace and the Temple of
Moloch had to be completely invented, as did the palace and fortifications
of Cirta. When it came to other parts of the North African sets, historical
discoveries were reproduced as appropriate. Thus Bodastoret’s inn in
Carthage was decorated with a grotesque Punic deity representing Bes.23
While Battus’ country estate in Sicily is presented in classical Roman
style, the temple and palace architecture in the cities that were hostile to
Rome (Carthage and Cirta) appear decidedly un-classical and exotic. By
contrast, Archimedes’ studio in Syracuse, a city which also appears in the
film as a direct opponent of Rome, was given a more or less ancient Roman
appearance. It seems to have been the positively remembered figure of the
famous mathematician Archimedes that justified such a design solution.
But this was evidently not extended to the centres of what would become
Roman provinces located in North Africa. Although the few surviving
remains of the destroyed city of Carthage, as well as the preserved Roman
monuments in Cirta, are clearly recognisable as architectural remains in
the classical style, Pastrone and his team made a conscious decision for a
design that underscores a stark cultural contrast. The fact that there was no
traditional image connected to the city of Carthage (in contrast with Rome
or Athens, whose images are to this day influenced by their monumental
ancient remains) may have facilitated this strategy.24
First and foremost, the Temple of Moloch made a strong visual impact
(Figure 13.3). The motif of the mouth of hell, used in the film to form the
entrance to the temple itself, also has links to a long visual tradition,
with models in Italy itself. For example, the entrance of the grotto in the
‘Sacro Bosco’ in Bomarzo, created in Mannerist style by Vicino Orsino
in the second half of the sixteenth century, is designed as the mouth
of hell, as is the portal of the Palazzo Zuccari in Rome, built at the end of
the sixteenth century, where D’Annunzio had also lived for a while. The
sacrifice in the Temple of Moloch can be traced back directly to a
fictitious scene narrated in chapter 13 of Flaubert’s Salammbô, which
apparently had a great appeal for filmmakers. In Carthage, a sanctuary in
an elevated position dedicated to the fire god Eshmun is recorded, but
no Temple of Moloch.25 The goddess Tanit as the city’s patron saint and
her spouse, the fertility god Baal-Hammon, continued to be worshipped
in Carthage.26

23
See the instructive essay on the use of archaeological artefacts in Cabiria by Fiorina 2006: 298.
24 25
As Böhn 2007. See Huss 1985 and 1992: 16; Fiorina 2006: 90.
26
Hassine Fantar 2004.
240 Annette Dorgerloh

Figure 13.3 Entrance to the temple of Moloch in Carthage. Illustration from the
programme for Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914).

As Michel Eloy has shown, the scene of sacrifice to Moloch has been
visualised in nine films, including Rupert Julian’s film version of Gaston
Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera (1925), Fritz Lang’s monumental science
fiction film Metropolis (1926–7) and Sergio Leone’s The Colossus of
Rhodes (Il Colosso di Rodi, Italy, France, Spain, 1961).27 Pastrone’s statue
of Moloch itself was in turn to receive acknowledgement in Metropolis,
and in Carthage in Flames directed by Carmine Gallone (Cartagine in
Fiamme, Italy and France, 1959). In these works, the temple of Moloch
becomes a visionary place for human sacrifice. Now it is no longer
innocent children, but (as in Lang’s film) workers who have to give their
lives to the idol of capitalism, or (as in Gallone’s film) a beautiful Roman
woman who is to be sacrificed by Rome’s enemies. Thus the image of
Carthage as a barbarian place, consolidated in Cabiria, continued to be
upheld in cinema thereafter.
The extravagant decorations in the interior of the Temple of Moloch are
also designed in a highly symbolic way, though they can be only selectively

27
Eloy 1993: 122.
 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film 241

discussed within the framework of this chapter. Even the cinema audience
can only appreciate the complex set to a limited extent, because their
attention is captured by the dramatic action unfolding at the Moloch statue
where smoke rises. In the gigantic hall, full to bursting-point, spectators
may be able to notice the elephant column to which our heroes at first
cling, or the eye-catching owls which function as decoration for the
capitals. Taken positively, the owl is a symbol of wisdom, and is connected
with the city of Athens. But in superstitious belief, the owl is widely held to
be a demonic bird, a witches’ bird. In Italy, it was traditionally believed that
its glare could kill.28 In this context, we can assume an unequivocally
negative connection, emphasised by the gruesome sacrificial practice in
the Temple of Moloch that the owls overlook.
The palace of Carthage displays a mixture of motifs and styles from
various ancient cultures and the traditions for their representation. Three
groups of motifs are conspicuous here: the mighty elephant columns, the
ubiquitous heraldic sea horses – there are no archaeological visual sources
for either – and the frescoes on the back wall of the palace which appear
Assyrian in style (Figures 13.4 and 13.5). The frescoes show typical hunting
scenes, such as were known in Mesopotamia. The interior of the palace
as a whole rather resembles reconstructions of Babylon or Nineveh,29 with
the customary bearded, winged creatures being replaced by elephants.
As Regina Heilmann (2004) has argued, The Queen of Nineveh (La Regina
di Ninive, Italy, 1911, dir. Luigi Maggi) is probably the only example in film
before Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) where knowledge of Near Eastern
archaeology was taken into account, not only in terms of the set but also
in terms of the script. But Pastrone himself had also already used Assyrian
palace reliefs as a film set for Priam’s Trojan palace in his spectacular The
Fall of Troy (1911). Here, too, the city was portrayed as an exotic-oriental
counterpoint – in this case, to the cultural centres of Greece.30
Since the beginning of Orientalism in the nineteenth century, oriental-
ising features were especially popular in visual depictions of Rome’s prov-
inces in North Africa. The film version of Carthage in Cabiria, too, is
characterised by exotic strangeness, which above all is created by elephants
as architectural decoration and sea horses with their single horn as heraldic
emblems. In classical antiquity, the sea horse (as hippocampus) has a long
visual tradition. In this mythic creature from the entourage of Neptune, a
horse’s head is joined up with a lower body in the shape of a fish. There are

28
Bächtold-Stäubli & Hoffmann-Krayer 1987: s.v. ‘Eule’ (‘owl’).
29 30
Layard 1849. Compare Collins 2008. See Heilmann 2004.
242 Annette Dorgerloh

Figure 13.4 Palace in Carthage, Cabiria (1914).

Figure 13.5 Elephant pillar in the palace of Carthage in Giovanni Pastrone’s

Cabiria (1914).
 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film 243

numerous representations in classical antiquity, but none bearing a horn.

The horn is, in turn, taken from the narwhal. For a long time, there was a
tradition that the twisted horn belonged to the unicorn. In medieval
alchemy, the unicorn symbolised the chemical element mercury, a very
volatile material. In most cases, it was the teeth of narwhals that were
collected and exhibited as remnants of the legendary ‘unicorns’ in Euro-
pean art collections. Belief in the unicorn is very old and widespread; there
is visual evidence already in the cult-caves of hunter-gatherers, and there
are also reports of such an animal in Aristotle and Pliny.31 It was assumed
to live in India and also in Africa. There are unicorns as decorative
elements on the Babylonian Ishtar Gate (Pergamon Museum, Berlin), not
however in connection with sea animals, but with bulls and dragons.32 The
unicorn–sea horse as a maritime heraldic animal can, on the one hand,
be used to symbolise the sea power of Carthage but, on the other, it also
has a playful and even feminine effect. It makes a powerful contrast to the
clear and austere visual language of the Romans. It is therefore hardly
surprising that unicorns were taken up again as a characterising decorative
element in a later film also set in antiquity. In Quo Vadis (USA, 1951,
dir. Mervyn LeRoy) they appear as fountain figurines, and as such they
are part of the external decor of the Imperial palace, thus contributing to
the characterisation – if ‘read’ in the visual tradition of Cabiria – of the
Emperor Nero’s status as effeminate.
But back to where can the elephant columns in the palace of Carthage be
traced? The connection with Hannibal’s trek over the Alps comes to mind,
but elephants are not used in this way in Hellenistic architecture. In the
film, Carthage as an architectural ‘lacuna’ was apparently filled with
elements from representative Indian architecture. Examples of such Indian
transmission can be found in Italy itself, even if only in modern times, as
with the elephant carrying an obelisk. This can be seen as an illustration in
the famous Renaissance novel Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Poliphilo’s
Dream about the Strife of Love, Venice, 1499), attributed to Francesco
Colonna, and it was later erected as a sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
in the Piazza della Minerva in Rome (1666–7). But Pastrone could have

31
Molsdorf 1926: 23; see also the sources collected by A. J. Atsma at www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/
HippoiMonokerata.html, accessed 1 June 2012.
32
The Ishtar Gate was erected by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. The bulls (symbol for the weather
god Adad), and the dragons or snakes (Mushchush, symbol of the important god Marduk and
of Nabu), all created in relief enamel, are also represented with one horn only. Koldewey makes
the assumption that two horns were implied, and that it is the exact profile representation of the
animals which contracts the two into one. See Koldewey [1914] 1990: 62.
244 Annette Dorgerloh

Figure 13.6 Egyptian forms for the palace of Cirta in Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914).

found newer, even contemporary, versions in Europe, for example, in the

entrance to the Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen which is designed as an
elephant tower (1901) or in the Elephant Gate (by Wilhelm Mues, 1899)
which forms the entrance to the Berlin Zoo. There, already before its
erection, houses had been built for the exotic animals whose architectural
style was designed as a reminder of the animals’ far-away home countries.
The elephant columns from Cabiria, for their part, were enthusiastically
received in the USA by D. W. Griffith, who also furnished his Babylon set
with sculptural elephants. The production design for Intolerance, indeed,
shows that Griffith tried to outdo Pastrone.
While the palace of Carthage manifests Indian stylistic features, the
palace of Cirta by contrast displays Egyptian ones (Figure 13.6). At the
outset, a fully-formed sculpture of the cat goddess Bastet stands in
the Central Hall, a daughter of the sun god Re. She is the goddess of
fertility and love, of dance, of music and festivals. The Egyptians often
portrayed her as a cat or as a woman with a cat’s or a lion’s head. The cult
of Bastet had a late flowering during the Graeco-Roman period in ancient
 Competing ancient worlds in early historical film 245

Egypt. But at the moment when Massinissa asks Sophonisba to be his wife,
the lion-headed figure of Sachmet suddenly appears in place of Bastet in
the background. As goddess of war and illness, but also healing, she is, as
it were, a counterpart to Bastet. She was feared, as she was thought to
have the power to bring conflict, epidemics, and even death. All the priests
could do, so the people believed, was to try to appease her with prayers.
Sachmet symbolises the destructive and evil elements in a cat’s character,
but she can – in her peaceful incarnation – again turn into the cat and love-
goddess Bastet.33 Such a reverse transformation is not possible in the
palace of Cirta in Cabiria, because of the plot-line and so, until Sophonis-
ba’s dramatic suicide, the interior of the palace is dominated by the big
statue of Sachmet rather than that of Bastet.
A statuette in Bodastoret’s house plays a similar part, even if it is much
smaller and not placed so centrally as the Bastet/Sachmet figures in the
palace of Cirta. This is the god of protection, Bes, a Punic-Egyptian deity
who originated from the Sudan.34 Bes belongs to the group of dwarf-gods
who appear from the Middle Kingdom onwards, and in whom animal and
human features are combined. He was portrayed with a grimace and the
distorted limbs of a cripple, often also with a crown of feathers. In this
extremely anti-classical form he functioned in the film – as in certain ways
did the figure of Bodastoret himself – as a crass counterpart to the
Arcadian aesthetics represented by Battus’ country estate, which is decor-
ated with classical statues and peopled by beautiful, and therefore also
good, human beings, including the innocent child Cabiria.

Conclusion

With their decor and expressive content, all these reconstructed ancient
locations in Cabiria fulfil their task in an admirable way, by providing a
framework for the portrayal of the characters of those living or acting in
them. Yet, from the beginning of film history, the spaces created repre-
sented much more than merely a necessary background for the performing
actors: their function was to interpret the action even before a word was
spoken. The film director Urban Gad grasped this in a clear-sighted way in
his book Der Film – seine Mittel – seine Ziele (1920) when he justified the
importance of film decor, based on what the audience sees first and their

33 34
Kockelmann 2006; Felde 1995: 11. Felde 1995: 12.
246 Annette Dorgerloh

judgement resulting from that: ‘No explanatory dialogue can contribute to

the understanding of what is looked at, or deepen the impressions received
by the eye.’35 This concept of conditioned critical viewing should not only
be served by but, ideally, also be used to express a director’s desired intent.
Thus, film spaces were normally understood by their creators as an
instrument with which they could reflect on the characters acting in them,
and their decor was designed to make the evaluative ‘reading’ and/or
interpretation of a scene easier for the audience, especially in silent films.
The size of the room, the selection and the arrangement of the furniture,
the decor of the walls, and the furnishing with pictures, sculptures and
other props, contributed to the intended ‘readability’ of the scenes as much
as did the costumes, body language and facial expression of the actors.
This applied to film in general, but even more so to the extravagant genre
of historical drama, which always had to confront the additional problem of
creating people and spaces that belonged recognisably to the past. Thus,
aesthetic decisions had direct economic consequences, for questions of
decor contributed to the success or failure of historical drama to a much
higher degree than was the case with other film genres.36 In addition, the
everyday availability of moving pictures had already contributed to giving
the educated public an idea of the appearance, bearing and ambience of the
most important figures and epochs of history. Here, too, Cabiria was able to
set new standards by suggesting authenticity even where, for cultural and
political reasons, bodies of historical and aesthetic knowledge other than
those established archaeologically were consulted to find a solution to the
question of how to design the sets. With its opulent mixture of styles from
Graeco-Roman architecture and decor, Egyptian and Indian models and
orientalising objects such as costumes, carpets, incense burners and various
other accessories, Cabiria opened or widened the path for the incomparable
triumph of the epic film set in antiquity which was to shape twentieth-
century cinema at a number of stages in its history and give rise to ever new
waves of fascination, right into the digital age.

35 36
Gad 1920: 116. Rosenstone 2006; Zemon Davis 1991.
14 | Peplum, melodrama and musicality:
Giuliano l’Apostata (1919)
giuseppe pucci

The particular peplum (or film set in antiquity) discussed in this chapter is
scarcely known. Unlike other early Italian pepla, it was never distributed
abroad – as far as I know – and even in its own country did not enjoy great
popularity.1 It is hardly mentioned in standard scholarly works on silent
cinema; yet it has many points of interest and deserves – I believe – to be
brought to the attention of a wider public. While it largely conforms to many
conventions for silent pepla in terms of its plot and acting, in other respects
it is highly unconventional. Its original, momentous musical score displays a
remarkable integration of music, word and action, and provides significant
evidence for the musicality of silent films; its mise-en-scène is far from
ordinary, and its script (which displays an extraordinarily intimate engage-
ment with scholarship about antiquity) makes an intervention in urgent
contemporary debates about the relationship between Church and State.

Musicality

Giuliano l’Apostata was produced in 1919 by Bernini Film and was

directed by Ugo Falena,2 at the time the company’s general manager.
Falena, an educated man, was an eclectic personality.3 Playwright, critic,
manager of Teatro Stabile di Roma, he became artistic director of Film
d’Arte Italiana in 1909 and attracted the leading stage actors of the time,
such as Ermete Novelli and Francesca Bertini, to perform in cinematic

1
The film was restored by Cineteca Nazionale di Roma in 1990. For this new edition the score
composed by Luigi Mancinelli was adapted by Carlo Piccardi and performed by the Orchestra e
Coro della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Giorgio Bernasconi. The
soprano was Antonella Balducci. Friedrich Schumacher is credited with the musical direction.
I owe the VHS copy in my possession to the courtesy of my colleague Prof. Maria Grazia Picozzi,
Mancinelli’s great-granddaughter.
2
Length: 7,149 ft; running time: 102 min.
3
For an official biography see Sallusti 1994. For easy access to further information and a
bibliography, see the Wikipedia article on Ugo Falena (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugo_Falena,
accessed 1 June 2012). For his artistic production, see Prolo 1951: 38, 75 ff.; Simoni 1954: 187,
233; Simoni 1955: 60, 96, 331, 484; Brunetta 1975: 18. 247
248 Giuseppe Pucci

adaptations of celebrated theatrical works. Among the approximately

seventy films he directed, many are transpositions to screen of famous
operas, including a notable adaptation of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria
rusticana (1916) featuring the soprano who sang at the premiere of the
opera, Gemma Bellincioni.4 Falena also wrote the libretto for Franco
Alfano’s opera, L’ultimo Lord (1930).5 He knew the Italian musical world
very well, and his cinema is connected to it.
In 1918 he started to collaborate with composer Luigi Mancinelli,6
shooting with Mario Corsi the film Frate Sole (the story of St Francis of
Assisi), for which Mancinelli wrote the musical score. The following year
the two reunited for Giuliano l’Apostata. In 1919 it was impossible for any
filmmaker planning a peplum to evade comparison with Giovanni Pas-
trone’s Cabiria, the masterpiece released only five years earlier that had set
such high standards. In fact, the ambition to compete with that formidable
predecessor is already evident from the opening credits, in which the film
is called a ‘figurazione in quattro visioni’ (a representation in four visual-
isations): the term ‘visione’ immediately recalls D’Annunzio’s original
definition of Cabiria as a ‘visione storica del III secolo a.C.’ (an historical
visualisation of the third century before Christ). Falena also endeavoured
to adopt in his captions an aulic register in the manner of D’Annunzio.
No small part of Cabiria’s extraordinary success was due to its musical
score, composed by none other than Ildebrando Pizzetti, the most cele-
brated and influential representative of the Italian musical culture of the
time.7 By asking Mancinelli to write the music for Giuliano l’Apostata,
Falena clearly meant to make an equally big hit, for Mancinelli was
certainly as famous as Pizzetti (but, luckily for the director, much less
fastidious).8 Luigi Mancinelli was at that time Italy’s leading conductor.

4
Here is a complete list of Falena’s ‘musical’ films: 1909 Otello (Verdi); 1910 Salomé (Strauss);
1910 Il trovatore (Verdi); 1910 Lucrezia Borgia (Donizetti); 1911 Guglielmo Tell (Rossini); 1911
Un ballo in maschera (Verdi); 1911 Luisa Miller (Verdi); 1916 Cavalleria rusticana (Mascagni);
1918 Frate Sole (Mancinelli); 1919 Adriana Lecouvreur (Cilea); 1919 Giuliano l’Apostata
(Mancinelli).
5
Alfano is best known for completing Puccini’s Turandot after the composer’s death.
6
See Mattei 2007. Further information is readily available in the Wikipedia article on Luigi
Mancinelli at http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Mancinelli, accessed 1 June 2012.
7
See Gatti 1954.
8
Pizzetti had asked for a huge amount of money to supply the music for Cabiria, with the vague
hope of a refusal, but when Pastrone agreed to his request, he reluctantly accepted the
assignment. A few days later, however, he decided to withdraw. In those years cinema was still
viewed with great suspicion by intellectuals, and Pizzetti feared he would tarnish his name by
working for it. After negotiations, he at last agreed to write the Sinfonia del fuoco (65 pages) but
committed the bulk of the score (624 pages) to a pupil of his, Manlio Mazza.
 Peplum, melodrama and musicality 249

After his debut with Aida (1874), he had conducted in the main Italian
theatres, gaining appreciation from Verdi himself and from Wagner (who
in a letter called him ‘bravissimo’), before going on to conduct at the
Madrid opera, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan in New York, the Colon
in Buenos Aires and so on. His fame was to be surpassed only by that of
Arturo Toscanini. He was also a fine composer. Two of his first works were
the incidental music for the toga plays Messalina (1876) and Cleopatra
(1877) by the popular author Pietro Cossa. Eventually Mancinelli com-
posed the music for an opera on a classical subject, Ero e Leandro (1896),
for which Arrigo Boito, the librettist for Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello and
Falstaff, provided the libretto.
Silent films, as is well known, were not completely ‘silent’.9 Their projec-
tion in the theatres was accompanied by live music, usually performed
by a pianist or organist. Only a few theatres could afford an orchestra.
Sometimes the pianist was replaced by a ‘photoplayer’ (a machine that
played music automatically by reading perforated paper rolls).10 The scores
for early silent films were either improvised or compiled from repertory
music by the pianist, or orchestra conductor, or by staff from the film studio
itself, which quite often released a cue sheet indicating music considered
appropriate as an accompaniment. Only a few films of greater ambition
were screened with original, especially composed, scores. One of the earliest
examples was L’assassinat du duc de Guise (The Assassination of the Duke
of Guise) by André Calmette, with music by Camille Saint-Saëns (1908).
It was followed by Ballo Excelsior (Excelsior, 1913) by Luca Comerio, with
music by Romualdo Marenco – a terrific blockbuster. Then Mario Costa
composed the music for Baldassarre Negroni’s Histoire d’un Pierrot (Pierrot
the Prodigal, 1914), Ildebrando Pizzetti wrote the Sinfonia del fuoco (Sym-
phony of Fire) for Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914), Mascagni the music for Nino
Oxilia’s Rapsodia satanica (Satan’s Rhapsody, 1915), Joseph Carl Breil that
for D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), and Luigi Mancinelli
that for Falena’s Frate Sole (Brother Son, 1918) and Giuliano l’Apostata.
Eventually Richard Strauss wrote the score for Der Rosenkavalier (The
Knight of the Rose, 1925), the film by Robert Wiene based on his opera (first
performed in 1911), and Arthur Honegger the score for Napoleon (1927) by
Abel Gance. In the same year Hollywood produced the first talkie, The Jazz
Singer, and a new relationship between film and music began.

9
See Abel & Altman 2001. Interesting remarks also in Solomon 2001b: 324 ff.
10
A very informative article on the photoplayer is available online at www.theatreorgans.com/
southerncross/Photoplayers.htm, accessed 1 June 2012.
250 Giuseppe Pucci

One thing must be emphasised about Giuliano l’Apostata in relation

to these developments: although the score is basically a symphonic poem,
there are also parts for soprano and parts for chorus.11 In a musical sense,
therefore, the film can properly be defined as a melodrama.12 The same
cannot be said, for instance, of Cabiria, since no word connected to
the action was put to music by Pizzetti. To my knowledge, Giuliano
l’Apostata is the very first peplum in which some captions are sung, or
in which words that are being sung are visualised at the same time on
the screen.
Personally, I would not say that Mancinelli’s music for this film is a
superior achievement, but it is not trivial either. Indeed, it is more soph-
isticated than most coeval domestic verismo.13 Mancinelli shows a com-
plete assimilation of the European lesson in musical composition at the
end of the nineteenth century, particularly that of the French school.
A benevolent French critic claimed that Mancinelli was the Italian Masse-
net, but a Massenet with ideas,14 which is probably too high a praise. While
indebted to musicians such as Charles Gounod, Claude Debussy and Paul
Dukas, Mancinelli’s music is nevertheless original in the use of semitonal
progressions and enharmonic passages, whereas pentatonic scales are
skilfully used to create an archaising aura.15 It has been criticised for being

11
In the opening credits it is defined as a ‘vocal and instrumental poem’. Mancinelli himself
conducted the orchestra at the premiere in Rome, in the Teatro Costanzi (later to become the
Teatro Reale dell’Opera), on 17 May 1920. I know of only one modern screening with a full
orchestra accompaniment: it took place in the Duomo of Orvieto (Mancinelli’s home town) on
17 June 2005, in the course of the Musical Cinema Festival. The Orchestra e Coro Verdi di
Milano were conducted by Giorgio Bernasconi.
12
By the end of the nineteenth century, the term melodrama applied to a specific genre of stage
entertainment featuring words enacted within the frame of a dramatic structure or plot and
synchronised to an accompaniment of music (usually piano). See Gerould 1980.
13
The Italian musical verismo had its heyday between 1890 and 1900. Among its most significant
exponents: Pietro Mascagni (Cavalleria Rusticana), Ruggiero Leoncavallo (I Pagliacci), Alfredo
Catalani (La Wally), Francesco Cilea (L’Arlesiana), Umberto Giordano (Andrea Chenier,
Fedora). Their music often resorts to easy, flamboyant effects and, with the due exceptions, is
not very profound in inspiration.
14
Anonymous article in Revue des deux mondes, 1 August 1878 : ‘Il est possible, ainsi qu’on l’a
prétendu, que M. Luigi Mancinelli soit un Massenet italien, mais alors ce serait un Massenet
ayant des idées.’
15
The pentatonic scale (basically consisting of five notes within one octave) occurs and
predominates in many non-European cultures, including ancient Chinese, but also in European
ethnic music, for example Celtic music. It is believed that the pentatonic scale was also used in
ancient Greek and Roman music, and it has been exploited in modern attempts to re-create
ancient music. Pentatonic references abound in the Dance for the Offering of the Peplos to Pallas
Athena that Pizzetti composed in 1936, but are not so relevant in Cabiria’s Sinfonia del fuoco,
which can hardly be considered a model for Mancinelli in that respect.
 Peplum, melodrama and musicality 251

too static,16 although the composer proudly claimed that it had been
conceived to highlight the cinematic vision, not as ‘uno dei soliti commenti’
(one of the usual accompaniments).17

Melodramatic narrative

Giuliano l’Apostata is a melodrama not only because of its music but also
in the sense that this term has in literature and the performing arts, where
it applies to stories featuring strong sentimental conflicts and highly
emotional situations. As the film is so inaccessible, I include for conveni-
ence the following synopsis which will highlight the plot’s melodramatic
aspects.18
First Visualisation: Giuliano’s cousin, Emperor Costanzo (Constantius
II, reigning from 317 to 361 CE), fears a conspiracy by his relatives and
therefore orders the murder of Giuliano’s father and family.19 Only
Giuliano himself (a child of six) and his half-brother Gallus are spared.
For years Giuliano is confined at Nicomedia. The Arian Bishop Eusebius
indoctrinates the boy in the Christian faith, while at night Mardonius, the
old pedagogue, talks to him about Homer and the pagan gods. Giuliano
is attracted to Maximus of Ephesus, the Neoplatonist philosopher, who
initiates him into magic and theurgy. One day he makes a statue of Diana
smile at the young man. Giuliano is deeply troubled and a strange feeling
arises in his heart. He is even more troubled when Maximus prophesies
that he will be the lord of the universe. Upon that, Mardonius arrives,
announcing to Giuliano that Costanzo summons him to Milan to make
him Caesar. Maximus’ prophecy begins to come true. In the presence of
the man that exterminated his family Giuliano shudders with horror; but
then rejoices in seeing Eusebia, the beautiful Empress whose face – he now
realises – is identical to that of the statue of Diana that had smiled to him
in Nicomedia. Soon he falls in love with her, and she, in turn, is not
indifferent to his attentions.20 At the same time Elena, Costanzo’s younger

16 17
Piccardi 1985. Mancinelli in Orfeo 9 (29 May): 1.
18
In the synopsis that follows, I keep the Italianate names of the film’s main characters.
19
Julian’s father was Iulius Constantius, Constantinus’ half-brother and Constantius’s uncle. The
name of an elder half-brother is unknown. They were killed in 337 CE along with an uncle
(Dalmatius the Censor) and six cousins.
20
The love affair between Julian and Eusebia is the pivot of the melodrama. Falena did not invent
it: he simply developed a suggestion he had found in a book by Gaetano Negri (Negri 1901).
According to Negri, ‘the intervention of Eusebia . . . gives a romantic tinge to this part of
252 Giuseppe Pucci

sister, falls in love with Giuliano and secretely yearns for him. Taianus,
Elena’s page, who does not dare to confess his love for her, is tormented by
jealousy. Meanwhile Giuliano declares his love to Eusebia. She initially
rejects the advances of the daring suitor, but eventually gives in. Then
the Caesarean investiture takes place, and in order to tighten ties with his
cousin, Costanzo marries him to Elena. Burning with hatred for the rival,
the Empress gives her as a wedding gift one of her slaves, Isa, whom
she knows to be blindly obedient to her will. Giuliano leaves for Gaul with
his bride.
Second Visualisation: While Giuliano leads a successful campaign
against the rebellious Gaulish tribes, Elena sadly realises that her spouse
does not love her, and discloses her sorrow to Taianus. The page increas-
ingly hates Giuliano for wronging the woman that he loves in secret. As the
Caesar gains further military successes, Costanzo, raging with jealousy,
orders Giuliano to send back to Byzantium his best troops. Giuliano is
about to obey, but the soldiers burst in and hail him Emperor. Giuliano
in turn crowns Elena the new Augusta, but a few instants later she falls
dead. Taianus reveals to him a shattering truth: Elena has been poisoned by
the slave Isa on Eusebia’s order.21 Questioned by Giuliano, the treacherous
slave confesses, and is defenestrated on the spot. Now in Giuliano’s heart
there is no more love for Eusebia, only contempt for so unworthy a woman
and remorse for not having loved his wretched spouse enough. Seeking
revenge, and claiming his throne, he sets out for Byzantium.
Third Visualisation: Costanzo marches against Giuliano to crush the
rebellion, but falls ill. On his deathbed Eusebia persuades him to make
amends for his crimes by appointing Giuliano his successor.22 The new
master of the whole empire enters triumphantly into Byzantium.23 Eusebia
hopes to rekindle the old flame, but Giuliano reproaches her for Elena’s
murder. Eusebia claims that whatever she did, she did for love, and
implores Giuliano not to forsake her. As Giuliano proves inflexible in his
disdain, she commits suicide.24

Julian’s life. The enthusiasm with which the persecuted prince speaks of his protectress, and the
courage with which she defended him from his numerous enemies among the courtiers of
Constantius, lead us to believe that she was not alone actuated by justice and pity – virtues
wholly unknown at the Court of Constantius – but that a deeper and personal affection
influenced her in her providential interference’ (quoted from the English edition,
Negri 1905: 45).
21
According to the ancient historian Ammianus, the slave had not been ordered by Eusebia to
murder Helen, but only to prevent her from giving Julian a male heir.
22
In reality Eusebia died before Constantius, who in fact had time to remarry.
23 24
On 11 December 361 CE. See note 22.
 Peplum, melodrama and musicality 253

Fourth Visualisation. Giuliano establishes the cult of Mithras and restores

the ancient Olympian deities, to the Christians’ dismay. Stimulated by the
voice of a singer who sings a hymn to Mithras and Cybele,25 the Emperor’s
imagination glimpses the resurrected gods, but reality only shows a shame-
less promiscuity of eunuchs, jugglers and courtesans. Is this Hellas reborn,
the expression of power and pure joy he had dreamed of? The controcanto of
a Christian hymn, however, seems to suggest where power and pure joy are
truly to be found. Giuliano perseveres in his apostasy, but the people deride
his religious reforms, and the temple of Apollo is set on fire.26 Disillusioned,
Giuliano embarks on an ill-omened campaign against the Parthians. In the
inhospitable desert of Persia he falls into an ambush and the deadly arrows
of the enemy decimate his army. But the one that hits him is not shot by a
Parthian: the hand of Taianus has hurled it. The page was avenging the
mistreated Elena and the persecuted Christians. Giuliano, collapsing, pro-
nounces the fateful words: ‘You have won, Galilean!’

Innovation and conventionality

Perhaps the plot may not boast strokes of narrative genius, but one must
agree that all the ingredients of melodrama – romance and revenge, crime
and punishment, pride and failure – are skilfully dosed to offer a tasty dish.
And if the story itself is told in a rather conventional way, with the
inevitable triumph of Christianity over Paganism, the choice of the histor-
ical period (the late fourth century) and protagonist (the controversial
emperor Julian) appears to be decidedly original, especially when com-
pared with coeval film production that favoured the late Roman republic
and early empire with their one-dimensional heroes. Moreover, despite all
its limitations, the script does not eschew challenging issues such as the
differences between pagan theology, Christian doctrine and Neoplatonism,
thus manifestly targeting a cultivated audience. However, there are yet
more reasons to be interested in this little-known film: for one thing, the
fact that the sets and costumes were designed by Duilio Cambellotti.

25
The poem contained within the film summarises in a few lines two elaborate hymns
composed by Julian that have survived along with many literary works of his.
26
In the caption, the sanctuary of Apollo at Daphne, near Antioch, is erroneously referred to
as the temple of Delphi. This is not the only slip in Falena’s script: Sirmium, for instance, is
placed on the Danube, not on the Sava river, and a few names are mispelled (Barbazio instead
of Brabazio, Moprucene for Mopsucrene, etc.), but these are venial sins after all. The main
historical frame is essentially respected by Falena.
254 Giuseppe Pucci

Cambellotti was a first-rate artist, the most outstanding representative of

art nouveau in Italy. He embraced the ideas of William Morris and became
an accomplished artist-craftsman. His incredibly creative imagination led
him to try most forms of visual art. He was painter, sculptor, engraver,
architect, ceramicist, illustrator and designer.27 Cambellotti understood
from the outset the enormous opportunities that the theatre could offer to
his artistic talent, and indeed throughout his life he worked for the theatre.
He started collaborating with Ugo Falena in 1906, when he designed the
costumes and sets for a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the
Teatro Stabile di Roma. He also collaborated, from its foundation in 1914,
with the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico (INDA), staging memor-
able versions of Greek tragedies in the ancient Greek theatre of Syracuse.28
Eventually he designed the costumes for the celebrated peplum Gli ultimi
giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii, 1926, dir. C. Gallone and
A. Palermi) and the sets of the sumptuous version of Arrigo Boito’s Nerone
(Nero) that, in 1929, inaugurated the Teatro Reale dell’Opera (formerly
known as Teatro Costanzi) in Rome.
The costumes and jewellery that Cambellotti created for Giuliano
l’Apostata provide a striking visual interpretation of late antiquity (Ravenna’s
mosaics are a primary iconographic source) through the lens of art
nouveau. The decorative patterns are strongly original, sometimes really
audacious, and even in the black-and-white photography we can discern
a luxuriant chromaticism that even in that respect makes the visual
impact of this film quite different from that of most coeval pepla. That is
somehow disconcerting in a peplum. But, as I am trying to argue, this is
no ordinary peplum.
Well, I must correct myself. From one point of view the peplum is very
conventional: acting. None of the actors is a charismatic star and none
really stands out above honest craftsmanship. Julian is played by Guido
Graziosi (Figure 14.1). He did not have a long career, and this was his only
peplum. Here he strives to diversify the different stages of life of the
character, from childhood to maturity, but altogether he is rather dull.
Eusebia is played by the Russian émigrée Ileana Leonidoff (Figure 14.2).
She started her career as a dancer and made her film debut in the legendary
futurist film Thais by Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1917). Eventually she played
in many pepla: besides Giuliano l’Apostata, she appeared in Saffo (Sappho,

27
See Fraschetti 1961; Bossaglia 1974; Castagnoli, D’Amico and Gualdoni 1990; De Guttry, Maino
and Raimondi 1999; Fonti, Muratore and De Stefano 2006.
28
Centanni 2004; Villari, Muratore and De Stefano 2008.
 Peplum, melodrama and musicality 255

Figure 14.1 Guido Graziosi as Giuliano in Giuliano l’Apostata (1919, dir. U. Falena).

1918, dir. A. Molinari), Attila (1918, dir. F. Mari), Venere (Venus, 1919,
dir. A. Molinari), Il mistero di Osiris (The Mystery of Osiris, 1919, dir.
A. Molinari), and Giuditta e Oloferne (Judith and Holofernes, 1920,
dir. A. Molinari). In 1922 she withdrew from cinema and went back to
dancing, eventually becoming the first director of the newly founded dance
school of the Teatro Reale dell’Opera in Rome. She has a certain stage
presence, but is very stereotypical. Sometimes she seems to imitate Italia
Almirante Manzini, the diva who had played Sophonisba in Cabiria.
Silvia Malinverni is Elena (Figure 14.3). A year earlier she had worked
with Falena, Mancinelli and Cambellotti in Frate Sole. She is not particu-
larly expressive (or attractive, for that matter). Most of the time, she is
pensive and dreamy. In a typical scene she sits melancholically on a marble
exedra, lost in her reverie, according to a favourite topos of Victorian
painting that occurs at least twenty times in Alma-Tadema’s work29

29
See in particular Resting (1882), The Year’s at the Spring, All’s Right with the World (1902),
Under the Roof of Blue Ionian Weather (1903), The Voice of Spring (1910). On Alma-Tadema
(1836–1912), see Swanson 1977 and Barrow 2001.
256 Giuseppe Pucci

Figure 14.2 Ileana Leonidoff as Eusebia in Giuliano l’Apostata (1919, dir. U. Falena).

and nine times in Godward’s.30 This proves once again, if proof were
needed, that the cinematic visualisation of the classical world largely
depends on nineteenth-century artists. And not only on the so-called
Olympians:31 in another scene in which Elena is longing, as usual, for her
Julian, the iconographic reference is to the Pre-Raphaelites. The girl’s pose
is reminiscent of the paintings Reverie and La Pia de’ Tolomei that Dante
Gabriel Rossetti painted in 1868, after photographs of his favourite model
Jane Burden that he had taken. The fourth and last main character,
Constantius, is played by Ignazio Mascalchi (Figure 14.4), who comes
across as a routine villain. So much for the acting, that, I repeat, is not one
of the film’s strong points.

30
See, for example, Idleness (1900) and Tranquillity (1914). On Godward (1861–1922) see
Swanson 1997. All his works can be viewed conveniently online at www.johnwilliamgodward.
org/, accessed 1 June 2012.
31
The term ‘Olympians’ was coined by Gaunt 1952 and includes Frederick Leighton, Lawrence
Alma-Tadema, Edward J. Poynter, John William Waterhouse, Albert Moore and John William
Godward. See Wood 1983.
 Peplum, melodrama and musicality 257

Figure 14.3 Silvia Malinverni as Elena in Giuliano l’Apostata (1919, dir. U. Falena).

Archaeological accuracy is not one of its qualities either. There is no

serious attempt, for instance, to engage with Julian’s iconography, and the
vague resemblance of the protagonist to the two supposed statues of the
emperor and philosopher in the Museo Nazionale Romano and the Louvre32
may even be purely coincidental. Here and there in the mise-en-scène we
come across an ancient statue: most are copies of famous sculptures in the
Vatican Museums, such as the two Peacocks from Hadrian’s mausoleum
(formerly in the Cortile della Pigna and now in the Braccio Nuovo), the
Apollo holding a kithara of the Museo Pio Clementino, and the marble Biga
restored (with various interventions and additions) by Francesco Antonio
Franzoni at the end of the eighteenth century and now standing at the centre
of the homonymous room. A copy of the ‘Idolino of Pesaro’ (a bronze statue
in the Florence museum) is also displayed. However, they just function as
evocative images of antiquity, arbitrarily chosen, and hardly consistent with
the historical time and places of the film’s action.

32
See Reinach 1901.
258 Giuseppe Pucci

Figure 14.4 Ignazio Mascalchi as Costanzo in Giuliano l’Apostata

(1919, dir. U. Falena).

Urgent topicality

So far, however, I have discussed two particularly good reasons for this film to
capture our interest: Mancinelli’s music and Cambellotti’s decor. There is also a
third: as far as I know, this is the only peplum starring Julian the Apostate. We
have dozens of Neros, Caesars, Cleopatras but just one single Julian.33 Why?
Why in Italy and not in France or in the United States? And why in 1919?
Julian’s modern fortunes begin at the middle of the nineteenth century,
with a curious book by the German theologian David Friedrich Strauss,
The Romantic on the Caesars’ Throne or Julian the Apostate (1847).34

33
Julian also features in Giuseppe Maria Scotese’s L’Apocalisse (1947). This film, however, is not,
properly speaking, a peplum. It is rather an apologue that begins with scenes illustrating the
decadence of the Roman empire and then moves to modern times, showing the disasters
that happen when science is separated from the faith, and how technology becomes an
instrument of death and ruin.
34
Der Romantiker auf dem Throne der Cäsaren oder Julian der Abtrünnige, Mannheim 1847.
The author compares the Roman emperor to the romantic-reactionary figure of Frederick
William IV of Prussia.
 Peplum, melodrama and musicality 259

This was followed by a number of other literary works by European

authors: a novel by Henrik Ibsen,35 a tragedy by Pietro Cossa,36 another
one by the Czech playwright Jaroslav Vrchlický,37 another novel by
the Russian author Dmitrij Sergeevič Merežkovskij38 and a series of
poems by Constantine Cavafy.39 With some nuances, all of these works
see Julian as a predestined failure, and nevertheless they demonstrate
sympathy for the utopian monarch who was not in harmony with his
time. At the turn of the century, the French Catholic scholar Paul Allard
was more radical in condemning Julian as an obtuse persecutor of
Christianity.40
In Italy, as usual, things were more complicated: Julian’s figure was
inevitably read in the light of the Catholic question that was at the centre
of political life from the birth of the unitarian state, in 1861, until the
Concordat of 1929.41 The Catholic hierarchy initially considered
the Italian state an oppressor and refused to collaborate with the enemy.
In 1869, Pius IX’s non expedit formally prohibited Catholics from taking
part in Italian political life. But in 1892 the Italian Workers’ Party,
forerunner of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), was founded, and in 1904
the PSI’s revolutionary wing won control of the party. In 1906 the
first centralised trade union, the General Confederation of Work, was
formed in Milan, and as Socialists became more and more powerful, the
Church regarded liberal governments as the lesser evil, and Catholics
were allowed to engage in politics in order to counter the red danger.
In 1913 a pact was signed between Catholics and moderate Liberals. In
1919 – the year in which Giuliano l’Apostata was made – Benedict XV
revoked the non expedit and the Italian Popular Party (PPI), Catholic in
inspiration, was founded in order to have Catholic representatives enter
the general elections that were held in November of that same year.42
Thus the matter was incandescent: Julian was in a sense the symbol of
the harsh confrontation between State and Church that preceded the

35
Kejser og Galilær (Caesar and the Galilean), Copenhagen 1873.
36 37
Giuliano l’Apostata, Turin 1877. Julian Apostata, Prague 1885.
38
Smert´ bogov: Julian Otstupnik, Moscow 1896 (English translation: The Death of the Gods,
London 1901).
39
‘Julian at the Mysteries’ (1896), ‘A Great Procession of Priests and Laymen’ (1892), ‘Julian,
Noticing Negligence’ (1923), ‘Julian in Nicomedia’ (1924), ‘Julian and the Antiochians’ (1926),
‘You Didn’t Understand’ (1928), ‘In the Outskirts of Antioch’ (1933): see Cavafy 2007. For a
critical commentary see Giachetti s.d.
40
Allard 1900.
41
For a concise assessment in English, see Lyttelton 2002: 44 ff. and Di Scala 2009: 154 ff.
42
The Socialist Party scored 32.3 per cent and the Italian Popular Party 20.5 per cent.
260 Giuseppe Pucci

Concordat, and scholars too got involved in the battle. On one side, we
find Gaetano Negri, at the time a senator of the moderate right wing,
armed with his book that first appeared in 190143 but was reprinted many
times in the following years44 and was even translated into English;45 on
the other, we find Corrado Barbagallo, a militant socialist historian,46
with a biography of the Roman emperor that appeared in a popular, low-
priced series.47
Negri maintains that instead of restoring true polytheism, Julian
reshaped it as a sort of ‘Christianised Paganism’, inspired by the example
and precepts of the Christian Church. That was a subtle way, indeed a
Catholic and even a Jesuit way, to stress the supremacy of Christianity,
whose political role is never really questioned in the book, even though
Negri cannot help but condemn the excesses of intolerance and corruption
demonstrated by the Church in the fourth century. Barbagallo, on the
contrary, overtly approves Julian’s proscription of Christian hierarchy
because, in his own words: ‘Religious freedom, explicitly sanctioned by
Constantine, had turned into hard tyranny of just one Christian sect over
all other confessions . . . the substances and the life of the subjects were in
constant danger . . . cities, individuals, conscience, faith, all was at the
mercy of a clique of violent newcomers’.48
One may be inclined to think that scholarly debates have little impact on
filmmakers, but Italy is a peculiar country, and I was not surprised to
discover that Falena had largely drawn upon Negri’s book, occasionally
quoting it verbatim in the captions.49 The film was surely not meant as a
political manifesto (the ideological conflicts of Julian’s era remain in the
background, and the story unfolds in the typical cadences of historical

43
L’imperatore Giuliano l’Apostata: studio storico, Milan, 1901.
44
With an introduction by Pasquale Villari that sketches a profile of Negri’s interesting
personality. See, conveniently, the Wikipedia article on Negri at http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Gaetano_Negri, accessed 1 June 2012.
45
The translation was by the Duchess Litta-Visconti-Arese (formerly mistress of King
Umberto I): London 1905.
46 47 48
See Treves 1964. Giuliano l’Apostata, Genova 1912. Barbagallo 1912: 24–5.
49
For instance, when Julian is made Caesar by Constantius, the caption says: ‘E nel ricevere
dalla mano fratricida lo scettro Giuliano ricorda il verso omerico: Mi ha colto la morte purpurea
e il destino onnipossente (And in receiving the sceptre from the fratricidal hand Julian
remembers the Homeric verse: By purple death I’m seized and fate supreme)’. Negri, drawing
upon Ammianus Marcellinus, had written: ‘Fiammeggiante della porpora imperiale, egli rientrò
nella reggia, seduto nel medesimo cocchio dell’imperatore. Ma, durante la via, sussurrava il
verso omerico: Mi ha colto la morte purpurea e il destino onnipotente (Resplendent in the
Imperial purple, he returned to the palace, seated in the same coach with the Emperor. But on
the way he repeated to himself the verse of Homer: By purple death I’m seized and fate
supreme).’
 Peplum, melodrama and musicality 261

feuilleton), but it is a fact that the Catholic intellectual who had made a film
about Saint Francis the previous year decided to make a film sympathetic
to Julian the Apostate, and to stand with the moderate Negri50 on the eve
of the showdown between Catholics and Socialists.

50
For contemporary, unprejudiced appraisals of Julian’s historical figure, see now Schäfer 2008
and Mazza 2009.
 15 | ‘An orgy Sunday School children can watch’:
the spectacle of sex and the seduction of
spectacle in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten
Commandments (1923)
david shepherd

Whether or not Cecil B. DeMille did in fact describe the Golden Calf
scene in The Ten Commandments (1956) as ‘ . . . an orgy Sunday School
children can watch . . . ’, a familiarity with the man and his work affords
the attribution the ring of authenticity.1 Admittedly, words like ‘orgy’ and
‘Sunday School children’ are not often found in the same sentence,
and we may well have cause to query DeMille’s catechismal judgement,
but there is little doubt that in 1956 the Golden Calf and other scenes from
The Ten Commandments were finely judged by DeMille to titillate – but
not offend – the sensitivities of the movie-going public in the mid 1950s.
The question which we wish to take up below is what may be said of the
corresponding scene in his earlier, 1923 film of the same name.
Whereas in the film of the 50s, the Golden Calf scene merely delays the
narrative’s inevitable progress toward the Promised Land, in DeMille’s
1923 film, the Golden Calf scene functions not only climactically,
but also paradigmatically. As divine retribution is finally meted out to
the ancient idolaters, DeMille dissolves to a scene of old Mrs McTavish
reading the cautionary tale to her two grown sons from the family
Bible as they sit around the kitchen table, thus setting the stage for the
parallel modern story / morality play which will occupy the bulk of the
film.2 More importantly for our purposes, as the final significant depic-
tion of the biblical episode before the sound era, DeMille’s 1923 scene
remains unsurpassed (even by its 1956 successor) in its mounting of

1
Rich 2005.
2
DeMille’s pairing of ancient epic with modern story in The Ten Commandments (1923) was
anticipated by his more limited flashbacks to ancient Babylon in Male and Female (1919), to
ancient Rome in Manslaughter (1922) and to prehistory in Adam’s Rib (1922). While Babington &
Evans 1993: 42 are surely right to see the influence of D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) in
subsequent analogising of antiquity in the cinema (cf. also A. Korda’s Samson und Dalila
(Austria, 1922) and M. Curtiz’s Sodom and Gomorrah (1922) and Noah’s Ark (1928)), the
indebtedness of Griffith himself to parallel narrative structures in Victorian theatrical traditions
262 was first documented by Vardac 1949. Cf. also Deleuze 1986: 148–9.
 ‘An orgy Sunday School children can watch’ 263

spectacle in the name of the Golden Calf, and thus repays close attention
within a volume which considers the representation of the ancient
world in the silent era of the cinema.
Space does not permit us to trace in great detail the social and personal
trajectories which coincided in the eventual creation and enthusiastic
reception of DeMille’s 1923 The Ten Commandments,3 but it should be
remembered that DeMille’s only previous attempt in the direction of the
big-budget epic had been Joan the Woman, a biopic of Joan of Arc released
in 1916 to critical acclaim and box office mediocrity.4 In the late 1910s,
the motion picture and distribution company Famous Players–Lasky per-
suaded DeMille to focus his attention on social comedies such as Don’t
Change your Husband (1918), Male and Female (1919) and Why Change
your Wife? (1919) – films which offered DeMille an opportunity to hone
his talent for creating sumptuous sets and lavish productions in which he
could exploit the rapidly changing attitudes towards sex and gender roles
on the eve of the Jazz era.5
While the subject of The Ten Commandments (1923) was famously
suggested by means of an audience competition,6 DeMille himself was
thus already champing at the bit to try his hand again at an epic subject.
The studio was eventually persuaded to give DeMille the money necessary
to mount a lavish production of an epic subject, in part because of Famous
Players–Lasky’s support for and success with James Cruze’s own epic western,
Covered Wagon (1923).7 It is also worth noting that DeMille’s film arrived
amidst a modest resurgence of interest in biblical subjects. Gordon Edwards’s
Salomé in 1918 and Queen of Sheba in 1921 (both for Fox Studios)8 and
then Alexander Korda’s less accomplished Samson und Delila in 1922 all
invoked biblical licence to smuggle the spectacle of sex into the cinema of
the late 1910s and early 1920s. Predictably, the silent screen incarnations
of Salome, Sheba and Delilah owed more of their seductive charms to the
fantasies of their cinematic interpreters than to the biblical text, and this was
even more true of DeMille’s Miriam in 1923, as will become clear below.9

3
While the ‘Modern Story’ did not find favour with the majority of the critics, the popularity
of the spectacular ‘Biblical Prologue’ ensured an enthusiastic reception amongst the press and
the public at large (Higashi 1994: 190).
4
Birchard 2004: 101–2.
5
For a useful anthology of seminal and significant scholarship in this area, see Bean &
Negra 2002.
6 7
DeMille 1960: 228–9. Birchard 2004: 180.
8
For filmographic details on Edwards’s films for Fox, see Solomon 2011.
9
While Delilah’s sexuality is partially developed within the ancient text (Judges 16) and
cinematically exploited as early as Pathé’s Samson et Dalila (1902), Salome’s post-biblical
264 David Shepherd

The subject of the Exodus was of course no stranger to the cinema; the
Golden Calf scene had appeared amongst the half-dozen tableaux of
Pathé’s La vie de Moïse as early as 1905, and in any case was already
familiar to readers of the great illustrated Bibles of the Victorian period.10
So well known were scenes such as the burning bush, the parting of the sea
and the giving of the manna that they were ideally suited to the so-called
‘cinema of attractions’ which prevailed in the earliest years of film – when
the appetite for visual spectacle and cinematic tricks left little space for
story.11 By 1910, however, as the ‘cinema of attractions’ was giving way
to ‘narrative cinema’, the spectacular set pieces of the Moses narrative were
increasingly being situated within the framework of the biblical story along
with extra-biblical enhancements. Indeed, J. Stuart Blackton’s blockbuster
Life of Moses (1909) unashamedly supplements the biblical tradition by
elaborating on Moses’ escape from Egypt and embellishing the courtship
of Moses and Zipporah.12
The re-emergence of the historical/biblical epic in the late 1910s
and early 1920s signalled a renewed appreciation for the genre’s own
particular expression of spectacle. DeMille’s decision, however, to juxta-
pose a ‘Modern Story’ with an ancient ‘Biblical Prologue’ – while by no
means novel – does point towards his re-creation of antiquity by means
of a nostalgic reversion to the cinematic values of an earlier era – a time
when spectacle rather than story was the primary grist for the cinematic
mill.13 Aware that audiences of the early 20s were more difficult to
impress than those of the turn of the century, DeMille spared little
expense in assembling his mammoth cast and constructing the enormous
sets in the desert at Guadaloupe. Equally essential to DeMille’s resurrec-
tion of spectacle was the use of early Technicolor and Handschiegel
colour processes in the prologue – processes so expensive they could

sexualisation (for which see Tydeman and Price 1996: 151–73) is a radical expansion of her brief
gospel cameo (Mark 6: 17–29; Matthew 14: 3–11). The improbable but traditional
understanding of the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings) as the object of affection in the Song of Solomon
is a partial explanation for her sexualisation in Edwards’s film Queen of Sheba, but cannot
account for her demonisation in, for instance, Charles Gounod’s opera Die Königin von Saba
(1875). For similar cinematic interest in the seductiveness of Judith, see Buchanan in this
volume.
10 11
Shepherd 2008. Gunning 1986.
12
See Uricchio & Pearson 1992; Shepherd 2008.
13
While the basic concepts associated with Gunning’s ‘cinema of attractions’ have largely stood
the test of time, subsequent discussion (see Strauven 2006) suggests that the period of the
cinema of attractions’ initial hegemony, its relationship to emergent narrative cinema and the
nature of its persistence in various genres are still matters of debate.
 ‘An orgy Sunday School children can watch’ 265

not be sustained in the modern story, much to the disappointment of

some viewers of the time.14
The filmmaking in the prologue also reverts to that of an earlier era,
depending more heavily on a primarily static camera, slower editing and the
more frequent use of the long shot in order to capture the sheer scale
of the sets and the enormousness of the cast.15 Seduced from the start by
a spectacle to rival D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), the audience is
numbed by DeMille to the substantive eclipse of the narrative in the
rest of the prologue. For instance, unlike other cinematic treatments of the
Exodus, The Ten Commandments (1923) leaves Moses’ own origins,
his escape to Midian and his return to Egypt utterly unreferenced. Instead
the opening scenes linger on the spectacle of suffering: first that of the
Israelites whipped into submission by their Egyptian taskmaster, then the
oppression of one unfortunate, crushed beneath the weight of a giant sphinx
as it is wheeled across the sand, and finally the suffering of Pharaoh himself
as his son is taken by the plague of the firstborn. Similarly, the appearance of
Moses at Pharaoh’s court is but an excuse to demonstrate the debauchery of
the Egyptians, first in the worship of their gods, and then in the exhibition-
ism of their women as they dance before the Pharaoh. All of this, however, is
mere preface to the heart of the prologue which depicts at great length an
Exodus and Egyptian pursuit of near-biblical proportions – the fiery halting
of the Egyptians, the parting of the sea, the Israelites’ climactic escape and
the destruction of Pharaoh’s army all offering the opportunity for DeMille to
captivate the audience with a veritable parade of wondrous spectacle.
Indeed the giving of the Ten Commandments which follows is hardly
less spectacular, and the interpretive decision to cross-cut the giving of the
stone tablets to Moses at the top of the mountain with the idolatrous
worship of the Golden Calf at the bottom creates both a strong sense of
simultaneity and a relentless alternation of spectacle. The intercutting of
sex and cultic ceremony in The Ten Commandments (1923) is anticipated
by DeMille’s The Whispering Chorus (1917) – in which he cross-cuts the
scene of an illicit sexual liaison with that of a wedding – but the alternating
of verbal and visceral spectacle is especially noteworthy in light of the work
of Kamilla Elliott on the relationship between the filmic word and image. 16

14
Indeed, as Higashi 1994: 183–94 argues, the film’s use of colour was a crucial contributor to
the audience’s perception of the prologue as spectacle, though there are perhaps other films
which offer better support for her thesis that spectacle in the cinema should be directly
related to comparable notions in commodity production and display. For other production
details relating to the film, see Birchard 1992.
15 16
Higashi 1994: 182. Elliott 2003.
266 David Shepherd

In contesting the traditional devaluing of the filmic word (over against

the filmic image) in some scholarship of the silent era, Elliott notes that
intertitles in fact became both more prolix and more frequent until a decline
on both counts at the very end of the silent period. At the same time, the
narrative intertitle – which describes (and was often perceived to pre-empt)
the following visual action – increasingly yielded ground to intertitles
devoted to dialogue.17 It is further confirmation of DeMille’s nostalgic/epic
style in the biblical prologue that intertitles are remarkably few and far
between, particularly considering the relatively late date of production
(1922–3). Moreover, the intertitles which do appear are not devoted to
dialogue but consist primarily of narrative descriptions – most of which are
attributed (occasionally disingenuously) to the biblical text itself or com-
posed of archaising language evidently intended to sound ‘biblical’.
Yet, the archaising absence of dialogue from the intertitles must be
set alongside DeMille’s treatment of the Ten Commandments (or ‘ten words’
in the Jewish tradition). As divine dialogue, the Ten Commandments cannot
be contained within the space conventionally allocated for dialogue (i.e. the
intertitle) and can only be articulated by means of ‘true’ filmic language (i.e.
the image). Thus each commandment explodes from the sky in turn, growing
from an invisible point in the outer galaxy and racing toward the viewer until
the words of the commandment fill the frame to the accompaniment of
incendiary clouds and fireworks. By setting apart the Word as spectacle rather
than mere intertitle, DeMille ensures its juxtaposition with (and condemna-
tion of) that ‘other’ spectacle of sex and idolatry with which it is intercut.
Following the giving of the initial two commandments at the top of the
mountain and an intervening intertitle, the action moves to the foot of the
mountain and the spectacle of the unfolding apostasy. As in the biblical
narrative, DeMille’s Moses – ably assisted by Joshua – receives the divine
Word and then confronts the human apostasy. However, whereas in Exodus
32 Aaron alone facilitates the creation and worship of the Golden Calf, in
the script written for DeMille by his screen-writer and mistress, Jeannie
MacPherson, entirely novel roles are created for Dathan and Moses’ sister
Miriam – whose respective rebellions against the authority of Moses and
their dire consequences appear much later in the biblical narrative itself
(Numbers 12 and 16) and are very different from those found here.
Fading in from black, DeMille reveals a scene of frenetic activity
in which Aaron works (Figure 15.1; frame left) to complete the golden

17
Elliott 2003: 90–3.
 ‘An orgy Sunday School children can watch’ 267

Figure 15.1 Aaron at work on the calf while Miriam collects gold from a besotted
Dathan in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923).

calf while Miriam is enlisted – again without biblical precedent – as

his glamorous assistant, depositing Hebrew jewellery into the cauldron
of metal which boils at her feet. To the lower right of the frame, a woman
lies on her back, arms extended toward Miriam, ostensibly offering her
jewellery and by extension, perhaps herself, given the orgiastic character
of the scene as a whole.18 At this moment, however, Miriam is distracted
by the arrival of Dathan who, having handed over a bowl of jewellery to
Miriam, displays an overtly sensual interest in her hair.
When the scene is resumed following the delivery of further com-
mandments atop Sinai, Miriam confirms the eroticising of her hair by
using it to polish suggestively a calf that owes more to phallic anatomy
than to the study of Egyptian antiquities. Joshua intervenes – again
without biblical precedent – to confront the debauchery, but Miriam
summons Dathan whose speedy arrival and dispatch of Joshua confirms
that he remains firmly under Miriam’s spell. DeMille then cuts to a
medium close-up of Miriam continuing to favour the calf with her hair
emphasising at the same time Miriam’s embracing of herself as an
object of desire and sexual spectacle (Figure 15.2). Dathan’s hand, an
extension and physical illustration of his gaze, reaches down toward
Miriam and her hair. She watches (and evidently enjoys) him watching
her before the action cuts away, leaving her tantalisingly out of
Dathan’s reach.

18
DeMille’s depiction of female homoeroticism in the context of sexual debauchery may also
be seen in the revelry scene in Joan the Woman (1916) and the bacchanalian orgy of
Manslaughter (1922).
268 David Shepherd

Figure 15.2 Miriam remains devoted to the Golden Calf and tantalisingly out of
Dathan’s reach in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923).

When the action resumes again following the delivery of further com-
mandments, a long shot enables DeMille to depict the mass of people
preparing to worship the now-completed calf that takes centre stage.
Miriam begins a solo dance in view of the people (including Dathan)
and the spectator, but a point-of-view shot from Miriam’s perspective
reveals that she has eyes only for the calf that is now the object of her
devotion.19 Proof of the seductive influence of Miriam’s exhibitionism is
furnished not only by the people’s subsequent dancing frenzy, but also by
Dathan’s attempt to attract Miriam’s attention with a further offering.
Yet again, however, Dathan must content himself with Miriam’s intoxi-
cating locks which he finally manages to grasp, before the action cuts
away again.
When the sequence resumes again at the foot of Sinai, the platform on
which the calf sits is hoisted on to the shoulders of several burly Israelites
so that it may be paraded before the worshipping brethren. Miriam
initially walks in front of the calf, her back to the camera, a smoking
incense pan held high above her head, but almost immediately she herself
is hoisted on to the platform with the calf. While the spectacle of
the procession is supplemented by the garland borne by dancing girls,20
the camera inexorably cuts in to a medium close-up of Miriam

19
Miriam here echoes the role of the Chief Dancer in the orgy scene from Manslaughter and the
part played by Martha Graham in the Babylonian flashback from Male and Female.
20
The dancing girls and garland were present in the earliest film depiction of the Moses
tradition, La vie de Moïse (1905), and in the Western pictorial tradition long before that:
Shepherd 2008.
 ‘An orgy Sunday School children can watch’ 269

continuing to lavish her attentions on the calf as she revels in her

self-exposure – making a literal spectacle of herself before the people
and the camera.
It is at this moment in the sequence that DeMille’s Miriam admirably
illustrates the coincidence of spectatorial and diegetic gaze: the gaze of
the spectator and that of the male (and, in this case, female) characters
combined without disrupting the verisimilitude of the narrative.21 Here,
yet again, DeMille eschews classical cinema’s preference for and increas-
ing adoption of a type of voyeurism in which the filmic spectacle,
the thing being seen, is narratively ignorant of its spectator. Miriam is
instead very aware of being seen and indeed is exhibiting herself, thus
soliciting a voyeurism that Christian Metz associates with the theatre – a
voyeurism which is ceremonially self-conscious, drawing the spectator
in as a member of the embedded audience (as DeMille certainly does
here).22 If Miriam Hansen is right to suggest that early cinema seems
closer to the theatrical version of voyeurism with its self-conscious
exhibitionism, then DeMille’s 1923 scene of the Golden Calf may once
again be seen to be consciously reverting to the cinematic tradition of
an earlier era.23
Following the giving of yet more commandments, the calf and Miriam’s
devotion to it are elevated still higher – now to a rocky crag frame left –
where the spectacle is fixed and yet more visible to the crowd. They of
necessity turn their collective gaze upward, not to the God at the peak of
Sinai, but to the Golden Calf on the crag. The literal ‘heightening’ of the
spectacle is reinforced by Miriam’s disrobing to the extent allowed by 1923
standards of ‘decency’ and her offering of a libation to the calf in the form
of a cup of wine – the remaining contents of which Miriam flings onto the
frenzied crowd below.
With the final fellatio-like kissing of the Calf’s snout (Figure 15.3),
Miriam thus consummates her affections for the calf in full view of
camera and crowd before the camera cuts to a demonstration of how
this sexual spectacle stimulates the people to ever greater depths of
orgiastic indulgence. In a representative shot we see one man take a
woman by force from another man before they agree to share her – one
kissing her mouth, the other lapping wine off her feet (Figure 15.4).24

21
As seminally and convincingly illustrated by Mulvey 1992: 26–7.
22 23
Metz 1982: 43–5, 61–6, 93–6. Hansen 1991: 35–6.
24
While Birchard 2004: 195 remains unconvinced of the director’s alleged foot fetish
(so Higham 2009: 129), DeMille’s explicitness here does perhaps lend weight to the suggestion,
270 David Shepherd

Figure 15.3 Miriam finally kisses the Golden Calf in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten
Commandments (1923).

Figure 15.4 Orgiastic and fetishistic revelry in the Israelite camp in Cecil B. DeMille’s
The Ten Commandments (1923).

Finally Dathan himself moves to sate his lust and consummate his own
desire for Miriam, but as he lays hold of her, Dathan’s eyes grow wide
with horror as he discovers that Miriam’s hand and arm have become
leprous (Figure 15.5)25 – the spectacular object of desire transformed into
a no less spectacular object of horror. Miriam herself visibly recoils
from her own flesh, once the reality of divine judgement penetrates her
post-coital trance.

especially in light of other scenes such as Mary Pickford’s cleaning of the nun’s boots
in The Little American and the maid’s painting of Gloria Swanson’s toenails in The Affairs
of Anatol.
25
In the ‘Modern Story’ which follows the ‘Biblical Prologue’, the inveterate sinner (‘Dan
McTavish’) contracts leprosy from his Eurasian mistress.
 ‘An orgy Sunday School children can watch’ 271

Figure 15.5 Dathan looks with horror at Miriam’s leprous arm in Cecil B. DeMille’s
The Ten Commandments (1923).

The biblical and narrative climax of the scene quickly follows with Moses’
return and the spectacle of violence – seen first in Moses’ angry shattering of
the stone tablets, then in the divine destruction of the Calf itself (by means of
lightning) and, finally, in the implicit punishment of the idolaters.26
Even a passing familiarity with the ancient narrative (Exodus 31–2),
from which DeMille’s scene is apparently derived, is sufficient to establish
its limited warrant for the sexual spectacle supplied by DeMille. When
the text of Exodus 32:6 says that the Israelites arose following meat and
drink ‘to play/revel’ (Hebrew ‫)לצחק‬, it offers DeMille the opportunity
to amplify the visible exhibition of cultic infidelity with an altogether
more visceral spectacle of sexual display and excess. And of course, it was
precisely this kind of temptation – to seduce the audience with spectacle –
that DeMille was unable to resist, so seduced was he himself by the nostalgic
and ‘primitive’ spirit of the cinema of attractions.
What is truly fascinating about the Golden Calf scene of 1923, however,
is that even as it serves up remarkable sexual spectacle, it simultaneously
offers a powerful illustration of the inevitable seduction of spectacle itself
by cinematic story – the story being in this case that of Miriam and
Dathan. While both characters are introduced early in the opening
sequences of DeMille’s ‘Biblical Prologue’ (Miriam as the ‘Sister of Moses’,
Dathan as ‘The Discontented’), there is nothing in the ancient narrative,

26
It is perhaps not surprising that DeMille prefers to pass over the less easily digestible
spectacle of internecine Israelite executions present in the text, in favour of introducing the
spectacle of sex, despite the latter’s absence from the text.
272 David Shepherd

nor in the opening sequences of the film itself, to prepare the viewer for
their involvement in the Golden Calf scene.
Rather than competing with the spectacle of sex conjured up by
DeMille’s visual feast, MacPherson’s story of the calf’s seduction of Miriam
and the latter’s seduction of Dathan in fact animates and adds allure to
the spectacle from the very beginning of the sequence. Thus, as we have
seen, when Miriam turns her attention from the women on their backs
(Figure 15.1), it is only to tempt Dathan with her hair, which she then takes
great pleasure in devoting to the calf instead of him. Compelled by Miriam
to dispatch Joshua, Dathan can only watch her watching him, much to
Miriam’s enjoyment. While he is allowed to entrance himself temporarily
in her hair, Miriam delights in offering herself to everyone but Dathan, first
in the procession and then by disrobing on the crag where the spectacle
of her finally sating her bovine lust leads Dathan and the Israelites to sate
their own. Most crucially of all, however, MacPherson’s unbiblical story of
seduction saves DeMille’s equally unscriptural sexual spectacle by provid-
ing an appropriate ending to the sequence.
The proof that Miriam is ultimately responsible for the seduction and
sexual sin of Dathan and the people is furnished by her punishment with
leprosy – a punishment whose own spectacular qualities ensure that the
eyes first of Dathan, then of the viewer and eventually of Miriam herself
grow wide with horror. As in Numbers 12 – the obvious source of Miriam’s
punishment – so too here, it is Miriam alone who bears the punishment,
with Dathan escaping unscathed (much as Aaron does in Numbers 12 and
here). In Numbers 12:15, Miriam is eventually cleansed of her leprosy
and readmitted to the community. Here, while DeMille’s Miriam pleads for
mercy, Moses never grants absolution, leaving the viewer with no evidence
that Miriam’s sin has been or will ever be forgiven. Along with the divine
punishment of the idolaters, it was precisely this kind of ending – the kind
of ending in which the sinner clearly does not live happily ever after –
which ensured that DeMille and MacPherson’s spectacle of sex and story of
seduction at the foot of Mount Sinai succeeded in titillating, but not
alienating, cinema goers of the early 1920s.
From the vantage point of students of ancient Hebrew literature
and tradition, the ancient narrative thus provides little licence for the
specific kinds of spectacle and seduction served up by DeMille. It is worth
noting, however, that DeMille’s peculiar focus on and foregrounding of
the notion of spectacle in relation to the Golden Calf scene does serve to
highlight the significance of what is ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’ within the ancient
narrative itself. For example, in Exodus 32, it becomes clear from verse 1
 ‘An orgy Sunday School children can watch’ 273

that it is the lack of spectacle, specifically the lack of ‘seeing’ the visible
leadership of Moses, that is the catalyst for the people’s apostasy. This
dangerous invisibility of Moses is confirmed by the portrayal of his
brother Aaron in his absence. Initially subordinate (Exodus 3) and
occasionally competitive (Numbers 12), Aaron is depicted in Exodus 32
as a weak and easily influenced leader (though not marginalised as he
is in DeMille’s film). Thus it is not surprising that the only thing
which Aaron ‘sees’ is the people’s response to his suggestion to bring
gold (32:5). The spectacle of the people’s substantive and quantifiable
response encourages him along a path which the narrative defines as
idolatrous.
Most crucially, the ancient narrative dwells on what God sees. In 32:9,
God says to Moses: ‘I have seen this people and see (Hebrew ‫ )הנה‬they are a
stiff-necked [i.e. stubborn] people.’ Moses, renowned for his obedience,
unsurprisingly obliges, seeing for himself in verses 19 and 25 precisely what
kind of a people they are. Last, but not least, the spectre of not being seen
lingers to the very end of the chapter. In Exodus 32:32–3, God warns that
the sinners will be blotted out of God’s book – a threatened erasure
of 32:13’s promised spectacle of descendants as innumerable as the stars
in the sky.
While an awareness of spectacle is thus arguably present within the
ancient text itself, DeMille’s particular visualisation of the Golden Calf
scene may also be related to wider questions of iconoclasm embedded
deeply within Western religious traditions courtesy of the prohibition of
graven images: ‘You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth’ (Exodus 20:4 Revised Standard
Version). Is it possible, for instance, to detect a deeper-seated motivation
for DeMille’s displacement of the ancient narrative’s focus (the worship of
the graven image) with fleshly spectacle and wanton seduction? In light of
the fact that the ancient text itself ‘constructs’ the Golden Calf as an image
of the Israelite God (as opposed to an ‘other’ deity), what are the implica-
tions of DeMille’s own cinematic visualisation of it, if as Ella Shohat
maintains in a recent essay: ‘Any attempt at representation thus amounts
to a sacrilege, precisely because it would force God’s invisible abstractness
to “descend” into the “bad neighborhood” of the visible and the earthly’?27

27
Shohat 2004: 27.
274 David Shepherd

Not only does DeMille re-enact the ancient apostasy by constructing his
own ‘calf’ for production purposes, but the director’s essential métier of
image-making may be seen to sit in irreducible tension with the aniconism
of passages such as Exodus 20:4 above. By interposing ‘Miriam-as-sexual-
temptress’ between the viewer/people and the Golden Calf, DeMille effectively
displaces – or at least largely obscures – the discourse of image-making.
In so doing, we see DeMille attempting to mask his ultimate role within
the production – not as the divine director, but as the Aaronic actor –
producing endless images expressly designed to elicit the praise and worship
of the people.
16 | Silent laughter and the counter-historical: Buster
Keaton’s Three Ages (1923)
maria wyke

A significant number of films from cinema’s first decades play out

antiquity in a comic key. In particular, such comic antiquities seem to
have been a distinguishing feature of the American film industry during
the 1910s and 1920s (stimulated, perhaps, by that industry’s particular
interest and strength in the genre of comedy).1 Examples include His
Prehistoric Past (1914, dir. Charlie Chaplin), in which the ‘little tramp’
dreams he is in the Stone Age and, wearing only bowler hat and bearskins,
foolishly falls in love with the favourite wife of King Low-Brow; or Luke,
the Gladiator (1916, dir. H. Roach), in which an equally famous comedian,
Harold Lloyd, fights in the arena as ‘Lonesome Lukius’. William Fables
starred in the slapstick short Friends, Romans and Leo (1917, dir.
A. Crosland), while Larry Semon played both a minstrel and King Seezer
in Romans and Rascals (1918), which he also directed. Cleopatsy (1918, dir.
H. Roach) seems in part to have been a spoof of Theda Bara’s recent
portrayal of the Egyptian queen as ‘vampire supreme’ in the spectacular
historical feature Cleopatra (1917, dir. J. Gordon Edwards), while Buster
Keaton’s Three Ages (1923) parodied the complex narrative structure of
D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916). At the very end of the silent era, a
vehicle for the screen comedian Lupino Lane, Bending Her (dir. L. Lane),
was described by Motion Picture News for 21 July 1928 as ‘a clever
burlesque’ that submitted the action-packed epic Ben-Hur: A Tale of the
Christ (1925, dir. F. Niblo) to some ‘jazzy moments’.2 Until recently, little
sustained critical attention has been paid to comic representations of
history on film – the collection edited by Hannu Salmi, Historical Comedy
on Screen: Subverting History with Humour (2011), is a welcome excep-
tion.3 And even less attention has been paid to the curious corpus of film
comedies set in antiquity (very selectively catalogued above) that were

1
For the importance of comedy to early American cinema, see e.g. Durgnat 1969.
2
I am indebted to Reinier Wels for drawing my attention to some of these films.
3
The dearth of academic interest in such films is noted in that volume by Salmi (p. 9) and Landy
(p. 197). 275
276 Maria Wyke

produced before the arrival of sound.4 Yet, I would argue, their close
examination can be instructive for the story they reveal about the varied
modalities of representing antiquity in silent cinema.
In the introduction to Historical Comedy on Screen (2011), Salmi
observes that the narrative mode of filmed history is, typically, tragic.
Historical film also conventionally deploys mechanisms for reconstructing
a unified, coherent, familiar and immersive past, and suppresses anachron-
ism and cinematic self-reflection (one could add that it often utilises
histories that have high cultural and, even, national investments). Histor-
ical comedy, however, wilfully disrupts all these conventions such that its
analysis provides a radically different perspective on our modern relations
with the past.5 An even more forceful case for the investigation of cinema’s
historical comedies is made in the same volume by the film scholar Marcia
Landy. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s essay of 1971, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy,
History’,6 she claims for film comedy the capacity to function as a form of
alternative history, challenging the official narratives of the past which
have appeared in visual media.7 In his essay of 1874, ‘On the Advantage
and Disadvantage of History for Life’, Nietzsche had laid out a striking
taxonomy for history’s dominant forms: monumental, antiquarian and
critical. An excess of such history, he proposed, ‘is detrimental to life’.8
Foucault argued, in turn, that these ‘traditional devices for constructing a
comprehensive view of history and for tracing the past as a patient and
continuous development must be systematically dismantled’9 and that the
instrument to achieve ‘the transformation of history into a totally different
form of time’ was ‘effective’ history.10 One modality of effective history is,
in Landy’s view, the comic. Through the rhetorical strategies of parody,
farce and satire, cinema’s historical comedies can operate as critical reflec-
tions on visual uses and abuses of the past – that is, as cinematic counter-
history.11
This chapter will focus on one particular film as a demonstration of the
productive outcomes that stem from putting silent cinema’s comic antiqui-
ties under scrutiny as modes of counter-history: Buster Keaton’s first
independent feature-length comedy Three Ages (directed by Keaton and
Eddie Cline at the Keaton studio in Los Angeles, produced by Joseph

4
Analysing the sound comedy Roman Scandals (1933), however, Malamud considers its origins
in burlesques of highbrow culture that were first performed on stage and then passed into silent
cinema (2009: 194–205).
5 6 7
Salmi 2011a: 10–13. Foucault [1971] 1977. Landy 2011: esp. 197.
8 9
Nietzsche [1874] 1980: 14. Foucault [1971] 1977: 153.
10 11
Foucault [1971] 1977: 160. Landy 2011: 177 and 197.
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 277

M. Schenck and put into distribution by Metro Pictures).12 The film

announces its disruptive play with time and history right at the start.
A prologue displays the clichéd image of Old Father Time, adorned with
a long white beard and a giant scythe, seated at a table that holds, among
other props, a skull, an hourglass and a book. A camera close up displays
the book’s title as ‘Three Ages’ and its pages are then turned to reveal the
following preface:

If you let your mind wander back through History you will find that the only thing
that has not changed since the World began is – LOVE. Love is the unchanging
axis on which the World revolves. There is no better way to prove this than
by comparing the love stories of three widely separated periods of Time. As
appropriate examples we have selected the Stone Age, the Roman Age, and the
Modern Age.

In what follows, I shall explore Keaton’s Three Ages in terms of its devices
of parody, anachronism, slapstick and satire, and consider how, in sum,
those interconnected devices manufacture a counter-history of silent
cinema’s reconstructions of antiquity.

Parody

Parody is a systematic device of film comedy in general. Screen comedy

mimics the settings, gestures, language and events of more serious genres
and, through the process of exaggeration, mismatch, transgression or
radical revision, renders their conventions absurd.13 Parody was also a
systematic device of Buster Keaton’s comedy in particular. Among his
feature films can be found spoofs of Southern, Western and Civil War
narratives that were popular in literature as well as on screen.14 Three Ages
has most commonly been understood by film critics as a parody, specific-
ally, of the narrative structure and moral drive of D. W. Griffith’s historical

12
For the purposes of this chapter, I am drawing on the DVD version released by mk2 in 2005 in
a boxed set that also contains Keaton’s College (1927) and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). This is the
version that was earlier restored by the preservationist David Shepard and runs to approx. 64
mins. I have also seen a fairly similar version but of poor quality and without sound
accompaniment in the film archives of UCLA, inventory no. VA8223 (running time c. 58
mins.).
13
See, for example, Neale & Krutnik 1990: 102. Cf., on historical comedy, Salmi 2011b: 10 and
19–24; Landy 2011: 178.
14
For discussion of Keaton’s interest in generic parody, see Bilton 2006; Wolfe 2007; Linville
2011.
278 Maria Wyke

epic Intolerance (1916).15 It too had opened with a metafictional prologue

in which a close-up displays a book inscribed with the film’s title.16 In
order to trace this seemingly universal theme through history, Griffith
intercut (at an increasingly rapid tempo as the film drew to a close) four
episodes from different historical periods and places: ancient Babylon
undermined by its priesthood; Christ condemned to crucifixion; the Prot-
estant Huguenots massacred by Catholics in sixteenth-century France; and
a modern melodramatic tale of the suffering inflicted on innocent factory
workers.17 In Buster Keaton’s comedy, the ‘universality’ of love is demon-
strated by a similar, but more tightly interwoven, structure. The typical
Keaton plotline of boy outsmarts rival to win girl unfolds in all three ages
and is played in each by the same actors. The story of a young ‘Beauty’
(Margaret Leahy), the bulky and villainous ‘Adventurer’ (Wallace Beery)
who crudely courts her, and ‘the faithful Worshipper at Beauty’s shrine’
(Keaton) who ultimately beats his rival and gains the girl is set in the Stone,
the Roman and the Modern age, and those ages are interlaced by means of
parallel editing.
The parody in which Three Ages engages, however, holds in its target
sight not just one historical epic but the conventions, the sources and the
history of the entire genre. Feature-length historical films had emerged and
become established as a popular and highly successful genre during the
period 1911 to 1914. The Italian and the French film industries, seeking
both to attract ‘better’ audiences who would pay more and to give their
products cultural legitimacy and respectability, turned repeatedly at that
time to historical subjects. History, especially the kind that was ideologic-
ally aligned with nationalist discourses, was considered the best subject
matter for longer films of greater narrative complexity. History was already
infused with political and ethical lessons and came conveniently packaged
in the form of respected plays and novels and resplendent paintings.
Historical films could be marketed, therefore, not merely as popular
entertainment, but also as high art and an education in politics, religion
or morality. Multi-reel films like Les Misérables (1912, dir. A. Capellani),
Quo Vadis? (1913, dir. E. Guazzoni) and Cabiria (1914, dir. G. Pastrone)

15
As, for example, Robinson 1969: 71; Moews 1977: viii; Coursodon 1986: 103; Keaton & Vance
2001: 110; McPherson 2004: 122; Bilton 2006: 493.
16
For the importance of this shot as a claim to cultural respectability for the film, achieved by
virtue of the authority of ‘the book’, see Hansen 1991: 143.
17
For useful discussion of Intolerance (1916), see Hansen 1991: 129–41; Simmon 1993: 137–60;
Mayer and Marcus in this volume.
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 279

were quickly bought up for distribution in the United States and exhibited
in plush motion-picture palaces throughout its major cities.18 Dominated
by the static aesthetics of the ritual procession, of sculpture, painting and
tableaux vivants, driven by a desire for verisimilitude in decor, props and
settings, spectacular in their reconstructions of past worlds, epic in their
treatment of turning points in history, these ambitious European features
spurred D. W. Griffith to produce first his biblical four-reeler Judith of
Bethulia (1914), and then his own epics Birth of a Nation (1915) and
Intolerance (1916).19 As a result of such works Griffith came to lead
American film culture at least into the next decade and, at the same time,
continued forcefully to claim for film the status of art.20
Keaton’s Three Ages is made up of four movements and a coda, within
each of which we see Love at work in comparable customs repeated across
each of the depicted eras: (1) courtship of the girl, (2) attempts to stimulate
her jealousy, (3) combat with the more successful rival, (4) rescue of the
girl from his villainous clutches and, finally, marital life happily there-
after.21 The Roman episodes constitute parodic intertexts with the spec-
tacular reconstructions of classical antiquity that American audiences had
regularly witnessed in recent years on stage and screen, such as theatrical
productions of Lew Wallace’s novel Ben-Hur (1880), and the Italian film
adaptations of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis (published in book form
in 1896) and Lord Bulwer-Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). That
relationship – and its comic potentiality – is brought to the attention of the
film’s spectators through skilful and accurate mimicry of the earlier recon-
structions’ rich production values (see figures below). The first appearance
of ancient Rome in the first movement of Three Ages is heralded by a title
card that reads ‘Rome, in all Her Glory’. The male rivals in love ride their
chariots through a variety of substantial, three-dimensional street sets
whose frontages consist of large, neo-classically designed buildings replete
with tall, elegant columns and elaborately detailed pediments. The grand
scale of the Colosseum, the setting for the rivals’ chariot race in the third

18
On the emergence, commercial purpose, ambitious style and international distribution of the
European feature-length historical film, see May 1983: 65–6; Hansen 1991: 63–4 and 162–3;
Simmon 1993: 9; Abel 1994: 302–4; Higashi 1994: 1; Abel 2006: 13–42; Burgoyne 2008: 1–2.
Wyke 1997 discusses some of the Italian films that have Roman settings.
19
On the influence of European historical features on Griffith’s style of filmmaking, see Babington
& Evans 1993: 16–17; Simmon 1993: 142–4; Burgoyne 2008: 25. On Judith, see Buchanan in
this volume.
20
See Koszarski 1990: 214–16 and Simmon 1993: 137.
21
See Robinson 1969: 72–80 for a helpful analysis of the film in terms of ‘four movements’ and a
‘coda’.
280 Maria Wyke

movement and of Christian torment in Quo Vadis, is achieved through

the careful blending of reconstructed tiers of seats with panes of glass
on which elaborate backgrounds have been painted (Figure 16.2.2).22
The press book that launched the film’s publicity campaign in the US
boasted that the arena set was the ‘largest ever made for pictures’, and
that Three Ages had been ‘built on a monumental scale’.23 The interior of
the Adventurer’s villa, visible within the fourth movement, reveals a
surprisingly opulent mise-en-scène that recalls the rich antiquarian detail
of the Italian historical feature films set in Pompeii, whose iconography
was itself designed to render in movement-images the scenes of Roman
daily life painted by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema in the late nineteenth
century.24
In terms of content as well as form, the Roman episodes pay concen-
trated comic homage to the American stage and film traditions for the
story of Ben-Hur.25 Although Goldwyn Pictures had announced in June
1922 its purchase of the rights to film Ben-Hur, production of the block-
buster epic starring Ramon Novarro did not begin until after Three Ages
had been released.26 However, speculation about the personnel to be
involved was already rife in the press, and audiences of Three Ages would
have most likely read the novel, seen the long-running colossal stage
adaptation produced by Klaw & Erlanger, or watched the short Kalem
film version of 1907.27 In movement 1, within the initial Roman episode,
the ‘Adventurer’ and ‘Beauty’s Worshipper’ are introduced to audiences of
Three Ages as charioteers who each clutch their whip but are otherwise
grossly mismatched. Beery (as a blustering Messala) enters from under a
grand arch, dressed as a Roman general, swaggering beneath the crossed
points of his soldiers’ javelins as he advances to front screen in order to
mount his chariot, drawn by four sleek black horses. Keaton (as a ludi-
crously inadequate Ben-Hur) enters from out of a tiny stairwell, in skimpy
civilian attire, to find tied to his humble cart such a poor assortment of

22
On the elaborateness of the Roman set designs, see Kline 1993: 90–2; Keaton & Vance 2001:
114–15; McPherson 2004: 123; Linville 2011: 38.
23
I am indebted to Peter Krämer for generously giving me access to copies of press book materials
that are located in the Performing Arts Research Center of New York Public Library (inventory
no. MFL n.c. 189 no, 12, microfilm *ZAN*T8 reel 32).
24
As Wyke 1997: 154–5.
25
As observed by Sweeney 2007: 295. On Ben-Hur (the novel, the stageplay and the film versions),
see Solomon and Scodel in this volume.
26
See Soares 2010: 70–1.
27
On the deep familiarity of American audiences with the Ben-Hur narrative, see Robinson 1969:
77–8 and Solomon in this volume.
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 281

animals that only three are identifiable – as mare, mule and donkey.28 In
the third, combative movement, heavy snow is falling surreally on the city
of Rome, when the Adventurer challenges the Worshipper to a chariot race
set for the conventional time at which duels take place in Westerns. The
accompanying intertitle deploys the portentous language of pseudo-
antique declarations: ‘Thou art challenged to a chariot race in yon arena
at high noon tomorrow – when I shall drag thy name down to disgrace!’ In
the next scene, having adapted ingeniously to the extraordinary weather
conditions, the Worshipper enters the arena in the cart he has converted
into a low-slung sledge led by huskies. When one of his huskies falters in
the snow-bound race, he dismounts from his cart to inspect its paw and
then replaces the dog with a spare he pulls out of the box tied at the back.29
The climax of the race occurs when a cat released to distract the Worship-
per’s dogs is caught by him and tied to the end of a protruding javelin
better to urge them on to victory (as in Figure 16.2.2).
This fleeting parody of America’s own fictive brand of Judaeo-Christian
history excises Ben-Hur’s powerful motivation to take revenge (for his fall
of status to galley slave and for the leprous sufferings of his imprisoned
family). The contest of the chariot race loses its heroic force and its
symbolic function as microcosm of an historic conflict between the Roman
empire and the oppressed peoples of Judaea in the time of Christ. The
representative of power watching in the imperial box is not the Roman
consul of Ben-Hur nor the emperor as in Quo Vadis, but Beauty’s father.
The change in perspective of Three Ages and cinema’s capacity to trans-
form antiquity into domestic comedy are brought to the fore at the
beginning and the end of the film’s chariot race sequence. On the night
before the race, the Worshipper (more qua Keaton than Ben-Hur) stares
out of frame at his sorry-looking team and, in his imagination, sees them
metamorphose into four identical cartoon-strip nags promisingly labelled
on their blankets ‘Spark Plug’ (Figures 16.1.1–3) – a playfully disruptive
reference out to the hugely popular contemporary comic strip ‘Barney
Google and Snuffy Smith’30 as well as to the comic inventiveness of
the film director Buster Keaton. While, at the end of the race itself, the
camera invites spectators at the cinema watching Three Ages to align
themselves with the embedded spectators in the imperial box, who watch
the farcical proceedings unfolding below them with consternation or
amusement (Figures 16.2.1–2).

28 29
As Robinson 1969: 73 observes. A gag remarked upon by Robinson 1969: 78.
30
As noted in the programme for a CinemaTexas screening dated 24 January 1983 (24.1).
282 Maria Wyke

Figures 16.1.1–3 Keaton as ‘the Worshipper of Beauty’ imagines how to improve the racing ability of
his team, from a Roman episode of Three Ages (1923).

Figures 16.2.1–2 ‘Beauty’ and her family watch with amazement the victory of ‘the Worshipper’ and his
team of huskies in the snow-bound arena, from a Roman episode of Three Ages (1923).
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 283

Other, though less sustained, parodies of antiquity’s modern recon-

structions follow immediately on the chariot race sequence of Three
Ages. After the Worshipper wins the race, his angry opponent drops
him into a dungeon where he encounters a lion (or, rather, an actor
manifestly dressed in a lion costume). The scene, as it unfolds in the
fourth movement of the Roman episode, toys with such reconstructions
of the classical folktale as the Gaumont short Androclès (Androcles and
the Lion, 1912, dir. L. Feuillade) by rendering it fake, forgettable and
mundane. Following on a teasing intertitle (‘Somehow he vaguely remem-
bered that somewhere – sometime – somebody made friends with some
lion by doing something to some of its paws’), the Worshipper delicately
cleans, clips and files the claws of the now preening ‘lion’.31 When the
Worshipper then attempts to rescue Roman Beauty, he brings down the
pillars of the villain’s home like multiple film Samsons before him
(French and American versions of the biblical story had been released
in 1908 and 1914 respectively),32 and crushes the villain under neo-
classical rubble, as had befallen the evil Egyptian priest Arbaces in the
two Italian feature-length adaptations of The Last Days of Pompeii
released in 1913.33 If, however, the Roman episodes of Three Ages are
dominated by parodies of Ben-Hur (as novel, play and film) that is
because Keaton’s comedy is most concerned to challenge American con-
ventions for reconstructing antiquity on screen. The primary addressees
of Three Ages are American spectators who would have been most at
home with Americanised forms of ancient history. Furthermore, as we
shall see below, the film’s parodic strategies intersect with and reinforce
its self-interested challenge to standard histories of American cinema
within which the rise of the historical feature (whether home-grown or
European) brings about the fall of the American slapstick short.

Anachronism

Three Ages disrupts and distorts the strongly didactic relationship between
past and present that had frequently been envisioned in the antiquity films

31
See also Robinson 1969: 78 on this scene.
32
The French version was directed by A. Capellani for Pathé Frères, the American by J. Farrell
MacDonald for the Victor Film Company.
33
In Italian the films were known as Ione o gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (directed by G. E. Vidali for
the Pasquali production house) and Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (directed by E. Rodolfi for
Ambrosio). For discussion of both films, see Wyke 1997: 147–71.
284 Maria Wyke

of early American cinema.34 Its use of Stone Age episodes invokes D. W.

Griffith’s Man’s Genesis (1912), in which a wise old man educates two
children in the triumph of humanity over brutality by telling them the inset
tale of the diminutive caveman Weakhands, who managed to win a girl
from his giant rival Bruteforce.35 The Biograph short is an early example of
a particular subcategory of historical filmmaking that flourished in the
latter part of the 1910s and early 1920s and became a speciality of the
American director Cecil B. DeMille. Such episodic films juxtapose or
merge narratives set in modernity and (mainly) antiquity, bind them to
each other by theme or patterns of plotline, and seek to generate a strong
moral from the analogies so constructed. To take just the work of DeMille
for example, the past may be summoned up as a quick flashback from the
contemporary world (to ancient Babylon in the social comedy of 1919
Male and Female; to the decadence of imperial Rome in 1922’s Manslaugh-
ter; to prehistory in Adam’s Rib of the same year), or it may appear as a
juxtaposed or intersecting extended narrative (the medieval world of Joan
of Arc and British trench warfare in 1916’s Joan the Woman, Exodus and
the jazz age in The Ten Commandments of 1923). According to Bruce
Babington and Peter W. Evans in their study Biblical Epics (1993), the
release of D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance in 1916 provided ‘the precedent and
the extreme of the technique’ for the spate of feature films that followed,
finishing with Noah’s Ark (1928, dir. M. Curtiz), by which point the
strategy of juxtaposing or interlacing reconstructions of antiquity with
projections of modernity had been superseded by classical Hollywood
cinema’s need for narrative consistency, even in the historical film.36
The title of Keaton’s historical comedy – with its intimations of the
traditional three ages of man (youth, maturity and old age) and their
equation with the three forms of time (past, present and future) –
deceptively suggests to the film’s spectators that its narrative will move
through history along a path heading inexorably toward decline and fall.
The title, alongside the film’s episodic structure and opening metafictional
prologue, seemingly bestows on Keaton as director the moral ambitions
of a Griffith or DeMille. D. W. Griffith operated on the conviction that
film could wrest from religion the responsibility for edifying the world.

34
As argued extensively in Sweeney 2007: esp. 288 and 294.
35
On Man’s Genesis, see May 1983: 78–9 and Simmon 1993: 113–14.
36
Babington & Evans 1993: 42. Looking beyond the United States and the use of antiquity,
Sweeney 2007 includes in this subgenre of the silent era Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Leaves from
Satan’s Book (Blade af Satans bog, 1919), for which see Stichele in this volume, and Fritz Lang’s
Destiny (Der müde Tod, 1921).
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 285

To that end he attempted to impose a moral gaze on his reconstructions

of the past.37 As a consequence, the director was lauded in some quarters
as a ‘prophet who made shadow sermons more powerful than the
pulpit’.38 Cecil B. DeMille had likewise adopted the stand of guardian
of American morals, frequently producing anti-modernist and nostalgic-
ally Victorian representations of history as a succession of improving
tableaux interspersed with intertitles of appropriately conformist senti-
ment.39 His analogising feature Adam’s Rib was publicised alongside
Three Ages in the British film journal The Bioscope for 5 July 1923, while
The Ten Commandments was shot at the same time (though released
three months later than Keaton’s historical comedy).40 It transpires,
retrospectively, that the biblical prologue of The Ten Commandments
has been read by Mrs McTavish to her sons in order for them better to
understand how women’s sexual freedoms might damage marital and
social order. There, in the world of Exodus, man’s inability to control
the sexuality of women breaks the Commandments and instigates the
destruction of civilisation at the hand of God.41
Despite intimations that Keaton’s comedy is going to take the moral
high ground (the contemporary world, when it first appears in move-
ment 1, is introduced in an intertitle as ‘the present age of speed,
need and greed’), the film posits a very different relationship between
past and present than that envisaged by Griffith or DeMille. The comic
strategy of sustained and deliberate anachronism punctures any pre-
sumed claim to the didacticism with which the historical films of those
two American directors are imbued: the past does not run in moral
parallel to the present (as lesson or warning) but is merely the present
badly disguised in theatrical costume,42 or its clumsy imitation.43 Film’s
ability to obliterate or transform time is fully exploited in the genre of
historical comedy.44 It calculatingly violates for laughs the period

37
For Griffith’s concern with analogising history on film as a means of edification, see Buchanan
in this volume on his biblical Judith. See also Hansen 1991: 41; Simmon 1993: esp. 150–5.
38 39
Unreferenced citation in May 1983: 95. As Higashi 1994: 28, 115 and 120.
40
The timing of the release of The Ten Commandments relative to that of Three Ages comes from
Sweeney 2007: 289.
41
On DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, see May 1983: 212–13; Babington & Evans 1993: 44–6;
Higashi 1994: 179–203; Sweeney 2007: 289; Shepherd in this volume.
42
Cf. Robinson 1969: 71–2.
43
I am indebted to Reinier Wels for this formulation of the past in historical comedy as the
‘clumsy imitation of the present’, a formulation to which he also gives the label
‘hodiemorphism’.
44
Horton 1991:19; cf. Bilton 2006: 100 on Keaton’s comedies in particular.
286 Maria Wyke

consistency that serious historical films work so hard to sustain and

advertise so boastfully.45
In historical comedy, the primary carrier of anachronism is often its
star.46 On screen, a comedian like Buster Keaton is deviant, breaking out of
the confines of historical narration and functioning as a modern, idiosyn-
cratic performer rather than as an ancient character.47 Whether appearing
as the ‘Worshipper of Beauty’ in the Stone, Roman or Modern age, Keaton
always performs acrobatically as a whiteface, stony-featured clown, ethnic-
ally and socially marked as an Anglo-American working man of the
Midwest.48 Within the fragmented past worlds of Three Ages, ‘antique’
props and practices humorously transmute to take on modern functions.
As the Stone Age suitor, Keaton carries a huge calling card made of stone,
plays a round of golf accompanied by a caveboy caddy carrying a furry bag
of clubs, and swings one like a baseball bat to hit a line drive directly at his
rival the Adventurer. As the Roman suitor, Keaton sports a sundial wrist-
watch and is transported in a chariot that possesses a spare wheel and a
registration plate in Roman numerals. When he is able to find a parking
space, he unlocks his helmet from his head in order to attach it to the
chariot wheel as a neat anti-theft device.49 Such anachronisms are
reinforced by sequences that draw the attention of spectators to cinema’s
processes for reconstructing antiquity – the evident fakery of the Rome
age’s lion is matched by the splendid artificiality of the dinosaur on which
Keaton rides into the first Stone Age episode (achieved through a sudden
jarring shift to the use of miniature models and stop-action animation).50
The anachronisms threaded through Three Ages are also rendered
especially conspicuous by virtue of the film’s complex narrative structure
which invites spectators to appreciate the four movements of each histor-
ical episode not just for themselves but in relation to their two equivalents
in the other ages.51 Furthermore, according to the film historian Daniel
Moews, the two-page cue sheet which was distributed with Three Ages
consistently suggested contemporary songs (such as ‘Running Wild’, ‘The

45 46
Salmi 2011a: 10 and 13–19. As Salmi 2011a: 16–17.
47
On the extra-cinematic persona of the comedian in film comedy, see Neale & Krutnik 1990:
103–7; Krämer 2003: 43; Wolfe 2007: 304.
48
On the characteristics of Keaton on screen, see Keaton 1960: 126; Wolfe 2007: 304; Linville
2007: 272–4.
49
For further comment on these anachronisms, see Robinson 1969: 71–2; Bengtson 2000: 118;
McPherson 2004: 124–5.
50
For which, see Coursodon 1986: 103; McPherson 2004: 123.
51
As argued by Coursodon 1986: 103 and Sweeney 2007: 292–4.
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 287

Vamp’, ‘Toot-toot-tootsie’ and ‘Three O’Clock in the Morning’) to be

played as accompaniment across all the episodes and thus reinforced the
film’s comic play with time and history.52 Three Ages is, therefore, an
historical comedy of correspondences (or, sometimes, their notable
absence), where modernity dominates and is the age against which the
others are to be compared or with which they are already merged.53
In the first volume of his philosophical study of cinema, Cinema 1: The
Movement-Image (1986), Gilles Deleuze argued that ‘the American cinema
constantly shoots and reshoots a single fundamental film, which is the
birth of a nation-civilisation’ (p. 152). Exploring the structures of historical
films such as Griffith’s Intolerance and DeMille’s The Ten Commandments
alongside their deeply analogical character, Deleuze suggested that in order
to produce that ‘birth of a nation-civilisation’ they utilised the three
traditional modes of history Nietzsche had classified in the nineteenth
century: monumental, antiquarian and critical/ethical. A strong ethical
judgement – what DeMille calls matters of Good and Evil – ‘measures
and organises’ the other two modes to ‘condemn the injustice of “things”,
bring compassion, herald the new civilisation on the march, in short,
constantly rediscover America’ (p. 153).54 It is against these characteristics
of American historical film that Three Ages operates to comic effect.
A publicity still for Three Ages (relating to the scene in the fourth move-
ment where the Roman Worshipper is attempting to rescue Beauty from
the Adventurer’s villa) displays Buster Keaton staring straight out at the
viewer while he lies with an Ionic capital collapsed on his head, as if it were
a peculiarly shaped hat (Figure 16.3). The still neatly encapsulates the
strategies of this historical comedy: bringing down the monumental citadel
of cinematic antiquity; metamorphosing its revered antiquarian objects
into the props of physical comedy; converting the hand of a reproving
God into mere misfortune and sheer coincidence.

Slapstick

While causality is a driver of the action in silent cinema’s historical films,

coincidence is a structuring device of slapstick. The term ‘slapstick’ is

52
Moews 1977: 323–4.
53
Sweeney 2007: 294 observes that, once into the last third of the film, the modern age dominates
over the others in terms of the screen time dedicated to it.
54
For the use of Deleuze’s work to analyse the characteristics of historical film, see further
Babington & Evans 1993: esp. 50 and Landy 2001: esp. 3.
288 Maria Wyke

Figure 16.3 The ‘Worshipper’ beneath the rubble of a Roman villa he has destroyed, in a Roman
episode of Three Ages (1923).

thought to originate from a wooden stage prop once used by clowns to

smack each other noisily55 and identifies a form of boisterous physical
comedy that features heavily in Buster Keaton’s Three Ages. Cinematic
slapstick has origins that are almost completely distinct from those for
cinematic reconstructions of antiquity; while historical film finds its
sources predominantly in the ‘high’ culture of novels, plays, operas and
paintings, slapstick passes into cinema from the ‘low’ culture of the vaude-
ville stage.56 It was in vaudeville that Keaton first began performing
spectacular acrobatics for laughs, and he continued to do so in his later

55
On slapstick, see Durgnat 1969: 67–77.
56
Although some features of silent films set in antiquity are inherited from ‘low-brow’ circus
shows and large-scale outdoor amusements, such as their spectacles of chariot racing and
gladiatorial combat, the burning of Rome, or the collapse of Pompeii (for examples of which see
e.g. Malamud 2009: 173–9).
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 289

film career, employing at his studio writers not of literary scripts but of
gags, sketches and songs. His feature films contained many more sight gags
than intertitles.57 Slapstick sits uneasily alongside and within the historical
episodes of Three Ages, and disrupts them, because its perspective is
everyday, domestic and parochial, not elite, historic and national.58 It has
been helpfully described by film critics as running along not a horizontal
axis of film narration but a vertical axis it shares with spectacle. Slapstick is
frequently violent, anarchic and (but not exclusively) non-narrative,
engaging in comic performance of gags rather than plot development,
and disrupting narrative cause and effect with coincidence, luck and
surprise.59
Slapstick surfaces at many moments within Three Ages, but becomes
more frequent and more sustained in the film’s third and fourth move-
ments where combat with the Adventurer and then rescue of Beauty are
staged. It climaxes in the modern episode of the last movement (set in the
streets of contemporary Los Angeles), where Keaton performs an extraor-
dinary set of stunts within a fast-paced chase sequence: escaping from a
police station, racing and scaling up the outside of a very tall building,
jumping from roof to roof, plunging through a series of canvas awnings,
grabbing a drain pipe, swinging through a fire station’s window, sliding
down a pole, and clinging onto a fire engine that – amusingly – carries him
back to the burning police station where the sequence had begun.60 To
understand the comic effects of the body in silent cinema slapstick, critics
have regularly turned to the work of the French philosopher Henri Bergson
whose theorising about laughter and the comic was thoroughly grounded
in the social and cultural context of the late nineteenth century and,
therefore, in the period of the birth of cinema. In its English translation
as Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (published in 1913),
Bergson produced the following definition: ‘The comic is that side of a
person which reveals his likeness to a thing, that aspect of human events
which, through its peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression of pure

57
On Keaton’s background in vaudeville, see Keaton 1960: 130–1; Keaton & Vance 2001: 44–51;
McPherson 2004: 1–24 and 122; Trahair 2002: 308; Gunning 2003: 74; Sweeney 2007: 285.
58
Salmi 2011b: 55–6; Landy 2011: 183. Cf. Wolfe 2007: 309–10 on how elements of urban
slapstick are integrated with Western melodrama in Keaton’s feature Go West (1925) to form a
disturbing generic hybrid.
59
As Trahair 2002: 309–10 and 312–15.
60
On this famed sequence, see Kline 1993: 93; Bengtson 2000: 8; Keaton & Vance 2001: 110;
Sweeney 2007: 294.
290 Maria Wyke

mechanism, of automatism, of movement without life’ (p.87).61 Using long

shots, rapid editing and quick cross-cutting, the camera which captures
Keaton’s astonishing acrobatics presents the body of the comedian almost
as if it were a stylised image that exhibits a mechanical pulse and irresist-
ible momentum.62
In its visualisation of a mechanised life, the slapstick that appeared in
silent cinema during the late 1910s and early 1920s has been understood
as a forceful challenge to the strategies of the narrative feature film
(which had become the primary output of the American film industry
by 1917). It did not utilise the resources of cinematic technology (such
as mise-en-scène, framing, lighting, editing and special effects) in order
to tell a story, construct psychologically motivated characters, organise
historical space and time coherently, or structure it in terms of causality
and closure. Rather slapstick, and silent comedy in general, paraded
itself as the better vehicle through which to express the predicaments of
modernity and to display the film medium’s marvellous mechanics.63 In
Three Ages, slapstick seeps from the contemporary world of urban
America back into the ancient past – in, for example, the club-wielding
duel and the speedy chariot/sledge race, the prehistoric and Roman
chase sequences, the catapulting of the Stone-Age Worshipper directly
at the body of the Adventurer, and the vaulting of the Roman-age
Worshipper from a horse onto the balcony of his rival’s villa in order
to grab the girl within. The vaudeville traditions of physical comedy are
here utilised as a visual device by means of which to interrupt and to
challenge the somatic decorum of historical film’s ancient heroes – as
well as to raise laughs.

Satire

Laughter and its creation are not trivial activities; they have important
social functions.64 Surveying the traditions of American cinema, André
Bazin made the seemingly paradoxical claim that comedy has in fact been
Hollywood’s most serious genre – because it reflects the deepest beliefs of

61
As Durgnat 1969: 84–7; Trahair 2002: 315–18; Salmi 2011b.
62
For discussion of how Keaton’s body appears in the slapstick sequences of his films, see
Durgnat 1969: 84–7; Gunning 2003: 74; Trahair 2002: 322–3; Bilton 2006: 493; Clayton 2007:
155–6.
63
See, especially, Neale & Krutnik 1990: 97–100 and 109–21; Gunning 2003: 74.
64
As argued by Bergson 1913: esp. 7–8.
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 291

American life.65 American film comedy is thus, in the metaphor of

Raymond Durgnat, ‘the crazy mirror’ in which the tensions of American
society have been reflected66 and, by the early 1910s, its trinity of distorting
strategies were already well developed: parody, visual knockabout, and
‘ridicule of noble virtues and lofty sentiments’.67 In the case of Keaton’s
Three Ages, American film comedy provides sustained satirical commen-
tary on contemporary social relations (especially courtship and marriage)
and on gender (especially masculinity).68
A tripartite, inter-episodic gag that runs through the first movement
of Three Ages concerns the criteria by which Beauty’s parents keep on
choosing the Adventurer over the Worshipper as her future husband.69
In the Stone Age it is physical strength, in the Roman social status (see
Figure 16.4) and in the modern, wealth. In all these respects, the Worship-
per singularly fails to satisfy. One particularly noticeable variation across
this movement, however, is that the decision in the Modern age no longer
rests with the father but with the mother. The modern father declares
pointedly in an intertitle (among the first since the opening Stone Age
sequence and, therefore, indicative of this variation from the past) that the
choice rests – with his wife. She arrives at the modern house in stereotypic-
ally fearsome suffragette costume: sporting a manly suit jacket, a waistcoat,
monocle and a broad-brimmed black hat. The comic scene satirises the
modern emergence of the ‘New Woman’. By the early 1920s, the Victorian
ideology of the separation of spheres had been substantially eroded by
radical changes in the parameters of sexuality and gender. World war
had necessitated that women be welcomed into the American workforce.
Continued access to work outside the home and the wide availability
of much better birth control meant that the flapper of the jazz age was
now well advanced on the road away from Victorian domesticity and its
sexual confines of marital relations and motherhood.70 Play with the new
femininity re-emerges in the second movement of Three Ages, where the
new authority of women is allowed to seep back from modernity into the

65
Noted in Horton’s collection on cinema, comedy and theory (1991: 3).
66
Durgnat 1969: esp. 13, 19 and 106–8.
67
Durgnat 1969: 68. Cf. Landy 2011: 181, where she argues that, in the genre of historical comedy,
satire constitutes the utilisation of parody and farce to explore affinities with contemporary life.
68
Cf. Sweeney 2007: 295.
69
Sweeney 2007: 292–4 analyses the consistent use of ‘tripartite, inter-episodic gags’ running
across the Stone, Roman and Modern ages.
70
For this social context in relation to the historical film production of the 1910s and 1920s, see
May 1983: 200–36 (on DeMille); Higashi 1994: 87–116 and 174 (on DeMille); Hansen 1991:
116–17 and 212 (on Griffith).
292 Maria Wyke

Figure 16.4 ‘Beauty’, ‘the Worshipper of Beauty’, his rival ‘the Adventurer’, and Beauty’s parents, in a
Roman episode of Three Ages (1923).

historical episodes where the Worshipper attempts to make Beauty jealous.

When the Adventurer hauls Beauty off by her hair in the Stone Age
episode, the Worshipper attempts to do the same to another woman but
finds (to the accompaniment of much comic business) that she towers over
him and is capable of smacking him with her own club, sending him flying
into a pool.71 In the equivalent Roman episode, the other woman wrestles
with the Worshipper and swiftly pins him to the ground in a firm hold.
Thus modernity’s social and sexual opportunities for women are trans-
formed into the physical humiliations of an old-fashioned comic hero.
In his memoirs, My Wonderful World of Slapstick (1960), Buster Keaton
recalls that in his two-reelers ‘there were usually but three principals – the
villain, myself, and the girl, and she was never important. She was there so

71
McPherson 2004: 123 adds the intriguing anecdote that the actress who played this Amazonian
cave woman was New York’s first female police officer. Cf. Clayton 2007: 155–6 on this scene.
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 293

the villain and I would have something to fight about.’72 Film scholars have
likewise concurred that a dominant aspect of Keaton’s oeuvre is its display
of the problematics of performing a traditional masculinity in the modern
world,73 and have catalogued the common strategies by which that mascu-
linity is unsettled and comically confronted.74 The large expressive eyes,
the immobile mouth, the sad face, the puny dimensions and the awkward
gestures of Keaton shape him as a peculiar kind of child or young adoles-
cent all at sea in the adult world of his film comedies (especially when set
against the mature, muscular, virile proportions of his customary male
rival). Initially estranged from the social order the films have each con-
structed, the boy frustratingly woos and fails to win the girl. Yet, although
he is naïve and inadequate to begin with, through the course of each film
the boy undergoes an amusing journey of maturation. Eventually, through
spectacular exhibitions of physical agility, technical ingenuity, suffering
and luck, he always gains both approval and the girl. Finally integrated into
the films’ fictional worlds and the social organisation they have con-
structed, the boy has become a man.
In Three Ages, Keaton’s character differs profoundly from the ancient heroes
of silent cinema’s historical epics.75 For example, Marcus Vinicius in Quo
Vadis? and the eponymous Ben-Hur are constructed as hypermasculine
members of a wealthy social elite. Their excessive masculinity – manifested
in their physical strength, violence, courage and sexual assertiveness – requires
tempering by a Christian femininity.76 The ‘Worshipper’ fumbles to perform
that kind of Victorian, old-fashioned Protestant heroism as he courts Beauty in
the first and second movements of Three Ages.77 In the third and fourth
movements, however, his maturation and his social success gradually materi-
alise as he deploys progressively more ingenious tricks and more spectacular
slapstick routines to defeat his rival in combat and to rescue the girl. The coda
to the film, to great comic effect, then puts its triumphant hero on display
blissfully accommodated to the ‘New Woman’ and her sexual freedoms. As if
to take a final bow, first the Stone-Age Worshipper emerges from his cave

72 73
Keaton 1960: 130. As noted in Linville 2007: 271.
74
For the following account of the patterns to Keaton’s play with traditional masculinity in his
films, I am indebted to the following works: Moews 1977: esp. 2–3 and 14–15; Kline 1993: esp.
28; Gunning 2003; Krämer 2003; Bilton 2006: esp. 494–5 and 497–9; Wolfe 2007; Linville 2007.
75
Cf. Higashi 1994: 214 for that character’s opposition to the old-fashioned heroes of DeMille’s
sexual comedies.
76
On the biblical epics, see Babington & Evans 1993: 189–91. Cabiria is a notable exception,
where most of the physical strength and intelligence expected of the Roman hero Fulvius Axilla
resides in the gigantic body of his slave Maciste.
77
As Moews 1977: 16 more generally on the character Keaton performs in his films.
294 Maria Wyke

followed by Beauty and their chaotic brood of eleven fur-clad children, then
the Roman Worshipper appears escorting Beauty from out of his villa along
with a neat row of five children (all of whom are smartly attired in togas and
headbands down to the smallest at the end of the line), whereas the closing shot
of Three Ages captures the modern couple taking a leisurely stroll out of their
suburban home in Los Angeles accompanied only by a small Pekinese dog.78
Through its laughter effects, Three Ages raises questions about the value
of a traditional masculinity grounded in physical strength, social status or
wealth. It offers at its close the reassuring possibility of man’s accommo-
dation to modernity and its new gender alignments without the prospect of
moral danger and divine retribution envisaged in Cecil B. DeMille’s The
Ten Commandments. And, just as other feature films of Keaton’s were
soon to do for historical films set in the South, the West and the Civil War,
it provides a satiric perspective on the conventional heroic codes that drove
the historical films of the silent era.79

Counter-history

The interlaced strategies of parody, anachronism, slapstick and satire that

are at work in Three Ages (1923) together offer a comic counter-history
both of antiquity’s reconstructions on screen and of significant develop-
ments in early American cinema. Historical comedies deny any reverence
to the past and undermine the conventions for its visual representation.80
Buster Keaton’s Three Ages relentlessly dismantles the cinematic strategies
for representing the past that had been developed so successfully by D. W.
Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, including the moral drive and pious senti-
mentality with which their narratives of the past were strongly infused.
Underlying the historical films of both American directors is a conception
of history as, simultaneously, cyclical and apocalyptic. According to it, all
civilisations follow a pattern similar to that of the human life cycle; they are
born, mature, decline and die – unless the lessons of the past are learned
and acted upon. The possibility of breaking out of this historical cycle, and
the opportunity to provide their historical narratives with a happier

78
On the socio-sexual significance of this coda, see Robinson 1969: 80; McPherson 2004: 125–6;
Sweeney 2007: 292–4.
79
On Keaton’s comic character as an antidote to the conventional heroes of other film genres, see
Linville 2011: 49.
80
As Salmi 2011b: 25–9 and Landy 2011: 187–8.
 Silent laughter and the counter-historical 295

ending, comes for both Griffith and DeMille from the theological concept
of Christian redemption.81 It is, therefore, especially noteworthy that Three
Ages completely excises Christianity from its Roman episodes, even though
Lew Wallace’s celebrated novel about his fictive hero Ben-Hur is emphatic-
ally subtitled ‘A Tale of the Christ’. In Keaton’s comedy, the prehistoric
and Roman periods appear at the same time to be suspiciously familiar and
utterly bizarre. The past is rendered neither more innocent nor more
decadent than the present, but only absurdly imitative of it. Lessons from
history and Christian redemption are both unnecessary here because, in
the end, there is really only one true age – the modern.
The fragmented and interwoven stories of Intolerance (1916), which
Three Ages so manifestly parodies, have been read self-reflexively as well
as morally – in terms of an account of early American cinema in the period
of its transition from the production of shorts to feature films. According
to this analysis, each of the past periods represented alludes to different
types of European historical film-making that had become popular in the
United States in the late 1900s and early 1910s: Christ’s crucifixion to
the Passion genre favoured by Pathé; the massacre of the Huguenots to the
costume photoplays of Films d’Art; the battles in Babylon to the Italian
spectaculars produced by Cines, Ambrosio and Itala. In contrast, the
modern sections recall the melodramatic style Griffith had started to
develop in his Biograph shorts. The final triumph of modern love over
intolerance then plays out the prospective economic and aesthetic victory
of American narrative cinema over its European competitors.82
Towards its close, Keaton’s Three Ages momentarily renders completely
explicit its parallel interest in cinematic self-reference: in the modern
episode of the third movement, when the Worshipper battles against the
Adventurer in a football match, the displayed list of participants includes
the names ‘Keaton’ and ‘Beery’, as well as those of other cast members,
script writers and camera crew at the Keaton studio.83 As discussed earlier
in this chapter, edifying feature films set in the past had been one of the
principal instruments for legitimating and gentrifying cinema in the course
of the 1910s. But the rise of the historical feature in the United States led to
the fall (however gradual) of the pure slapstick short. Before 1906,
according to historians of cinema, slapstick had been a core element not

81
On the conception of history as both cyclical and redemptive in the films of Griffith and
DeMille, see Hansen 1991: 168–70 and Simmon 1993: 143.
82
On self-reflexive readings of Intolerance, see Hansen 1991: 173–4.
83
As noted by Bengtson 2000: 127.
296 Maria Wyke

just of American film comedy but of the new technology as a whole, in

terms of its aesthetics, its cultural purpose, the location of its projection,
and the demography of its consumers. When films ceased to be part of
vaudeville variety programmes, when they increased in length from a
single to multiple reels, became works of art as well as entertainment, were
exhibited in motion-picture palaces and consumed by predominantly
middle- rather than working-class patrons, then slapstick was subjected
to substantial and sustained criticism as vulgar, rude and unedifying, and
at its worst morally or socially pernicious. Keaton directed and starred in
Three Ages at the time – and as itself a part – of a parallel transition
imposed on comedians from performance in short films to features, and
from slapstick to comic narration.84 As a consequence, historical film
production is quite appropriately the object of assault in Keaton’s first
independent feature-length comedy.
The ultimate triumph of Keaton’s comic character and of cinema’s
comic forms in Three Ages produces a counter-history of silent cinema
in which it is reconceived as a modern rather than a supposedly antique
art, as working- not middle-class in orientation, as mobile not static in
style, as American not European in national alignment, as comic and
everyday not tragic and historic in modality. And thus, according to the
‘book’ of Three Ages, the best cinematic genre through which to express the
predicament of modernity must self-evidently be not epic films set in
antiquity but contemporary slapstick comedy.

84
On the period of transition from shorts to features, the importance to it of historical films, and
its consequences for slapstick, see Koszarski 1990: 174–80; Neale & Krutnik 1990: 109–21;
Hansen 1991: 28 and 44; Higashi 1994: 7–33; Keaton & Vance 2001: 115; Trahair 2002: 308;
Abel 2006: 14. See Sweeney 2007: 296 for a slightly different account of the play with cinematic
self-reference in Three Ages.
17 | From Roman history to German nationalism:
Arminius and Varus in Die Hermannschlacht
(1924)
martin m. winkler

‘Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!’ Emperor Augustus is reported

to have uttered this anguished cry on several occasions after the Romans’
traumatic defeat in the Teutoburg Forest of Germany in late September
of the year 9 CE.1 Three legions, three cavalry units and six cohorts of
auxiliaries were almost completely annihilated. The legionary eagles were
lost. The Roman commander, Quintilius (or Quinctilius) Varus, threw
himself upon his sword. Varus had been installed as legate in 7 CE. His
interference in matters of civil administration and legislation and in
taxation across the Rhine caused a conspiracy among the German tribes.
Its heads were the Cheruscan chieftains Segimer and his son Arminius. The
latter had achieved the rank of tribune in the Roman army, had accom-
panied Tiberius on his campaigns in Germany, and had received Roman
citizenship and equestrian status. But Varus’ ill-advised policies turned
Arminius against Rome. Segimer and Arminius lured Varus and his
legions into a deadly trap deep in the primeval forest. As a result of
Arminius’ victory, further Roman expansion into Germany ceased.
Several Roman sources provide details of the battle, even if their
accounts, written at second hand, were embellished considerably.2 Only
beginning with the second half of the twentieth century has historical
scholarship securely advanced our understanding of Arminius, the
German tribes, and the battle. Its location was finally discovered outside
Kalkriese near Osnabrück in 1987.3 Ongoing excavations appear to con-
firm it as the authentic site. Arminius’ legend, however, can be traced back

1
Suetonius, Divus Augustus 23.2; repeated in Orosius 6.21.27. Here, and throughout, translations
from Latin and German are my own.
2
Tacitus, Annales 1.61; Dio 56.18–22; Velleius Paterculus 2.117–20; Orosius 6.21.26–7. Tacitus’
Annales 1.61 mentions survivors and later (Annales 12.27) records that a few of these were freed
from forty years of enslavement; cf. Dio 56.22.3 and Frontinus, Strategemata 3.15.4. Cf. Timpe
1970: 117–40.
3
The modern discoverer was an officer in the British army stationed at Osnabrück; his account
appears in Clunn 2005. On the battle and related issues see now, among numerous other studies,
Wells 2003, Wolters 2008 and Moosbauer 2009. 297
298 Martin M. Winkler

almost to his own time. In the second century, Tacitus called him ‘doubt-
less the liberator of Germany’ (liberator haud dubie Germaniae), who
challenged an empire at the height of its power but remained undefeated
in war, a man about whom the barbaric tribes were still singing their
songs.4 Since the fifteenth century, Germans have turned Arminius into
a heroic character and national saviour: Hermann, that is ‘Man of the
Army’. His defeat of Varus came to be regarded as the foundation myth for
the political and military power of Germany.
In From Caligari to Hitler, one of the most influential studies of cinema
and society, Siegfried Kracauer argued that the films made in Germany
between 1918 and 1932 foreshadowed the politics and culture of what was
to come in 1933:
Inner life manifests itself in various elements and conglomerations of external life,
especially in those almost imperceptible surface data which form an essential part
of screen treatment. In recording the visible world – whether current reality or an
imaginary universe – films therefore provide clues to hidden processes.

Why films and not some other medium of expression? ‘The films of a
nation’, Kracauer maintained, ‘reflect its mentality in a more direct way
than other artistic media.’ For this Kracauer adduced two reasons. Films
are ‘never the product of an individual’. They ‘address themselves, and
appeal, to the anonymous multitude. Popular films – or to be more precise,
popular screen motifs – can therefore be supposed to satisfy existing mass
desires.’ Kracauer went on to observe:

What films reflect are not so much explicit credos as psychological dispositions –
those deep layers of collective mentality which extend more or less below the
dimension of consciousness . . . The medium of the screen exceeds [other mass
media] in inclusiveness.5

Kracauer’s thesis has not been universally accepted, but it provides a useful
point of departure for the following treatment of a particular film made in
Germany during the time with which Kracauer was concerned. This film
was and is little known. Kracauer did not discuss it and may not have

4
Tacitus, Annales 2.88.2. For any understanding of the history of Arminius, Varus and the
Roman frontier in Germany, the studies of Dieter Timpe are indispensable. They are now
conveniently accessible in Timpe 1970 and 2006. On the biography of Arminius see Timpe 1970:
11–49. On the importance of Tacitus for the German legends about Arminius see, e.g.,
Bietenholz 1994: 179–88. Both provide additional references.
5
The quotations are from Kracauer [1947] 2004: 7, 5, and 6. On Kracauer see Hake 1993: 247–70
and 314–17 (notes). Hake 2007: 26–58 and Kaes 2004 provide recent summaries of Weimar-era
cinema. See especially Saunders 1992.
 From Roman history to German nationalism 299

known about its existence. But it is instructive about the cultural climate
that prevailed in the country at the time.
27 February 1924 saw the release of Die Hermannschlacht (‘Hermann’s
Battle’), written and directed by Leo König. Its running time was fifty-four
minutes. Most of it had been filmed in 1922 on what were thought to
be authentic locations near Detmold, a small provincial town. Outside
Detmold the Hermannsdenkmal, a copper statue of Arminius, dedicated
in 1875, looks out over the countryside from a 1,300 ft high mountain. The
monument is eighty-seven feet tall and stands on a circular stone base
eighty-eight feet high. The statue wears a winged helmet and is leaning on
a shield with the pithy inscription Treufest (‘Faithful-Firm’). As sign of
victory over Rome, Hermann’s left foot stands on a Roman legionary eagle
and the fasces (a bundle of rods that symbolised the power of Rome). His
right arm is raising a sword, twenty-three feet long, high into the sky.
The two sides of the blade display an inscription which proclaims (when
translated into English): ‘GERMAN UNITY, MY STRENGTH / MY
STRENGTH, GERMANY’S MIGHT.’ The monument points not to the
distant past but to its own time. For this reason Hermann is facing west in
the direction of France, arch-enemy since at least the Napoleonic era. This
symbolism flared up again after the First World War. French occupation of
the region of the Saarland in 1920, a direct result of the 1919 Treaty of
Versailles, rankled throughout the country. Even worse was the French–
Belgian occupation of the region of the Ruhr in January 1923, and the
ensuing Ruhrkampf, a period of unrest with strikes, street violence and
eventual hyperinflation. All was fertile ground for general unrest, agitation
and incipient revolution, such as the Hitler putsch in November of that year.
Die Hermannschlacht (Figure 17.1) was the only production of the
company Klio-Film, which had come to an end in the wake of the death of
Hugo Stinnes on 10 April 1924, less than six weeks after the film’s opening.6
Stinnes, a right-wing German industrialist, had taken an active hand in the
Ruhrkampf and had financially supported the Jungdeutscher Orden (‘Young
German Order’), a paramilitary and anti-Semitic organisation.7 Apparently,
a number of members from the local chapter of the order’s youth organisa-
tion were hired as extras for König’s film, which Stinnes may have partly
financed as a kind of silent partner in Klio-Film.
Little is known about ‘Dr. Leo König’, as the director is billed. There
seem to be no traces of his political views or affiliations except what may be

6
The following is summarised from Jakob 2009: 11–13.
7
On Stinnes see Wulf 1979 and Feldman 1998.
300 Martin M. Winkler

Figure 17.1 Mutual defiance: Arminius (left) and Varus (centre) in Die
Hermannschlacht (1924, dir. L. König).

deduced from his film. König had worked as stage director or dramaturge
in Düsseldorf, but had no experience with cinema. Die Hermannschlacht
was his only film.8 König had only a small budget, practically no sets, and
only a minimum of props and costumes. But he made a virtue of necessity
and filmed ‘in the gorges of the Teutoburg Forest’, as the programme
booklet proudly proclaimed. Rather unusually for the time, König’s film
consists largely of location footage. The production company had to obtain
special permissions from authorities to film in a natural preserve and had
to put a considerable sum of money into escrow to guarantee that no traces
of the cast and crew would remain after filming. So König’s freedom of
movement was rather restricted. For instance, it was impossible for him to
design any travelling shots. He could do little besides place his camera
somewhere and shoot. Additional scenes were filmed in 1923 in and
around the Saalburg, a reconstructed Roman fortress on the limes, the
Roman border wall in Germany. The opening sequence, set in a banquet
hall of Augustus’ palace in Rome, was filmed there, as was a later scene set
in the fortified Roman camp of Aliso.
Die Hermannschlacht was produced by a company named after the
Muse of history, but the cover of the film’s eight-page programme booklet
and its first inside page admitted that the story was a free adaptation.9 The
cover also announced a Großfilm (‘large-scale film’), while the second page
more dramatically called Die Hermannschlacht a ‘colossal painting of

8
Cf. Hugo 2004 and Jakob 2009: 8.
9
Hugo 2004 reprints the programme book and provides much other useful information, both
textual and pictorial. He provides links to online versions of local newspaper articles about, and
 From Roman history to German nationalism 301

primeval Germanic times’. The film’s local impact was considerable. Its
subject matter made the premiere in Detmold a proud event for audiences
and critics. But Die Hermannschlacht had few attractions as spectacle. It
left barely a trace in the history of German cinema and completely
vanished within a year of its release. The film was lost until one print
was discovered in Moscow in 1990, which had been confiscated by Soviet
authorities at the end of the Second World War.10 For convenient refer-
ence, here is a plot summary:

Arminius is a hostage in Rome and longs for his freedom. In Germany, his father
Segimer and Segimer’s ward, a young orphan woman, chafe under Roman occu-
pation. Segimer’s wife favours the Romans and wants the girl to be friendly
towards Ventidius, the local Roman commander. But she is in love with Segimund,
the son of Segestes, a rival chieftain to Segimer. Segestes favours the Romans; his
son wants independence.

Arminius is allowed to return home. Segestes’ daughter Tusnelda – the name is

usually, but not here, spelled Thusnelda – loves Arminius. But Marobod, chieftain
of the Marcomanni, promises kingship to Segestes under Rome’s tutelage in return
for Tusnelda’s hand. The two chiefs conspire, and Marobod attempts to have
Arminius poisoned, but his plot comes to nothing.

The Romans carry on as usual. Lecherous Ventidius has a German maid kid-
napped and brought to Aliso, where a fate worse than death awaits her. But
Arminius frees her. In the process he discovers that many Germans are prisoners
and serfs of the Romans. He demands their immediate release, but Ventidius takes
Arminius’ defiance as a challenge and insult to Rome’s honour. He threatens
reprisals. Old Segimer, feeling his end approach, follows tribal custom by throwing
himself into a gorge. He receives a kind of Viking funeral. Before his death,
Arminius has solemnly promised him to free Germany.

During a celebration in which the Romans participate, Tusnelda is forced into her
engagement with Marobod. Arminius snatches her away. Ventidius now carries
out his threat; the Romans drive the people and their cattle away and burn
their huts. Arminius resists them. The Romans threaten to raze the German
stronghold, the Teutoburg, unless Tusnelda is returned to them. Arminius calls
together the governing assembly. Facing Roman mobilisation led by Varus, the
chieftains hesitate to go to war but eventually unite and elect Arminius their leader.
A battle ensues in the Teutoburg Forest. Cowardly Ventidius is killed. Segestes, still

reviews of, the film’s premiere, from which my translations below are taken. Some of these and
additional excerpts appear in Jakob 2009: 30–2. See in addition Müller 1996.
10
The film is now available on a German DVD from the LWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen
(2009).
302 Martin M. Winkler

pro-Roman, falls to his death when he flees from Segimund, who attacks him
without at first recognising his father. Marobod sees the error of his ways and
changes sides. He dies heroically, for it takes no fewer than eight Romans to
subdue him. A prophetic old woman tells Varus that his death is imminent.
Ambushes and fights, flight and pursuit culminate in Varus’ despair of victory
and his on-screen suicide. His body is brought to lie at Arminius’ feet. The victors
return for a celebration. Arminius and Tusnelda embrace.

Like all historical melodramas, the film mixes fact with fiction. History, too
unfamiliar in the abstract, is brought to life when audiences can identify
with historical figures and their worthy causes. Ancient historians had
already shown the way, emphasising the importance of the past for their
own times. Cicero memorably expressed this perspective in the words
historia magistra vitae: ‘history is the teacher of life’.11 But, in the process,
history can easily become the servant of a political purpose – historia
ancilla ideologiae (‘history is the handmaid of ideology’).12
König’s film exemplifies this process. It expresses the spirit of its own
time by giving the story the expected nationalist meaning: liberation of
Germany from foreign – French – occupation and unity resulting from
victory. The programme booklet contains several text passages that provide
revealing insights into the way in which contemporary audiences were to
approach their ancient history. For example, what begins like a plot
summary on p. 7 immediately turns into a veritable harangue. This text
is the best key to the film because it signals to readers the topical import-
ance of the story, such as in a reference to the military occupation of
German territory. Here and throughout, the language’s extreme pathos
works on contemporary readers’ emotions:

Arminius, the son of the Cheruscan chief Segimer, returns home from degrading
army service in Rome. – Enemy within the country! is the hate-filled cry that shrills
through Germany’s districts. The presumptions of the occupation forces, lusting
after loot, scorn the people with ever greater challenges. Gloating Roman army
commanders cast dice for the possession of German women; gifts haggle for their
compliance. All this is alien Roman nature, an expression of a degenerate people’s
customs, spiritually shallow in their sensuously lascivious demands. Robbery,
kidnapping, incarceration and servitude are the fate of this enslaved natural race.
Heavily weighs the Romans’ yoke on the Germans. The victims of the urge to
freedom rise up to become symbols of a future filled with action. Tribal brothers,
expelled, yearn for their homeland, revolt with the ultimate strength of their bodies

11
Cicero, De oratore 2.9.36.
12
The Latin phrase is from Chapoutot 2008: 52.
 From Roman history to German nationalism 303

Figure 17.2 A fate worse than death: Ventidius menacing a German virgin in Die
Hermannschlacht (1924, dir. L. König).

tortured by the enemy. The Cheruscans clench their fists in suppressed defiance
and in a determined will to action.

And the day of fulfillment is dawning. Germans of all tribes convene in unity for
the Assembly at full moon. Fight against Rome! is Arminius’ oath . . . God Thor
swings his lightning hammer. Sparks scatter about. The Norns murmur of the
German race’s thread of fate . . .Valkyries storm through the nebulous vapours of
German forests, looking for the heroes of the fight for freedom.

This bombast, replete with its own nebulous vapours of vocabulary, style
and hyperbole, is intended to stir up patriotic feelings. The two ellipses
above appear in the original; they are meant to indicate a dramatic pause,
enhancing the words as they are being read. Some of the German
expressions, especially the word Gau (‘district’) and entartet (‘degenerate’)
will take on an even more nationalistic aura about a decade later. The text
noticeably exaggerates what actually appears in the film. Only one lustful
Roman is ever seen: Ventidius, Varus’ subordinate and the film’s main
villain. No Ventidius is attested to have been with Varus or in Germany.
Ventidius kidnaps and threatens a German maiden’s virtue (Figure 17.2),
but he does not get anywhere. The film would have benefited greatly from
more Roman villainy. Emperor Augustus is shown on p. 5 of the pro-
gramme book, but nobody wearing his elaborate costume is to be seen in
the film. And neither Norns nor Valkyries make it onto the screen. Only
Thor, superimposed on swirling clouds, appears briefly. Page 8 contains a
thrilling, if impressionistic, summary of what happens and does not happen
in the film. Truth in advertising is of no concern to the advertisers.
304 Martin M. Winkler

Not everybody attending a screening may have leafed through the

programme book or read this and its two other comparable effusions.
But cinemagoers who attended the film’s premiere got a special treat. An
advertisement in the papers had spread the news that a prologue, com-
posed and recited by ‘the homeland poet’ Paul Warncke, would precede
the screening. Warncke was a strongly patriotic and nationalistic public
intellectual. His was only one voice in a veritable chorus of public expres-
sion of extreme nationalist and revanchist passions at the time. Warncke
read a Vorspruch zum Hermannsfilm (‘Preface to the Film about Her-
mann’), a poem of seven eight-line stanzas, to a packed house; it was
published in a local paper a few days later.13 Warncke included a direct
reference to the nearby monument and called for unity. He also waxed
religious. For his climax he explicitly linked the past with the present after
having already associated the ancient Romans with the modern French
through the word welsch, which appears near the middle of the poem.
A summary will give an impression of Warncke’s purple pathos:

In more than two thousand years the German people have again and again
endured the yoke of oppressors, but they have shaken it off through their own
strength. Do not the forests sing of ancient heroic battles, of liberty trampling
tyranny, of the ancient Teutons’ wrath, of Hermann the Cheruscan’s proud
achievement? Yes, after millennia the great man’s glory resounds throughout
mankind, how he thrust the power of the Romans into nothingness – the Romans
who conquered the world and greedily raided the free and peaceful districts of
Germany, intent on hacking apart the free people’s happiness. The enemy’s goal, as
today: insolent robbery! This is where it happened, where the great battle took
place, when German loyalty held out against Roman perfidy (Da deutsche Treue
welscher Tücke stand)! Greetings to you, district that saw this battle, the bold
struggle for the German homeland. Light will always illuminate the man who
faithfully guarded his home: it was the battle of truth against lies. High above the
puny throngs looms Hermann’s image, the sword in his bronze hand, pointing to
the heavens like a church’s steeple, for God’s service is service to the homeland! Do
not dissipate yourselves dealing with petty and base concerns. The task is hard.
Give yourselves over to one God, Freedom, Homeland – this will conquer death!
Carry the Holy Grail of the noble German spirit through the present darkness.
Preserve the yearning for the Ideal, preserve reverence and honour. Remember
your Fathers’ struggle. The spirit that is not of this earth will conquer the musty
baseness on earth (die dumpfe Erdenschwere). Then, in France’s eternal fight
against Germany, which is the struggle of lie against truth, of darkness against
light, the pure sword will achieve its due victory. Then will come the day of

13
Warncke’s poem is at Hugo 2004, with source reference.
 From Roman history to German nationalism 305

vengeance on which we will push back the enemy from Saar and Rhine. Then we
will break the fetters of slavery and be as German and as free as our Fathers!

Warncke received enthusiastic applause. Today, his effusiveness strikes us as

bathetic. But it makes evident what the point of Die Hermannschlacht was.
The film itself takes care to let us know what to expect even without
Warncke’s patriotic warm-up. The title card is followed by three prologue
cards, here given together (in translation):

In Germany the Roman scourge rules. Arbitrary despotism of a Rome lusting

for conquest extended far into Germanic lands. Ruthlessly, the Roman armies
of mercenaries savaged [the country], torched and looted with Gallic hatred.
Hermann, the son of Cheruscan chief Segimer, is in Roman service as a hostage
under the name of ‘Arminius’.

The mixture of past and present tenses indicates that clear thinking was
less the point of this prologue than an appeal to viewers’ emotions. The
mention of the Romans’ mercenary armies is telling: these soldiers do not
fight for a cause but only for money. They are hirelings. As most viewers
will have known, Roman legions were composed of Roman citizens. The
Romans did employ non-Roman auxiliaries, and such auxiliaries did
perish in Varus’ defeat, but it does not do to speak of whole armies
composed of mercenaries. The term, derogatory in many contexts, appears
for reasons of rhetoric only. And the ‘Gallic hatred’? Ancient Gauls, as
anyone with even a basic knowledge of Roman history must have known,
had been longstanding enemies of the Romans during the time of the
Republic, so it is completely erroneous to impute Gallic emotions to
Romans. Or did the Roman troops at Arminius’ time come from Gaul,
the Roman province? Of course not. But the point becomes evident if we
remember that the territory of Roman Gaul largely corresponds to modern
France. So the Romans are turned into a kind of ancient enemy of the
Germans on the model of the French. Römisch (‘Roman’) equals welsch
(‘French’). And the film never explains why Arminius – whose first words,
given in the intertitle immediately following the prologue, are ‘When will
I be free?’ – is easily and honourably set free and given equestrian rank
as a kind of farewell present before returning home. Did the historical
Arminius, who had attained such rank during his military career well
before he returned to Germany, chafe under the yoke while in Roman
service? It hardly seems likely. It is even less likely that he ever was in the
city of Rome.
Prologues to historical films nearly always manipulate audiences. They
tell viewers how they are to understand, or rather to feel about, what
306 Martin M. Winkler

follows – that is to say, whose side to take.14 König’s prologue is no

exception. Equally, the programme booklet is explicit (and bombastic)
about the meaning of the German victory over the Romans as a quasi-
mystical foreshadowing of the present. On p. 6, audiences were treated to
pithy exclamatory phrases: ‘Shields resound. Swords clash.’ The same page
then speaks of ‘the future of the Germanic people’ as presaged by the Fates,
the ‘thread of world history’, and the ‘fateful thread of our future’. So
Arminius, his Cheruscans, and the united tribes represent a community of
blood and soil (Blut und Boden), as this sort of thing would be called in the
following decade.
The film has no fewer than 147 intertitles, which are more important than
one might at first believe. This number excludes eleven others: the title card,
final card (Ende) and cards indicating act divisions. The intertitles not only
give us settings, names and dialogue, but they also influence our understand-
ing of what we are watching. A number of these texts are extensions of the
prologue and programme book. Their main theme, hammered home nearly
incessantly, is freedom, voiced by Arminius for the first time right after the
prologue. Segimer’s ward is next: ‘Are the Germans to become the slaves of
the Romans?’ Segimund contrasts his own stance to his father’s: ‘I, however,
long for the day of liberation from the Roman yoke.’ When Segestes
remonstrates with Segimer about granting refuge to people driven off by
the Romans, Segimer replies: ‘Are you not outraged when foreign despotism
turns our brethren into slaves?’ Act II ends on a dramatic exchange between
the two principal antagonists, with the eventual victor having the last word:

arminius: ‘Disgrace upon Rome! It robs a defenceless people and violates their
women!’
varus: ‘We are the victors! – We are the power!’
arminius: ‘A united Germany you, Roman, will never subdue!’
varus: ‘You, too, will have to bow to my power!’
arminius: ‘Never!!! We may be defenceless – dishonourable we are not, for ours
is soil and right!’

Arminius’ answer to Varus says it all: honour calls for defence, for resist-
ance. Freedom depends on unity. Act III ends with Segimer’s death and
funeral. His last words are a farewell to his country: ‘Only unity can free
you!’ This prompts Arminius’ promise to him: ‘Father, in this hour I swear
to you, Germany shall be free. Free!’ He repeats the theme before the

14
On the visual and verbal rhetoric found in prologues to films about the Roman Empire, see
Winkler 2008.
 From Roman history to German nationalism 307

Figure 17.3 The assembly: Arminius, sword raised, in Hermannsdenkmal pose, in Die
Hermannschlacht (1924, dir. L. König).

hesitant chiefs during the assembly in Act IV: ‘Unity grants us might!’ The
early Germans’ deliberative and judicial assembly, the Thing, had been
described by Tacitus in the Germania.15 At one moment in the film,
Arminius jumps up and, turned away from the viewers, raises his sword
to the sky in a pose reminiscent of that taken up by the statue on the
Hermannsdenkmal (Figure 17.3). The cover page of the programme book
shows him, facing front, in a similar pose, with shield by his side and sword
raised high. A journalist writing for a Berlin daily paper got the point about
the film’s connection to the monument: ‘The film’s highlight, however, is
the words engraved on the Cheruscan chief’s towering sword.’ He then
quotes the inscription.16
Certain language that would become ubiquitous in Nazi Germany
appears in the intertitles as well. The Führer concept is anticipated in
Tusnelda’s answer to Arminius’ resigned exclamation after the Thing,
‘So I stand all alone!’: ‘No’, she protests, ‘not alone! Germany demands
the leader! You are to lead us to the fight for freedom!’ As a non-
ideological term, the word Führer can be traced back to at least the mid
nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century it was frequently to
be found in political or nationalist contexts. In Tusnelda’s words the
idea of the Führer carries strong religious, even salvific, overtones, which
later increased when Hitler became just such a leader. The greeting

15
Tacitus, Germania 11–12. Tacitus had also mentioned that a Thing took place during a new or
full moon, both considered to be good omens.
16
Jakob 2009: 31.
308 Martin M. Winkler

Arminius receives upon his victorious return – ‘Hail Arminius! Saviour of

Germany!’ – fits in as well.
How did Die Hermannschlacht affect its first audience? Articles in local
and regional newspapers had hyped its release. This one is revealing about
the film’s importance in the wake of Germany’s recent military defeat:

Perhaps the film about Hermann is called upon [berufen, an almost religious term]
to reawaken a feeling of German unity. For the film about Hermann speaks a
powerful language which must convince everybody that all that quarrelling and
bickering have rocked our fatherland apart even more than the war had done.

One local paper even went so far as to wish that the film would conquer, as
it were, audiences not only in Germany:

it is to be hoped that the film . . . will begin its victorious course through the
German lands and beyond, a course that will at the same time spread the realisa-
tion that the saying on our Hermann’s sword is right and true and in this way will
accomplish a good deal of preparatory work for the new ascent of our home
country.

Reviews published the day following the premiere described how the
spectators had reacted. The local press was uniformly enthusiastic –
uniformly because the laudatory articles are largely identical in tone and
content. Collectively, they reported that Warncke had received ‘rich
applause’ for his ‘splendid’, even ‘electrifying’, prologue, which created just
the ‘right atmosphere’ for the film with its ‘warm national feeling’. König is
said to have succeeded in combining historical fact, the figure of Hermann,
and the latter’s ‘deed of unification and liberation’ into ‘a fabulously
dramatic and artistically well-rounded plot’. Numerous patriotic and pol-
itical analogies that connect the film’s story to the present immediately
reached viewers’ hearts in their ‘eloquent power of impression’. Spontan-
eous ‘stormy applause’ for certain scenes and during the short intervals
between acts led to a standing ovation at the end, at which the audience
sang the national anthem. A ‘wave of patriotic enthusiasm’ had gripped the
theatre. The production company should be proud of its ‘truly patriotic
merit’ with the premiere ‘of this truly patriotic film’.
Comparison with an earlier film about German history, if on a signifi-
cantly different cinematic level, came naturally: Fridericus Rex (1923–4,
dir. A. von Cserépy), a four-part epic about Frederick the Great of Prus-
sia.17 Actor Otto Gebühr, who had portrayed him from youth to old age in

17
On these films and nationalist myths, see Kaes 2004: 73–7.
 From Roman history to German nationalism 309

these films, played Frederick again in two popular and prestigious feature
films during the Nazi era (Fridericus, 1937, dir. J. Meyer; Der große König,
1942). The latter film was co-written and directed by Veit Harlan, one of
Nazi Germany’s most infamous filmmakers (Jud Süß, 1940; Kolberg, 1945).
Another film about Frederick (Der Choral von Leuthen, 1933, dir.
C. Froelich and A. von Cserépy) premiered three days after Hitler came
to power. Its Austrian release title was Der Führer seines Volkes (‘The
Leader of His People’). The historical Frederick’s successes in the Seven
Years’ War had made Prussia one of the great powers in Europe. He was
duly appropriated in the Nazi era as a kind of Hitlerian prototype: the
selfless, lonely, often misunderstood but wise and providential ruler who
can see further into the future than his pusillanimous minions and whose
own sacrifices and those he demands from his people are destined to shape
his country’s future and guarantee its power and well-being.18 König’s
Arminius is this Frederick’s precursor on a smaller scale.
Among all the hurrahs for König’s film in the papers, a few reservations
by others are likely to have been dismissed altogether. Two days after the
premiere, a Social-Democratic newspaper criticised Warncke’s poem and
made a case against the film’s inherent nationalism, if not without its own
kind of pathos: ‘Stifling thoughts of hatred and revenge sought and found
edification and satisfaction in the film.’ Another paper granted the film ‘a
certain national value’ but on the whole found it no more than mediocre, if
not without a gratefully received ‘national advertising power’. König’s film
was judged to be well below the level of the Fridericus Rex films.
The nationalist content of König’s film and its propagandistic nature are
evident. To assess its artistic rank and importance we have to turn to the
film itself. Between action and romance, Die Hermannschlacht contains
enough plot to make for an acceptable historical epic, but König’s small
budget and lack of cinematic expertise undermine the film at nearly every
step. Visually, it is undistinguished. The entrance to the imperial banquet
hall in Rome later doubles as a hall in Aliso. Little attempt at decorating it
differently has been made except for a change in plants and furniture. The
camera position is virtually identical both times. The Roman army,
although not puny, looks neither impressive nor menacing. The Romans
march off to battle with one four-horse and one two-horse chariot but
without a single eagle standard. A catapult briefly appears on screen to no
effect or purpose. The German chiefs do look heroic, mainly because of

18
On films about German history and Frederick the Great made during the Nazi era, see Horak
1992.
310 Martin M. Winkler

their helmets with curved horns or, in Arminius’ case, huge wings, which
were then considered authentic. The acting varies from competent to
amateurish, as when some extras are caught looking into the camera.
One contemporary reviewer noticed that some of the German soldiers
gingerly pick their way across the stones and rocks in a ravine, but he
missed an amusing moment after the battle. As Romans are fleeing down
the side of a mountain in extreme long-shot, one legionary finds himself a
bit out of position. Faced with a shorter but steeper way down, he hesitates
and momentarily turns back, then turns again and quickly, but bravely and
safely, slides down on his backside.
The principal cast is mixed in quality. Adolf Bassermann as Segimer
gives the most accomplished performance. He had been a well-known
stage actor and then opera singer, specialising in heroic tenor parts espe-
cially in Wagner operas (Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Tristan, Siegfried). By
contrast, the burly Arminius of Georg Schmieter in his first film part is
unlikely to have preserved his audience appeal once the opening-night
enthusiasm wore off. Annemarie Wisser’s Tusnelda is as cute and blond as
one might wish. Despite such a cliché, the film’s women show their own
courage. An early intertitle gives this reaction to the rejection of Ventidius
by Segimer’s ward: ‘If all women in the country thought like her, the cause
of the Germans would be better off!’
König’s Varus deserves a special mention, although he is not on screen
all that long. He is played by Italian director and actor Stefano di Vitale
(Figure 17.4) – for some reason billed as de Stefano-Vitale – who had
participated in what may have been the most colossal and most influential
silent film set in antiquity, Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914).19 One may
wonder what he thought of the German film’s size and quality. Ferdinand
Immler, the film’s Ventidius, had experience in larger-scale epics as well.
Originally a stage actor, he came to the cinema in 1912 and several times
acted with Asta Nielsen and appeared alongside Pola Negri and Emil
Jannings in Ernst Lubitsch’s historical superproduction Madame DuBarry
(1919; English release title: Passion).
The editing is competent, especially when scenes taking place at differ-
ent locations are intercut, but the quality of König’s camera work lags far
behind the times. This is the more regrettable because he had an experi-
enced cameraman in Marius Holdt. Still, we should not judge König too
harshly. As mentioned, severe limitations had been imposed on him. This

19
On Cabiria, see Winkler 2009b: 94–121 (with extensive references).
 From Roman history to German nationalism 311

Figure 17.4 Varus shortly before his suicide in Die Hermannschlacht (1924, dir.
L. König).

circumstance is the only explanation for all the static images we see, for
König as good as never moves his camera. The only movement that occurs
is within the frame. This makes for a tedious narrative, especially now that
few viewers are likely to receive any patriotic uplift from the story. König
had to lose much of the visual potential that filming in pristine nature
afforded him. The two instances in which the camera does move, if only
briefly by tilting downward, are clear evidence of what König was limited
to. The first occurs at the end of Segimer’s death scene. In long-shot, he
throws himself down a rocky cliff. The camera follows a large boulder that
has been hauled over the edge for effect, as if dislodged by Segimer’s falling
body. But this cannot have looked convincing even then. The second
occasion is an improvement. In long-to-extreme-long shot, Germans are
hurling rocks at Roman soldiers below them. The Romans, trying to
escape, run toward the camera, which tilts to keep them in the frame. This
is the film’s only fully dramatic set-up. The other five or six times that the
camera appears minimally to follow someone’s movement may be acci-
dental or due to the state of preservation of the surviving print. These tiny
movements, barely noticeable as they are, serve no dramatic purpose.
From an aesthetic perspective Die Hermannschlacht is negligible. And it
was very soon forgotten or had become unavailable for screenings after the
dissolution of Klio-Film. It was not even shown in connection with the
fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Hermannsdenkmal in 1925. But as a
manifestation of the collective mentality, to use Kracauer’s words, Die
Hermannschlacht is fascinating and important even today. In spite of all
its nationalist fervour, however, it is not quite an expression of the Nazi
312 Martin M. Winkler

spirit. Not even the raised-arm salutes that we see the Romans give on
several occasions, a gesture already present in 1920s Germany and eventu-
ally ubiquitous as the ‘German Salute’, are evidence of a Nazi attitude. They
derive from a common theatrical and cinematic convention that predates
the origins of Fascism and Nazism by decades.20 But the film does express
what was brewing in the country. The myth of a heroic Hermann driving
back the ancient precursors of a current enemy was too good to be ignored
in National Socialism. Arminius’ victory in the Teutoburg Forest expressed
the new regime’s views of German history and destiny.

20
Winkler 2009b traces the origin and history of the gesture, with brief discussion of König’s film
at 127.
18 | The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’
ruth scodel

The novel Ben-Hur (1880) has as its hero a Jew, persecuted by Roman
power, who becomes a follower of Jesus. Staging or filming the story
requires a depiction of Jews and ancient Judaism, and inevitably
audiences would tend to associate the Jews of the past with those
of the present. So the 1925 film, directed by Fred Niblo for Metro-
Goldwyn-Mayer, invites consideration in light of the ‘Hollywood
Question’ – how the prominence of Jews in the film industry meant
that America’s responses to modernity and the cultural and political
debates in American life were constantly entangled with attitudes
to Jews.1
Consider one comment on the play that preceded the film as a vastly
popular entertainment:2

It has long been known among dramatic critics that the reason for the mainten-
ance of ‘Ben Hur’ in the theater for nineteen years is this: it is the most successful
of all the vehicles for pro-Semitism now on the stage. That will appear to be a
prejudicial statement in the minds of the thousands who have seen and enjoyed
‘Ben Hur,’ but there is truth in it. The point which should not be overlooked,
however, is that if ‘Ben Hur’ is useful in framing the public mind favorably toward
the Jews, it is not because of a pro-Semitic intention in the story. That may be the
intention of the producers, Messrs. Klaw and Erlanger, but it was not the intention
of General Lew Wallace.

Henry Ford (the author of these comments) was probably the most
prominent anti-Semite of the 1920s – his newspaper, The Dearborn Inde-
pendent, published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – and although his
views were controversial, they serve as a reminder that anti-Semitism was
far more pervasive and respectable in the United States than it later
became. So it is not surprising that Ford picked on the very popular play
adapted from Lew Wallace’s novel by William Young and produced by
Marc Klaw and Abraham L. Erlanger. After its initial run of 194 perform-
ances in 1899–1900, it was revived on Broadway five times, finally closing
in January 1917. It was produced ‘by innumerable touring companies,

1 2
Carr 2001, especially 60–93. Ford 1920–2: 100. 313
314 Ruth Scodel

some of dubious quality’.3 Erlanger described the production’s success

with pride and self-satisfaction while discussing the later film in an
interview in 1926.4
Philo-semitism is not obvious in the script of the play written by Young,
at least not in any form that the novel itself does not already display. The
text of the play can be supplemented by the souvenir booklet produced by
Klaw & Erlanger, from which we can see what the play was like in
production.5 It is worth briefly considering it as a background to the
1925 film (of which Erlanger was a producer), since it also was an attempt
at conveying the entire novel in visual form (the 1907 film was on a
miniature scale, and was not widely publicised or distributed).6 It immedi-
ately shows the problems a silent adaptation would face, for the play
included musical set-pieces with large choruses. It was divided into six
acts, ending with the healing of Judah’s mother and sister. After a prologue
showing the Magi, the first act showed the Hur family, the friendship of
Judah and Messala and Judah’s arrest; the second act showed the Roman
galley and Ben-Hur’s rescue of Arrius; the third took place in Antioch and
showed the meeting with Simonides and Esther, and then a dance at the
Temple of Apollo, Judah’s meeting with Iras at the Fountain of Castalia,
and the Revels of the Devadasi at Daphne. The fourth took place at the
Orchard of Palms and showed first the arrival of Esther and Simonides in
the tent of Sheik Ilderim and a meeting between Judah and Simonides, and
in a second tableau Judah with Iras on the lake. The fifth act showed the
chariot race, the sixth had Judah telling Esther and Simonides about the
Nazarene, Amrah telling his mother and sister, and the final mass scene in
which they are healed.
The New York Times reviewed the opening night:7

The other scenic pictures [apart from the sea-battle and chariot race, which the
review has already discussed] are all superb, especially those of the pagan revelry in
the Grove of Daphne and by the Fountain of Castalia, and the scene of the
allurement of Ben-Hur by the moonlit lake.

The play was an orgy of orientalist spectacle, in which Roman–Jewish

political conflict was ignored.

3 4
Bordman & Hischak 2004: 68. New York Times, 31 January 1926: X5.
5
The text of the play is available in Mayer 1994: 204–90. For access to the programmes, I thank
Special Collections at the University of Michigan Libraries.
6
For the Kalem film, see Jon Solomon in this volume.
7
New York Times, 30 November 1892: 7.
 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ 315

So what made Ford see it as Jewish propaganda, except his loathing for the
Jewish producers?8 One pair of scenes forms the likely prompt. In the first
scene after the prologue, the play interpolates a conversation between Judah’s
mother and Simonides, in which she asks him to remove the family’s wealth
and to transmit it to her son only when he is an adult, because ‘in riches, great
riches, there is such temptation!’ This episode improves the plausibility of
Simonides’ success in preserving much of the wealth of the family, and
strengthens his motivation for his initial refusal to recognise Judah; he is
following the commands of Judah’s mother in testing him first. In the second,
like most of the play carefully taken from Wallace’s novel, Simonides gives
Judah an account of his wealth, and Ben-Hur offers freedom and wealth to his
loyal slave – but Simonides explains that he cannot be manumitted under
Mosaic law. Since the characters have not yet heard Jesus, Ford may have been
distressed that in this abbreviated version of the story there is a salient plotline
that shows Jews as both scrupulous and generous about money. The meeting
between Simonides and Judah’s mother is retained in the 1925 film, although
the issue of the danger of wealth is suppressed – so that Simonides’ later
decision about whether to recognise Ben-Hur becomes entirely a test of his
own conscience (or rather of Esther’s, since he leaves the decision to her).
Ford’s rant, however, also points to a significant factor in the cultural context
in which the 1925 Ben-Hur was created. Wallace famously negotiated the
stage production of his novel on the condition that Jesus would not be
represented by an actor; instead a beam of light indicated his presence. He
made this agreement, however, with Jews.
Groucho Marx tells an anecdote about Erlanger’s first meeting with
Wallace, in Louisville, Kentucky.9 When Erlanger spoke of his admiration
for Ben-Hur and his belief that it could be made into a splendid and
profitable play, Wallace made a speech about the book’s religious signifi-
cance and asked, ‘Mr Erlanger, do you believe in our Lord, Jesus Christ?’
Erlanger, briefly dismayed, answered:

General, you ask me if I believe in Jesus Christ. Well, frankly I don’t. My partner,
Klaw does – but he’s up in Boston!10

8
Most of Ford’s rant is directed against the Theatrical Syndicate, which had six partners,
including Klaw and Erlanger. Its monopoly in early twentieth-century theatre bookings was
controversial, but can be defended as a necessary response to the chaos that prevailed before its
creation in 1896; see Lippman 1937: 193.
9
Marx 1959: 178–80.
10
Erlanger was presumably telling the truth: Klaw’s father Leopold is listed as a Jewish resident of
Paducah, KY, in 1851; Marc Klaw was born there in 1856 (Bernstein 1912: 25), but his grave is
in the churchyard of St John the Baptist, Clayton, West Sussex.
316 Ruth Scodel

Erlanger sold the film rights to Goldwyn in 1922 (for a 50 per cent share of
the profits), and the floundering production was a major problem for the
newly created Metro-Goldwyn (which became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in
1925). The producers of the film were all Jewish, although its writers,
director and stars were not. None was religious – they went to services
on the high holy days, if they went at all – but they were Jews
nonetheless.11
The novel, set in the Roman Empire (primarily in Jerusalem and
Antioch) in the first century CE, was published in 1880, when the Jewish
population of the United States was very small (roughly 250,000) and
mostly from Germany, while Zionist immigration to Palestine had not
yet begun. When the film appeared in 1925, over two million Jews, mostly
from eastern Europe, had come to the United States. Two legislative acts of
1924 restricted further immigration. Meanwhile, the First, Second, and
Third Aliyot (waves of Jewish immigration) had brought Jews to Palestine,
and the Fourth was under way.12
In 1880, the story of Ben-Hur could easily serve as Christian inspiration,
but its ancient world did not immediately evoke contemporary resonances.
In 1925, the situation was considerably more complicated. First, within the
United States, Jews were far more visible. The movies had been a field of
cultural anxiety and contention in the United States since they became a
significant form of popular entertainment. The prominence of Jews made
the film industry an obvious target for anti-Semitism. Ford, indeed,
attacked the simultaneous presence of Jews in the theatre and the film
industries:13

Every night hundreds of thousands of people give from two to three hours to the
Theater, every day literally millions of people give up from 30 minutes to two hours
to the Movies; and this simply means that millions of Americans every day place
themselves voluntarily within range of Jewish ideas of life, love and labor; within
range of Jewish propaganda, sometimes cleverly, sometimes clumsily concealed.
This gives the Jewish masseur of the public mind all the opportunity he desires; and
his only protest now is that exposure may make his game a trifle difficult.

Ford’s extremism and bluntness made him an outlier, but he was certainly
not alone. The movies have been under constant scrutiny from their

11
On the religion of the Hollywood Jews, see Gabler 1988: 266–310, especially 280–1.
12
There is a chart showing Jewish immigration to the United States in Sorin 1992: 7. See also
Diner 2004: 71–111. For the history of immigration to Palestine, see Cohn-Sherbok & El-Alami
2001: 16–20.
13
Ford 1920–2: 170.
 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ 317

beginnings until the present for their depictions of sex, gender roles, the
family, religion, crime, alcohol, smoking, political authority; and any of
these depictions could implicate the Jewish Question.
Wallace’s novel comments more than once on the homogeneity of the
Jewish race, stating that the Jews of antiquity, wherever they lived, had
the same physical characteristics as those of today (‘An observer skilled
in the distinctions of race . . . would have soon discovered him to be of
Jewish descent’; ‘the same marvelous similitude of features which to-day
particularizes the children of Israel’).14 From 1899, the Immigration
Bureau Service classified ‘Hebrews’ as a race. While initially many Jews
supported this classification, Jews could not control how their race fitted
into American racial hierarchies. It was not always certain that Jews
would be considered white.15 In 1911, the Commission on Immigration,
a joint committee of both houses of Congress chaired by Senator William
P. Dillingham, issued its infamous report arguing that immigration from
southern and eastern Europe was dangerous to American society and
needed to be restricted.16 The Immigration Act of 1921 set temporary
quotas that were made permanent in the Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed)
with the goal of promoting immigration from northwestern Europe and
limiting it from southern and eastern Europe (Asians were blocked
completely). While some labour leaders, including the Jewish Samuel
Gompers, supported the Act in order to protect jobs and wages, it was
clearly in part racially motivated, and was particularly aimed at Jews. The
early 1920s are also the years in which Harvard, Yale and Princeton
adopted admissions policies aimed at limiting the number of Jewish
students.17 Nativist propaganda attacked Jews both as physically inferior
and as given to political radicalism.
The other contemporary issue that the film could bring to mind was
Palestine. Palestine was not front-page news in the United States in the
early 1920s but, in the years following the Balfour Declaration (2 November
1917), the end of the First World War, and the establishment of the
British Mandate (24 July 1922), rising Jewish immigration into Palestine
(8,000 a year in 1920–3, 13,000 in 1924) created frequent unrest and

14
Wallace 1998: 81 and 497 respectively. The novel Ben-Hur is now in the public domain and is
available from Project Gutenberg.
15
Carr 2001, especially 60–93.
16
The documents can be viewed through the Harvard College Library at http://ocp.hul.harvard.
edu/immigration/search.html, accessed 1 June 2012.
17
Goldstein 2006: 86–137.
318 Ruth Scodel

ongoing controversy, and the American press did not ignore the issue.18
For example – to cite only the elite newspaper of record – in response to
the Jaffa riots of May 1921, the New York Times of 4 May reported ‘Scores
Killed in Palestine Riots’ on p. 7; on 6 May ‘27 Jews Killed in Jaffa’ on p. 5;
on 8 May, ‘Palestine Natives Oppose Zionism’ on p. 34. Thus, many people
would have been at least dimly aware that Palestine was a troubled place,
and the association between the Jewish nationalism of the first century CE
and contemporary Zionism would be easy to make. Any film showing a
Jewish struggle for independence in Judaea would implicitly support the
Jewish claim of an ancient attachment to Palestine, even if it scrupulously
avoided any suggestion that this claim should be valid in the present. At
the same time, Hollywood studios have not sought political controversy,
especially not when a great deal of money is at stake – and Ben-Hur was a
fabulously expensive production. Zionism was by no means a universal
cause even among Jews. Henry Morgenthau, for example, although he had
aided Jews in Palestine in 1914, was vehemently opposed to it, publishing
an article in 1921 that called Zionism a ‘stupendous fallacy’.19
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer did not make Ben-Hur in order to convey a
political message; the goal was to make money if possible, and to define
the new company as a creator of high-quality works. The Jews in the
industry were probably responsible for the general absence of Jewish
villains in Hollywood films except in productions based on famous texts
such as Oliver Twist (though Jewish producers in the 1920s created com-
edies using ethnic stereotypes), but they also aimed at the mainstream of
American culture and avoided controversial topics, including Jewish
ones.20 Ben-Hur relied mostly on its crowd scenes, sets and great set-
pieces – the sea battle, the chariot race, the Crucifixion – for its impact. Its
advertising emphasised its thrills and the love story. The film was an
‘exquisite Romance of Sacred and Profane Love’ or ‘a reverent rendering
of History’s mightiest events’.21 Posters show the chariot race, Judah
(played by Ramon Novarro) with Esther (May McAvoy), or Novarro (in

18
For a brief and balanced account of developments of this period, see Tessler 2009: 157–80,
Cohn-Sherbok & El-Elami 2001: 21–9.
19
The article is widely cited today on antisemitic and anti-Israel websites. There is a sympathetic
account of Morgenthau’s rejection of Zionism in Tuchman 1977 (the historian Barbara
Tuchman is Morgenthau’s granddaughter).
20
Erens 1984: 19 carefully surveys the portrayal of Jews in film from 1903 to 1983; she discusses
the avoidance of the ‘Jew-Villain’ on p. 19. The most remarkable Jewish theme in early cinema
is the recurrent Jewish-Irish romance: see Erens 1984: 81–3, 90–1.
21
Cited in Soares 2002: 98–9.
 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ 319

a skimpy though luxurious tunic) bending over the reclining and reveal-
ingly dressed Carmel Myers (Iras), whose sexy costumes were created by
Erté (uncredited) but whose role is actually not large. Reviews, too, dis-
cussed mainly the spectacle and the performances, and when the film was
criticised, it was mainly by those who thought spectacle had overwhelmed
characterisation.22
At the same time, Irving Thalberg cared about the meanings of his
movies, and it is fair to call Thalberg the main author of the 1925 film
Ben-Hur. When Fred Niblo sent him the footage shot in Italy after Niblo
replaced Charles Brabin as director and Ramon Novarro succeeded George
Walsh as the protagonist, Thalberg was unhappy with the lighting, the
costumes (Novarro wore a turban), and the way the actors moved. Once
production came back to Culver City, he supervised it in its entirety,
including the rewrites, and he oversaw the cutting of the chariot race
sequence himself.23 Thalberg had real beliefs, though not religious ones
(he worked on the campaign of the socialist Morris Hillquit for election as
mayor of New York), and was widely read, if hardly an intellectual.24
When the New York office wanted to remove the scene of the Crucifixion,
thinking it too graphic, he protested, arguing that pictures of the crucified
Christ were so common that the film would not seem too gruesome, while
if the shots were omitted, ‘the greatness of the great sacrifice of the greatest
figure in history has no actual meaning. We do not even feel at the end of
the picture that he is dead.’25
Thalberg’s choice of words is revealing. The death of Jesus matters, and
has great meaning; but Thalberg also assumed that this meaning would lie
in Jesus’ death, and not, as a believing Christian surely would, in the
Resurrection. The film’s emphasis lies in sacrifice. Although it shows the
reverence of the people who greet Jesus on Palm Sunday, it places most
weight on the extraordinary benevolence of Jesus. As Jesus carries the
cross, the film ignores the traditional episodes in which others demonstrate
their pity for Jesus – Simon of Cyrene and Saint Veronica, for example, do
not appear. Instead, a woman begs him to revivify her dead baby, and he
does; the Hur women and Esther beg that they be healed, and he heals
them. The effect of seeing characters so lost in their own suffering that they
ask for miracles as Jesus goes to his death is odd, but it reinforces the

22 23
The Times, 9 November 1926: 8. Vieira 2010: 48–51; Thomas 1969: 48–54.
24
On the Hillquit campaign, see Flamini 1994: 23–4; on Thalberg’s reading and intellectual
insecurity, see Vieria 2010: 170–1.
25
Flamini 1994: 67.
320 Ruth Scodel

general tendency of the film’s portrayal of the Passion. The effect is even
more powerful because the film represents Jesus, not with the shaft of light
that the stage production used in accordance with the agreement between
Wallace and the producers that Jesus would not be played by an actor, but
by keeping him out of the frame so that only his hand appears – to give
water to Judah, to bless the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount, to heal.
Jesus is invisible, but active in the world. The suffering of Jesus serves as a
supreme example of non-violence, compassion and forgiveness, and
although the Kingdom is not of this world, the effective action of the King
is all within this world. Nowhere does the film refer to atonement or to sin,
and nowhere does it hint at an afterlife. Similarly, the intertitle for the Last
Supper quotes John 13:34, telling the disciples to love one another; it avoids
any reference to the Eucharist.
The film, then, follows in the tradition of toga drama and earlier film in
presenting a bland, undogmatic Christianity, but it goes even farther than
most.26 Its conclusion has Judah, after he dismisses his army, tell his family
‘He is not dead’ – and then, following another shot in which he embraces
Esther and Tirzah, ‘He will live forever in the hearts of men.’ It would be
hard to attenuate Christianity more thoroughly. James Quirk in Photoplay,
playing on expectation that the film would be advertised as ‘The Picture
Every Christian Ought to See’, commented pointedly that for the film to
make a profit, ‘not only every Christian, but every Mohammedan, every
Hebrew, every Buddhist, and every Sun Worshiper in America will have to
buy a ticket for it’.27
In this film, unlike the 1959 version, Ben-Hur becomes a follower of the
Nazarene long before the conclusion, but in the wrong way. He expects the
King to drive the Romans away, and he raises an army for this purpose. In
the novel, even at the moment before the Crucifixion he almost chooses to
fight;28 in the film, he drops his sword as he understands Jesus’ teaching
when Jesus speaks to him on the way to Golgotha. The film’s message is
about non-violence and brotherly love.
The film is remarkable for two opposing tendencies. On one side, it
seeks authorisation as an appropriately Christian work, an essential strat-
egy for marketing. Here are at least two striking devices that obviously aim

26
For drama, see Mayer 1994: 4–5. On religion in the silent versions of Quo Vadis, see Scodel &
Bettenworth 2009: 211–12.
27
Photoplay, 25 April 1925: 27, quoted in Brownlow 1968: 450.
28
Wallace 1998: 503.
 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ 321

Figure 18.1 Betty Bronson as Mary in Fred Niblo’s Ben-Hur (1925).

at convincing the viewer of the film’s Christian bona fides. First, although
the film avoids showing Jesus, it does portray Joseph and Mary, with Betty
Bronson’s Mary directly and obviously modelled on familiar images: she
looks like the Mary of a holy picture or Christmas card, with a nimbus
behind her head (Figure 18.1). Esther, in turn, echoes Mary. Like Mary, she
first appears riding on a donkey, and her first encounter with Judah has
him, clumsily, recapture an injured dove that has fluttered out of her
hands. Their future romance thus hints at the work of the Holy Spirit.
Second, besides the Nativity sequence, the film includes important
scenes from the life of Jesus. Furthermore, these scenes based on the
gospels constitute most of the scenes in Technicolor, including a Last
Supper that imitates Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated painting.29 The film
also regularly introduces these dramatisations of gospel events with quota-
tions from the gospels superimposed on what appears to be a papyrus roll
(Figure 18.2). The writing is illegible, and it is unclear whether it is
supposed to be Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek, although the large titles of each
gospel are in Roman letters, evidently so that the viewer will have no
difficulty reading them. The film thereby suggests that its story conforms
to the gospel texts, which are implicitly presented as if they were contem-
porary with the story being shown.
On the other side, however, the film, following Wallace, stresses the
mixed population of the empire and of Jerusalem, but does not use

29
Several films have imitated the painting, notably the 1951 Quo Vadis (illustration in Solomon
2001a: 218).
322 Ruth Scodel

Figure 18.2 Gospel intertitle over papyrus roll in Fred Niblo’s Ben-Hur (1925).

material from the novel or the gospels that would show the Jews negatively.
The opening title announces:
Pagan Rome was at the zenith of her power. The tread of her iron legion shook the
world; and from every land rose the cries of captive peoples – praying for a
deliverer. In Judaea the glory that was Israel’s lay scattered in the dust – And
Jerusalem the Golden, conquered and oppressed, wept in the shadow of her walls.

Israel, then, is only one of the nations enslaved by Rome, and the other
nations pray just as Israel does. At the same time, the title alludes to familiar
texts. ‘Jerusalem the Golden’ is the title and opening line of a very popular
hymn based on a section of the twelfth-century De Contemptu Mundi of
Bernard of Cluny – but that Jerusalem is the heavenly city, not the earthly
Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s weeping probably recalls ‘Rachel weeping for her
children’, Jeremiah 31:15, cited at Matthew 2.28, of the mourning for the
massacre of the Innocents. At the same time, ‘wept in the shadow of her
walls’ might well evoke the famous Western Wall of the Temple.
The opening of the 1925 film stresses both the mixed population of the
empire and how the Romans oppress them all. Wallace’s novel includes a
description of the market at the Joppa Gate, through which Joseph and Mary
pass on their way to Bethlehem, as evidence not only of the mixed population
but also of the degeneracy of the Jews. Wallace refers to sects ‘among whom
the ancient faith had been parcelled and refined away’, and summarises:30
Jerusalem, rich in sacred history, richer in connection with sacred prophecies – the
Jerusalem of Solomon, in which silver was as stones, and cedars as the sycamores

30
Wallace 1998: 39.
 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ 323

of the vale – had come to be but a copy of Rome, a centre of unholy practices, a seat
of pagan power.

To be sure, Wallace is ambivalent about Second Temple Judaism. For

example Judah’s family, like a few others ‘as rich in blood as in posses-
sions’, speaks Hebrew (‘a language almost lost in the land’) at home, as a
sign of his authenticity.31 The author has Judah refer to the ‘love and
reverence’ taught by Hillel, Shammai and Simeon; this Simeon must be
Simeon the son of Hillel, and his successor as president of the Sanhedrin.
Some Christian commentators identified this Simeon with the Simeon of
Luke 2, who recognises the infant Jesus as the redeemer, and that was
probably Wallace’s intention here; that is, he identifies the good and
authentic in Judaism with proto-Christianity.32 The film, on the other
hand, sets the ancient glory of Jerusalem (Solomon and the prophets are
both mentioned in intertitles) in contrast with the military procession of
the Roman governor. The Jews are not decadent, but simply oppressed.
When the Roman governor Gratus appears in the procession of
Ben-Hur (1925), he is a fat man who is carried in a litter as a woman
lolls in front of him (the fat, evil Nero was already familiar: Albert
Capozzi had been a heavy Nero in Luigi Maggi’s Nerone of 1909,
Jacques Grétillat in J. Gordon Edwards’s 1922 Nero). After the Hurs are
arrested, the film actually shows the torture of Simonides as the Roman
authorities seek to find the hidden wealth of the Hurs, to make Roman
cruelty plainer. The film also sharpens the novel’s plot by having Messala
killed outright in the chariot race, not just left crippled and bankrupted.
This turn offers the audience the opportunity to enjoy the satisfaction of
revenge while embracing the Christian message of non-violence and
forgiveness, but it also makes money less important. The Sheik still goads
Messala into betting his entire fortune on the race, but because Messala
does not survive to experience poverty, Judah’s revenge seems purer and
more heroic; rendering an enemy penniless might seem to be a stereo-
typically Jewish vengeance.
The silent film transforms Wallace’s description of the decadent Jewish
market into a display of Roman tyranny. Luke 2:3, which says that every-
one went to his native town to register for the census, is expressed more
extravagantly as ‘every man was forced’. The opening shot immediately

31
Both quotes from Wallace 1998: 93.
32
Clarke 1829: 379. Godet 1881: 137, argues against it. Cutler 1966 defends this identification. It is
very unlikely, but would have been known to Wallace.
324 Ruth Scodel

emphasises the mixed nature of the population, and the intertitle makes
the point clear:
An unending stream of travellers eddied in and out of the great Joppa gate –
Syrians, Greeks, Jews, Egyptians – all bound homeward.

The crowd scene is, not surprisingly, exotic, with camels, litters, and
varied costumes, shot both from above and in close-up, but it does not
primarily call for an orientalising gaze. A series of vignettes establishes
the contrast between the ordinary people of all kinds and the unpro-
voked bullying of the Roman soldiers. One man offers a cup of water to
his companion. A family trudges past, pausing for a very small boy with
a tiny dog on a leash to catch up, and two others watch benevolently.
A man applies make-up to a woman who sits beneath an awning, and
the camera turns to a close-up of two elderly men who look on with
mild disapproval, apparently tinged with amusement (‘Will women ever
cease to paint their faces?’ is the intertitle, inviting the audience to add a
mental ‘no’ in agreement). The audience is invited to see themselves in
this ancient crowd, not to disapprove of any decadence in it. Joseph
encounters an acquaintance, and introduces him to Mary. The film
ignores the point that Wallace gives this interaction in the novel, that
the man is a Zealot who complains vehemently about the imposition of
the Roman tax (40–2); it is here merely a social moment. Mary calms a
fretful baby, whose mother is initially annoyed at the intrusion but is
calmed when she looks at Mary’s face. In contrast to the benign crowd,
the Roman soldiers, as the travellers come to the gate, seize them, briefly
interrogate them, and push them roughly along. They shove the people;
they brutally grab a woman by the hair and push her into the dirt.
A soldier uses his sword to steal an apple from a fruit seller; the seller
angrily accuses a passerby who is eating an apple of stealing it, until the
soldier repeats the trick, when he obsequiously gestures to the Romans
to take as many as they like. Nobody provokes the soldiers in any way.
They are abusive because they can be.
The spectators are similarly encouraged to see the ordinary people of
Judaea as like themselves in the scene in which women gathered at the pool
of Siloam discuss whether Jesus can be the promised King. They are
washing clothes, and the medium distance, just above eye-level shot makes
the spectator almost a member of the group. The intertitles have one
woman argue that Jesus cannot defeat the Romans without an army, while
another argues that he does not need an army, since his message is peace
and comfort. The camera turns from one to the next, giving them equal
 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ 325

attention. Even as the spectator can identify with these women, their
uncertainty pulls the viewer into the past: these women cannot be sure
how to understand Jesus’ mission, because they are inside the past.33
The Roman oppressors are themselves a mixed group. Gratus’ parade
includes Nubian cavalry, Celts from Britain, Helvetian mountaineers,
Thracians of the Black Sea, according to the intertitle – yet only the
Nubians are actually identifiable as they ride past. The camera views the
marching soldiers from different angles, implying the points of view of
the many internal spectators, but in almost every shot the spears and
armour dominate so that the differences do not seem important; only the
display of power matters. As Gratus himself passes, an African boy sitting
on a white donkey invites the donkey to bray a welcome to his brother,
Gratus. The boy balances the Nubians, so that there are Africans among
both Romans and their subjects – but the camera individualises him, while
the Nubians are seen only as a group at some distance. The Roman parade
is no less exotic than the market, but instead of representing everyday
social interaction, it is an obvious symbol of oppressive control.
Roman architecture delivers the same message. The Joppa gate is
grand, but the building that serves as the location of Roman government
is immense (Figure 18.3). The tremendous structure dwarfs the actors
who move below it, with the camera located above eye level to make
it clear that it is beyond human scale. Nowhere in the film can the
audience in the cinema actually see and read the entire inscription at
the top of the gates, but the word that is visible is clearly SENATUS,
and it is not centred over the double gates. A senate in Jerusalem is
inaccurate even by the standards of a popular film, especially one
that emphasised the oppressiveness of Roman rule. The inscription is
presumably SENATUS POPULUSQUE ROMANUS and the building
the great palace built by Herod (Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae,
15.9.3) – still hardly appropriate for a palace built by King Herod in a
client kingdom, but an unmistakable signal: the palace is a Roman
construction whose function is to intimidate those who enter it.34 At
the end of the film, it collapses in the earthquake at the moment of the
death of Jesus, marking the end of Roman power (tremendous disasters
were already a staple of the Roman film – consider for instance the fire
that destroys Rome in E. Guazzoni’s Quo Vadis? and volcanic eruptions

33
The scene performs one of the functions Rosenstone (2006: 45–8) assigns historical film, of
allowing the viewer to experience the past as not-yet-determined.
34
Elley 1984: 131 calls it the ‘Senate Building’.
326 Ruth Scodel

Figure 18.3 The ‘Senate’ building as it teeters in Fred Niblo’s Ben-Hur (1925).

in M. Caserini’s The Last Days of Pompeii, both in 1913).35 Judah in his

quarrel with Messala insists that Israel has seen the downfall of con-
querors before Rome, and will again. The collapse of the palace suggests
that this is true. Although historically Israel would fall long before Rome,
the film merges the end of paganism with the fall of oppressive Roman
power, a theme continued in later films such as the 1951 Quo Vadis.
Wallace explicitly claims at the beginning of the fourth chapter of the
novel that the luxury and corruption of Rome actually originated in the East,
especially in Greece and Egypt36 – that is, he follows Roman moralists
(Juvenal’s Satire 3, for example). The film, however, calls Antioch the ‘Rome
of the East’. It greatly reduces the role of Iras, the Egyptian seductress. While
it does not present the scenes that displayed Eastern voluptuousness in the
dramatic adaptation of the novel, such as the dancing priestesses at the
Temple of Apollo at Daphne by Antioch, it does include a brief parade in
which Judah, as a victorious charioteer in Rome, rides through a narrow,
garlanded street preceded by scantily dressed women who scatter flowers.
The source of corruption in this version is clearly Rome itself.
The film twice refers to the enemies of Jesus as the ‘mob’, once in the words
of Judah, and again when Pilate condemns Jesus; the intertitle says that
he ‘delivered Jesus to the mob’. John 18: 39–40 explicitly says that the Jews
chose to have Barabbas released instead of Jesus (Wallace includes this);37

35
This shot, along with a scene in which Ben-Hur successfully fights off two Roman soldiers, had
to be cut before the film could be shown in Italy (Soares 2002: 330–1; Francis Bushman said
Mussolini had banned the film, but this is not true).
36 37
Wallace 1998: 160. Wallace 1998: 496.
 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ 327

Wallace first describes how Jews from around the world came to see Jesus’
death, and then mentions that the rest of the world was also represented.38
The film, however, indicates that the ‘mob’ was not exclusively or even
primarily Jewish. The Jews are second to the Romans in the list:
In the thousands that looked on – Romans, Jews, Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, Eastern-
ers. It seemed the whole world was represented along that tragic way.

In the film, then, the Jews are a nation more than a religious group, and
their longing for freedom is shared by all the other victims of Roman
oppression. Indeed, when Judah raises two legions to fight Rome, one
comes from Galilee, but the other from ‘Sheik Ilderim’s lands’. Yet Judah
(played by Novarro) never performs any Jewish rituals, in sharp contrast to
the 1959 version. In the first part of the film he wears a discreet skullcap,
with which he tries to catch Esther’s escaped dove, but when he reasserts
his Jewish identity later it does not return. On the other hand, the film
shows no pagan rituals either.
‘Jew’ as an identity, then, is exclusively defined by its opposition to
‘Roman’. When the two friends quarrel, the intertitle has Judah call
Messala ‘a Roman who understands my people’, and Messala responds,
‘Rome rules the people she has conquered. It is for them to understand
Rome!’ There is, however, nothing, really, to understand. Messala says a
moment later ‘To be a Roman is to rule the world.’ / ‘To be a Jew is to crawl
in the dirt!’ Yet the camera frames the two of them equally as they face
each other. Messala then proposes to Judah that he forget that he is a Jew,
while Judah invites Messala to forget that he is a Roman. What would such
forgetting mean in this context? If Messala forgot that he was a Roman, he
would treat Jewish objections to Roman supremacy as legitimate; if Judah
forgot that he was a Jew, he would stop objecting to Roman supremacy.
Being a Roman or a Jew means only that Romans and Jews identify with
the relevant positions in the structure of power, and the costumes strongly
mark these positions: in this indoor scene, Messala continues to wear not
just his armour, but a helmet with an immense plume. The conflict
between Rome and others is about Roman power itself, and has no other
content.
A similar exchange has a slightly different resonance when the intertitle
has Arrius say to Judah in the galley, ‘Spoken like a Roman!’ and the next
intertitle has Judah answer, ‘I am a Jew.’ The implication here is

38
Wallace 1998: 497–8.
328 Ruth Scodel

universalising, though unedifying: Arrius has praised the intensity of

Judah’s hatred and determination to seek vengeance as characteristically
Roman, and Judah’s reply suggests that the desire for vengeance is
universal. Arrius thinks of the resolve to seek vengeance as Roman,
perhaps because that resolve cannot be fulfilled without the power that
he considers uniquely Roman; Judah’s response implies that the resolve is
universal. He must insist that he is a Jew because he was wronged as a Jew;
his Jewishness lies in his hatred of Rome, even if that hatred appears to a
Roman characteristically Roman. The Christian message of the film, how-
ever, lies precisely in the exhortation to give up this universal desire, which
only the teachings and example of Jesus can remove.
If the film offers no clear cultural distinction between Jews and others, it
is even less interested in racial distinctions, whether between Romans and
Jews or among other ethnicities. Iras the Egyptian (played by the Jewish
Carmel Myers) has blonde hair, completely contrary to stereotype (and to
Theda Bara’s Cleopatra in the 1917 film that bears her name, dir.
G. Edwards). May McAvoy as Esther wears a curly blonde wig. Ramon
Novarro, originally Mexican, had once been groomed as another Valentino
(starring in The Arab, 1924), but had created a persona based on a ‘south of
the border version of apple-pie “Americanness’’ – a sex symbol, but
wholesome’.39 Even the costumes do not provide consistent guidance,
although the three Wise Men have very different costumes, and Balthasar
wears a striped headdress that is unmistakably Egyptian and resembles the
nemes headdress of a Pharaoh. The extras in the crowd scenes have
costumes different enough from each other to suggest varying nationalities,
but not sharply enough differentiated for a viewer to recognise what these
are. In the early scenes, Judah wears a very short belted tunic with a
sleeveless vest (Novarro was proud of his legs).40 At Rome he wears a
similar short tunic in bright colours, with a cloak, and later, when he is not
in armour, he wears another richly ornamented tunic in dark fabric. In the
final scene he is fully cloaked. Messala appears once, briefly, in a toga, but
the costume code of the film is not primarily aimed at differentiating
nations. Instead, it divides the modest Esther from the vamp Iras, rich
from poor, bright from dark (the lepers are in black), and military from
civilian. The military–civilian code applies particularly to Judah, who plans
first to fight for the King, and then to avenge him; he wears a helmet and
carries a sword as he watches the procession to the Crucifixion – but his

39 40
Soares 2002: 53–4. Vieira 2010: 49.
 The 1925 Ben-Hur and the ‘Hollywood Question’ 329

helmet has mail going down around the neck and is utterly unlike the
plumed Roman helmets.
The 1925 Ben-Hur, then, emphasises the Christian teaching of the story,
but with a Christian message that is even less dogmatic than is usual in the
tradition of toga drama. Although Jesus’ healing is available only to those
who ‘believe’, it is not clear what this belief entails beyond the belief that
Jesus can, in fact, heal. The Christian message is entirely concerned with
peace and love. As Jesus passes Judah, and the intertitle conveys Jesus’
message to him that the kingdom is not of this world, he looks confusedly
from side to side. In a long shot, he arrives at the place where the legions
are mustering in the desert and runs to Balthasar. Balthasar, shot from
slightly below, addresses the troops: the intertitle says ‘He bade us hold our
peace – forgive our enemies – love one another’ / ‘and pray’ – and another
long shot shows the whole army falling to its knees. The film
simultaneously emphasises the many different peoples within the Roman
Empire, and de-emphasises their differences from each other. All are
equally exotic and equally like the audience, whose internal differences
are also unimportant. The oppressor, Rome, is defined by luxury and by
power; there are no meaningful cultural differences between Rome and its
subjects.
This cinematic adaptation of Wallace’s material avoids the possible
tensions not only among, for example, Protestants and Catholics, but
between the assumptions of the largely Christian audience and of its Jewish
producers. The film makes its Christianity as salient as possible, and
Christian viewers can easily read in whatever beliefs their denomination
requires, but the film is equally open to very different beliefs. The choice of
gospel quotations and narrative moments universalises Christianity. The
anodyne message of non-violence avoids implying any position about
Zionism, especially because the film does not mark the Jewishness of its
Jews or suggest that they have any special attachment to their land (the
film’s landscapes, shot in Italy, are mostly dry and barren-looking).
Though the film is open to Zionist interpretation, it subsumes any message
about Jews into a call for brotherly love that ignores real political problems,
ancient or modern. Its ancient world is exotic, yet familiar, and its Rome
could be any oppressive power.
 19 | Consuming passions: Helen of Troy
in the jazz age
margaret malamud

In 1927, Alexander Korda directed his then-wife, Maria, in the silent film
comedy The Private Life of Helen of Troy. The film was based not on the
Iliad, but on the best-selling 1926 novel of the same name by John Erskine.
The Private Life of Helen of Troy was a smash hit and was screened in
movie palaces throughout the United States of America. In this chapter,
I compare the depiction of Helen of Troy in the novel and in the film.
I address the relationship between a literary work and its silent film
adaptation, the construction of gender and sexuality in the different genres,
the contexts of production and consumption for the different media, and
the use of antiquity for political and social comment.
I argue that John Erskine’s fictionalised Helen of Troy had integrity and
moral clarity. Erskine, who thought of himself as a feminist, emancipated
Helen. His Americanised Helen rejected her boring suburban life in Sparta
for emotional and sexual fulfilment in Troy. In contrast to Erskine’s
liberated Helen, the cinematic Helen is a vain, flirtatious coquette who
cares more about her glamorous clothes and appearance than about the
Prince of Troy. Korda’s representations of opulence and luxury in Greek
antiquity, I contend, served the very modern purpose of stimulating
material dreams and desires in film audiences. Hollywood’s Helen signifies
glamour, indulgence and consumption, and as such she implicitly encour-
ages such behaviours in the consumerist audience.

The emancipated Helen

John Erskine received a classical education and then became a specialist in

the Elizabethan lyric. He was a professor of English at Columbia University
and eventually became the president of the Juilliard School of Music.1
While he was still at Columbia in the autumn of 1924, in the midst of an

1
While at Columbia, he proposed the first ‘great books’ curriculum to the Columbia faculty.
Inspired in part by Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy (1869), he believed that a promotion
330 of high culture (according to Arnold, ‘the best that has been thought and said in the world’)
 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age 331

emotional breakdown, he turned to writing fiction and playing the piano.

Scholarship and the academic life (not to mention his marriage) were no
longer satisfying; he felt stifled. He decided to write up what he imagined
might have happened when Menelaus took Helen home to Sparta after
the Trojan War. Attempting to explain to his colleagues at Columbia
what he was working on, he said, ‘it’s the private life of Helen of Troy.
I thought I’d give her a set of brains and see how it worked out.’2 The
Private Life of Helen of Troy became the best-selling American novel for
1926, and Erskine became famous overnight. His engagement with music
and creative writing were liberating for him. A New Yorker profile of
Erskine commented on his self-transformation: ‘Outwardly, until two
years ago, his life was as uneventful as custom and propriety require a
professor’s to be.’ The profile went on to note the transformation from
studying poetry ‘in a sober, scholarly way’ to writing a novel ‘full of witty
and scandalous dissertations on a thing called “the love of life”, which is
immoral on the face of it . . . At present the emancipated Dr. Erskine is
sitting on top of the world, slightly dizzy with fame, royalties and
liberalism.’3 Erskine’s ‘emancipation’ included leaving his wife and
embarking on a lengthy extramarital affair with the writer and art
collector Adeline Lobdell.4
Erskine’s novel is witty, urbane and racy, humorously exposing the
restraints and conventions of genteel life and showing how conventional
society smothers openness, honesty and passion. It projected Erskine’s
view of contemporary American society against the backdrop of
Homer’s Greece. The novel consists of a series of conversations between
the principal characters: Helen, her husband Menelaus, their daughter
Hermione, Helen’s nephew Orestes, and the gatekeeper of the palace
Eteoneus. There are virtually no descriptions of people, places or
things. Erskine gives us instead a series of discussions approximating
the form of a Platonic dialogue, on life, love, youth and age, birth, death
and beauty. Much of the book’s humour comes from the contrast
between the liberated Helen and her staid and conventional daughter,
Hermione – a premise whose comic potential was brilliantly realised
in the BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous, in which the shocked disap-
proval of the dowdy, responsible daughter Saffy (Saffron) is the

could improve people and the nation by example. In Erskine’s view, the ‘great books’ explored
the human condition and were always relevant.
2
Smith 1927: 28. He originally intended the book to be called The Argument of Helen.
3 4
Smith 1927: 27 and 28. Rubin 1992: 180.
332 Margaret Malamud

necessary foil to the outrageous self-indulgence of her champagne-

swilling mother Eddie (Edina).5
In comic contrast to the liberated Helen, her daughter is propriety itself.
Respectable Hermione cares very much about what the neighbours think.
Scandalised by her mother’s background, she circulates a story that Helen
was abducted against her will by Paris and spent the duration of the war in
Egypt, waiting for Menelaus to come and rescue her (a story that Euripides
utilised in his play Helen). When Helen discovers her daughter’s ruse, she
is scornful and insists: ‘He never would have taken me away if I hadn’t
wanted to go’ (42). She calls Hermione’s attempt to mollify social criticism
of her behaviour a ‘shabby story about Egypt’ (43). Hermione prefers a
cosy life in the suburbs of Sparta to a life lived passionately and without
restraint. She repudiates her mother’s approach to life, chooses the con-
ventional path, and marries her cousin Orestes.
Erskine’s Helen gave herself up to passion and followed her heart to Troy;
back in Sparta she has no regrets: ‘Of course I felt no repentance’, she tells her
daughter, ‘those who would reform me are not convincingly alive themselves,
and though they have kept their reputations, they often seem to have mislaid
their souls’ (237). Helen’s virtues are frankness, openness and passion. She has
moral clarity. ‘I have no plan’, she says, ‘except to be as sincere as possible . . .
I am an entirely moral woman’ (58–9). She refuses to conform to social
convention: ‘I might have had a better reputation if I had been willing to
renounce my virtues. If I had pretended a love for Menelaus which I no longer
had, they would have called me a model wife . . . If I had pretended to be
overwhelmed with repentance when I came home, nobody would have believed
me, but they would have thought I was correct’ (237). This Helen prefers
emotional and sexual fulfilment to a staid and respectable middle-class life.
Readers of the novel appreciated that it was, as one reviewer put it, ‘in form
a sophisticated romance of ancient Greece; in fact a scintillating commentary
on modern American follies and foibles’.6 They recognised that, as another
reviewer commented, ‘it is about ourselves and our neighbors’, and that ‘any
absolutely honest person will give the impression of being an upsetter of
society’.7 The New York Times review entitled ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Helen
of Troy’, praised the novel as ‘a humorous, wise, and beautiful book’.8

5
Jennifer Saunders created Absolutely Fabulous, also known as Ab Fab. It was broadcast for three
seasons on the BBC from 1992 to 1995 and was revived for another two seasons in 2001–3.
6
Advertisement in the New York Times, 8 November 1925.
7
Advertisement in the New York Times, 25 October 1925.
8
‘The Wit and Wisdom of Helen of Troy’, New York Times, 8 November 1925.
 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age 333

In The Private Life of Helen of Troy, Erskine used the setting of ancient
Greece to critique conventional marriage and middlebrow culture, reflect-
ing a trend by leading US writers to expose the shallowness and narrow-
minded complacency of middle-class American life. In Main Street (1920)
and Babbitt (1922), Sinclair Lewis similarly satirised the smugness and
dullness of small town America. In T. S. Eliot’s view, the United States was
a ‘wasteland’ inhabited by ‘hollow men’. The journalist and editor H. L.
Mencken wrote hundreds of essays mocking practically every aspect of
American life, famously calling the middle class the ‘booboisie’. Erskine’s
novel makes Sparta into an American suburb and equates the Spartan
family with the modern American family. His Helen is exemplary for
having emancipated herself from stale and stifling convention and
attaining an emotional and sexual integrity.

Screening Helen

Hungarian film director Alexander Korda and his wife, actress Maria
Corda (sometimes Korda, born Maria Farkas), began their careers in
Hungary and then joined Count Alexander Kolowrat’s Vienna film com-
pany, Sascha Film, in 1920. There Korda directed, among other films, The
Prince and the Pauper (Prinz und Bettelknabe, 1920) and, two years later,
the biblical epic / modern-day melodrama Samson and Delilah (Samson
und Delila, 1922). They also made a number of high profile, successful
films in Berlin, including A Modern Dubarry (Eine Dubarry von Heute).9
The couple arrived in Hollywood in December 1926 where for several years
Korda directed at First National Pictures and Fox Film. Korda returned to
Europe in November 1930, organised London Film Productions, and
risked all he was worth on The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), starring
Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester. After the huge success of this film,
Korda was hailed as the saviour of the British film industry. He never
returned to Hollywood, which he had not liked. Los Angeles had been a
culture shock after his years enjoying the café culture of Budapest, Vienna
and Berlin. His nephew, the editor and writer Michael Korda, described
his uncle’s reaction to Los Angeles: ‘He sat in a monstrous semitropical
garden, waiting for a call from the studio. He took one look at the house
that had been rented for him, with its Spanish tiles, its rustling palm trees

9
Horak 2005: 252. The best biography of Alexander Korda is Drazin 2002; see also Dalrymple
1957 and Michael Korda’s 1979 account of his uncle in his memoir about the Korda family.
334 Margaret Malamud

and its lush, pungent tropical bushes, and remarked, “My God, I feel like
Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.” He went inside to find shelter in the darkest
room in the house, away from the intrusive sunshine, and brood on the
madness that had brought him to Los Angeles, 3,000 miles from the nearest
outpost of civilisation, for in New York they at least published a real
newspaper.’10 Korda wasn’t alone – the unhappiness of other Hungarians,
Germans and Austrians with Hollywood’s provincialism was well known at
the time.11 With the notable exception of The Private Life of Helen of Troy,
his Hollywood films did not do well.12
Alexander Korda’s lavish sets and costumes for The Private Life of Helen
of Troy were hugely expensive to produce – around half a million dollars –
but the box office returns were equally huge – close to three quarters of a
million dollars.13 Like the novel, the film version of The Private Life of
Helen of Troy was an enormous success and was shown in movie theatres
across the nation. The film was also nominated in the first year of the
Oscar awards for one of the shortest-lived Oscar categories, ‘best written
titles’, which quickly became obsolete with the advent of talkies in 1928.14
Sadly, no complete version of the film has survived. The British Film
Institute in London has 28 minutes of the film, which was originally 83
minutes (7,500 ft). I have supplemented my viewing of this footage by
examining the nearly four hundred film stills located in the Paper and
Photographic Collections at the Motion Picture Department, George East-
man House in Rochester, New York, and by reading the script, which is
located in The Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles. I have also viewed
advertising materials for the film and read the surviving reviews and synopses.
To stimulate interest and advance publicity for the film, First National
Pictures staged a beauty contest for Hollywood extras called the Helen of
Troy Beauty Pageant.15 Hosting a beauty contest for the most beautiful
‘Screen Type’ or ‘Screen Star’ double was a common publicity stunt used by
studios in the 1920s.16 First National Pictures capitalised on the mythical
ancient Greek beauty contest between the goddesses Hera, Athena and

10 11
Korda 1979: 79. Horak 2005: 245.
12
Prior to directing The Private Life of Helen of Troy, Korda directed the unsuccessful The Stolen
Bride, a gypsy story set in Hungary, released on 10 August 1927. Korda’s other Hollywood films
include: Yellow Lily (1928); Night Watch (1928); Love and the Devil (1929), also starring Maria
Corda; The Squall (1929); Her Private Life (1929); Lilies of the Field (1930); Women Everywhere
(1930) and The Princess and the Plumber (1930).
13 14
Drazin 2002: 59. Gerald Duffy, Ralph Spence and Casey Robinson wrote the titles.
15
There are two publicity stills of this event in the Paper and Photographic Collections at the
George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.
16
Conor 2004: 136–7.
 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age 335

Figure 19.1 Director Alexander Korda, in the role of Paris, gives the winner of the
Helen of Troy Beauty Contest, Alice Adair, an apple.

Aphrodite in its beauty pageant. Dressed in bathing suits, the contestants

paraded in front of the judges. Alexander Korda, in the role of Paris, gave
the winner, Alice Adair, an apple (Figure 19.1). By winning the contest,
Adair earned the role of Aphrodite in the film.
Korda was faced with a difficult task: how to translate a novel that is mostly
a witty philosophical dialogue into a successful silent film? He and his
scriptwriter, Carey Wilson, opted to radically alter Erskine’s novel, transform-
ing not only its structure, but also the focus of its social critique and the nature
of its humour. Intertitles – slangy, smart, and snappy – replace the musings of
Erskine’s characters on the meaning of love and life. In place of social satire,
the film offers burlesque humour, even bedroom farce. Reviewers noted with
pleasure the film’s comic sophistication, which relied on wittiness rather
than the slapstick humour common in silent film comedies.17 As we will
see, Wilson also attempted to inject into the film a comic critique of the
contemporary relationship between big business and war.

17
For example: ‘First National has gone farther than any other company dared in depending on
audiences’ appreciation of what is funny without custard pies’, Motion Picture News,
336 Margaret Malamud

Whereas the novel began in Sparta after Menelaus had brought

Helen home, the film begins in Sparta before Helen has met Paris,
and then moves to Troy for the duration of the war. Only the final part
of the film is set in Sparta after Helen’s return. In Carey Wilson’s
script, Hermione and Orestes play roles similar to those they were
given in the novel, but apparently (there are no film credits for actors
playing Hermione or Orestes and no stills of them) Alexander Korda
decided to cut them from the film. Crucially, Helen is dramatically
different: unlike Erskine’s emancipated Helen, Maria Corda’s Helen is a
glamorous – and vapid – screen goddess. This may well be why
Alexander Korda opted to cut the role of Helen’s adult daughter
Hermione from the film. Motherhood would have attracted attention
to Helen’s age, and his actress-wife Maria Corda had little interest in
playing a middle-aged Helen. Corda, a diva of the silver screen, doubt-
less relished the opportunity to play the most beautiful woman of
antiquity. According to one Korda biographer, she was just right for
the part: ‘playing Helen required very little adjusting to the life she was
already living as one of the most bored and fashion-conscious wives in
Hollywood’.18 Korda turned Erskine’s comedy of manners with a mes-
sage into a modern matrimonial farce.
Whereas the novel relies on verbal wit, the film offers witty intertitles
and adds visual spectacle and fantastic costumes. Reviewers noted its
appeal as spectacle, commenting that the film offered ‘gorgeous Grecian
spectacles’ and ‘novel, magnificent and extremely amusing entertain-
ment’.19 The sets were ‘outstanding, especially Menelaus’ immense palace
(“the White House of Sparta”)’, and the ‘spacious scenes in the crowded
streets of Troy’.20 The New York Times noted: ‘the production is an
ambitious affair, with great hosts of people and monster stage settings’.
The film also offered spectacle in the form of grand chariot races, cashing
in on the recent success of the cinematic Ben-Hur (1925, dir. F. Niblo)
which was widely praised for its chariot races.21

‘Newspaper Opinions . . . ’, 2 February 1928; and ‘A corking program release that figures to
particularly delight what is currently smart in picturegoers. De lux house loge clientele would
enjoy it thoroughly and others will signify hearty acceptance, but pot and pan Annie may have
her doubts because there are no custard pies bombarding the walls of Troy’, Variety, 14
December 1927.
18 19 20
Drazin 2002: 59. Bioscope, 1 March 1928. Ibid.
21
Although there is no remaining footage of the chariot races, reviews of the film comment on the
pleasure audiences experienced watching them on screen: ‘the chariot racing scenes are also
very good’. Ibid.
 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age 337

In the opening scene of the film footage that remains, we see Menelaus
at his regular monthly meeting, listening to the concerns of Spartan male
citizens. An elder Spartan citizen is furious over the shape of the ladies
garment business: ‘Because of the Queen’, he complains, ‘our women will
wear no clothes that do not come from Troy. The shopkeepers are going
bankrupt.’ This introduces scriptwriter Carey Wilson’s political point: the
underlying reason for the war against Troy was economic competition
between it and Sparta. In the film, Troy is a great, glamorous metropolis –
the New York of the ancient Mediterranean, the centre of the fashion
industry and the source of highly desirable consumer goods.22 Spartan
businesses are suffering from the allure of Trojan goods.
After the Trojan visitors arrive, we see Menelaus performing his public
duty, shaking the hands of visiting Trojans, weary of the task but following
the necessary protocol. Our first view of Helen is in her bedroom, where
she prays to a statue of Aphrodite, goddess of love. ‘It’s all wrong, Aphro-
dite’, she complains, ‘all day he’s too busy, all evening he’s too tired, all
night he snores.’ She takes a dim view of marriage: ‘Marriage is only
exchanging the attentions of a dozen men for the inattention of one.’ She
pouts when told she should wear only Spartan clothes to protect Spartan
industry. Helen prefers Trojan clothes, which are more fashionable and
revealing than severe Spartan garb. The camera then focuses on Helen
holding up and trying on a number of frothy new Trojan confections
(she has her own Trojan dressmaker), preening herself in the mirror
(Figure 19.2). Thus, early on, we see that Helen’s primary concerns are
her appearance and her clothes.
Meanwhile, like a weary suburban husband after a hard day at the office,
Menelaus enters the palace, sits on a Grecian couch and pours himself a
drink. He takes off his sandals and helmet and sighs with relief. As he
disrobes, we see Helen putting on hair ornaments, a cocktail dress with the
barest allusion to antique style, and new sandals. Bedecked and bejewelled,
she greets Menelaus: ‘Hurry, get your clothes on, we’re going to the
theatre.’ ‘What?’ Menelaus complains, ‘Confound it, I’ve had such a hard
day. I’m tired.’ Helen snaps, ‘I’m tired too! Tired of being cooped up here
all day. I’ve got to go out sometimes’ (Figure 19.3).
At the theatre, Paris sees her and cannot take his eyes off her. They
exchange many passionate glances. Helen persuades Menelaus to invite

22
According to the script, which is unpaginated, Troy ‘is a shining, golden, lovely city’, while
‘Sparta, a small city, was like a mirror that tilted itself constantly to reflect the glittering rays of
the metropolis.’
338 Margaret Malamud

Figure 19.2 Helen (Maria Corda) wearing a new Trojan gown looking with pleasure at
herself in the mirror.

Figure 19.3 Helen (Maria Corda) insists she must go to the theatre. Menelaus (Lewis
Stone) looks both irate and resigned.
 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age 339

Figure 19.4 Helen (Maria Corda) and Paris (Ricardo Cortez) flirt while Eteoneus (George Fawcett), the
gatekeeper, warns Menelaus to pay attention to what his wife and guest are up to.

Paris to dinner the next night, and the two become enthralled with each
other (Figure 19.4).23 Called to an emergency meeting by his ‘generals’,
Menelaus leaves them alone. At the meeting, Ulysses, Ajax and Achilles
pressure Menelaus to go to war against Troy. ‘Paris is here solely to
stimulate interest in Trojan goods and markets’, claims Ajax; and Achilles
insists, ‘You must make war on Troy.’ The generals are cast as warmongers
ready to wage war against Troy in the interest of Spartan industries.
While the meeting is going on, Helen and Paris flirt, and a romance
sparks. Next, we see Helen leaving the palace at night with her maids, who
are carrying trunk after trunk crammed with clothes. She has so many
boxes of clothes that Paris, alarmed, ends up carrying some of them. His
expression reveals that he hadn’t bargained on this dimension of Helen.

23
In Figure 19.4, note the muscle-clad, gold-earringed black slaves in orientalising dress, standing
at attention, ready to serve.
340 Margaret Malamud

Indeed, as one critic has noted ‘Clothing is both the star of the film and its
constant satiric target.’24 According to the script, while sailing to Troy,
Helen turns to Paris and asks ‘Are the shops in Troy really as splendid as
everyone says?’ For Helen, the anticipated delights of shopping have
displaced the romantic attractions of the Prince of Troy. Consumption
and consumerism matter more than sexual passion.
When Menelaus hears that Helen has left with Paris he is startled, then
slaps his knees, smiles and says to the gatekeeper, Eteoneus, ‘Now we can
go fishing!’ And they chuckle, get out a fishing rod and net, and play with
them like boys on a holiday. But in come the Spartan generals, who urge
the king to go to war for the sake of national honour, for revenge, and, not
least, to get even with the Trojan dressmakers. Menelaus clearly does not
want to go to war and does not really want Helen back. But he gives in –
‘Cancel the fishing trip. I guess we’ve got to go to put on a war.’
There is little footage remaining of the scenes in Troy, and what we have
is fragmented, but from the script we know that Helen’s compulsive
shopping has made Paris unhappy and nervous. Paris indicates his alarm
at the cost of her many expensive dresses while they are in a Trojan
dressmaker’s shop, and they quarrel. After the Greek army arrives, Paris,
obviously tired of Helen and less than enthusiastic about war, meets with
the Trojan generals and asks, ‘Suppose we offered to give Helen back to
Menelaus?’ The generals shout out in horror, ‘But then we could have no
war!’ Paris blinks, realising that war is inevitable.
As Helen watches the fighting from a rooftop of the palace, she is
pleased that the war is all about her. She watches Menelaus (whom she
now sees as a hero) fight, and exclaims: ‘How brave – how savage – all to
get me back! I never really appreciated Menelaus.’ Newly infatuated with
her husband, she leaves the palace and goes to Menelaus’ tent. She tells
Ulysses, Ajax and Achilles, ‘Menelaus has proved his love – so I have come
to give myself up.’ The generals are outraged and Ajax says ‘Impossible!
That would stop the war!’ Achilles orders her to leave: ‘Go back! Troy must
be torn stone from stone – and you must be captured properly.’ The war
must go on so that Trojan industrial competition will be destroyed. The
film suggests that this is the real reason for the war, not the return of
Helen.
Once back in Sparta, Helen commands her servants: ‘Fetch me some
housework. I’m going to be domestic.’ She has apparently sworn to change

24
Maguire 2009: 184.
 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age 341

her frivolous ways. She takes off her glamorous Trojan chiffon gown and
puts on a plain Spartan sack of a dress and looks at herself despondently in
the mirror. As this is happening, the handsome Prince of Ithaca, Telema-
chus, arrives at the palace gate. The gatekeeper of the palace announces his
arrival to Menelaus: ‘I warn you – he’s too good-looking. Remember – the
last time a prince called on you – you had to call out the army!’ Helen, who
has seen the Prince arrive, quickly abandons her resolution to change her
flirtatious ways and casts off the Spartan dress. She puts on a daring above-
the-knee outfit, jewels and make-up and sets off to meet the Prince
Telemachus. When Menelaus sees her, he knows immediately what will
happen, and hopes to take advantage of it. So he excuses himself, saying,
‘You and the prince amuse yourselves as best you can.’ Outside, Menelaus
says to the gatekeeper, ‘Tomorrow we positively go fishing – for it looks as
though Helen will be taking a little trip to Ithaca.’ The last frame is the
pleased look on the gatekeeper’s face.
Scriptwriter Carey Wilson attempted to inject into the film a comic
critique of the contemporary relationship in the USA between business and
war. Wilson publicly acknowledged and credited the influence of Robert
E. Sherwood’s critically acclaimed and popular 1927 Broadway play The
Road to Rome on his script for The Private Life of Helen of Troy. (And
Robert Sherwood acknowledged that his play had in turn been influenced
by John Erskine’s novel, despite the fact that one is set in Rome and the
other in Greece.25)
Playwright Robert E. Sherwood, recognising the popular taste for John
Erskine’s novel, commented:
[There is] a widespread conspiracy to divest history of its text-book formality . . .
Clio [the muse of history] has always been an austere figure, clad in marble
robes and perched up before public libraries for the purpose of scaring away
those who approach such dignified edifices with other than serious, studious
intent. Nowadays, Clio is being urged to step down from her pedestal and meet
the boys.26

Sherwood thought this was a good thing; he believed that history should be
accessible, popular and entertaining, and saw no reason ‘why history
should continue to be chastely academic and formidably dull’.27

25
The trade paper Variety noted that the film seemed more like Sherwood’s play than Erskine’s
novel: ‘Robert E. Sherwood adapted The Road to Rome on the Erskine plan and Carey Wilson,
making the “Helen” film adaptation, evidently had vivid memories of the play. More so than the
novel. So “Helen” on the screen is more like Sherwood than Erskine.’ Variety, 4 December 1927.
26 27
Sherwood 1927: xli. Ibid: xliv.
342 Margaret Malamud

Like Erskine’s The Private Life of Helen of Troy, The Road to Rome is a
comedy with a message. Sherwood’s play offered a comic explanation for
the mystery of why, in 218 BCE, after crossing the Alps and routing the
Roman army, the Carthaginian leader Hannibal did not complete the sack
of the city that had been his lifelong goal. In Sherwood’s play, Hannibal’s
failure to sack Rome is explained in terms of his love for a young Roman
woman, Amytis, who enables him to acknowledge the pointlessness of
conquest and war. In the play, Amytis is engaged to the elderly, pompous
dictator Fabius Maximus. She is so bored that when Fabius asks her, ‘What
are you thinking about now, my dear?’ she replies: ‘I was just wondering
what it would be like to be despoiled’ (42). On an outing outside the city
she is captured by Hannibal’s soldiers, who bring her to him. A romance is
kindled, and Amytis tries to persuade Hannibal not to sack the city. When
she asks him why he fights, he finds it difficult to come up with an answer;
for him, the road to Rome has been ‘littered with the bones of dead men.
Perhaps they know why they died. I don’t’ (116). Amytis urges him to turn
back: ‘Rome will destroy itself. Success is like a strong wine, Hannibal; give
a man enough of it, and he’ll drink himself to death. Rome will do that, too,
if you leave it alone’ (163–4). ‘If I recognize your truths’, Hannibal replies,
‘I’ll have to believe that all my life has been wasted – that all those men who
have fallen along the road to Rome have died for nothing’ (166). Hannibal
decides not to sack Rome, and the play suggests that real manhood is the
ability not to fight. As he retreats, taking Amytis with him, Hannibal says:
‘I’m leaving Rome to an enemy that is crueler even than I am . . . I shall
allow Rome to destroy itself’ (175).
In the introduction to his play, Sherwood commented on republican
Rome’s fall from virtue and compared it to 1920s America. This was a well-
established form of social and political criticism. From the early American
republic until the present, writers, artists, politicians, reformers and polit-
ical activists have used analogies to, and metaphors of, the rise and fall of
Rome as a way of commenting on and debating the state of the nation.28
A vision of Rome as a virtuous republic undermined by imperial corrup-
tion haunts the American imagination. In Sherwood’s view, by the second
century BCE, ‘Rome’s government was in the hands of evil, lustful, vindic-
tive men, like Cato, who gloried in conquest and bloodshed and destruc-
tion’ (xxxv–xxxvi). In his opinion, Rome’s vices, rather than her virtues,
predominated in President Calvin Coolidge’s America: ‘The spirit of

28
This is the subject of my 2009 book, Ancient Rome and Modern America.
 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age 343

Fabius Maximus and his brother boosters has become the spirit of America
today.’ (President Coolidge’s most famous aphorism was ‘The business
of America is business.’) Continuing the Roman/American analogy,
Sherwood wrote: ‘Fabius was a leading exponent of the old regime in
Rome – a cautious, conservative reactionary. Today he would be numbered
among the stand-patters of the Republican party, and would undoubtedly
be high in the favor of the White House spokesman’ (xxvi). And indeed,
the dictator Fabius Maximus sounds like a staunch Republican of the day
when he proclaims: ‘No state can survive unless it is founded on good,
sound military strength and a policy of progressive conquest’ (23).29
Wanting to make his analogy crystal clear, Sherwood wrote ‘History is full
of deadly and disturbing parallels and this, it seems to me, is one of the
most obvious parallels of all’ (xxxix). Like John Erskine’s novel, Robert
E. Sherwood’s comedy The Road to Rome drew from classical literature and
history to criticise 1920s American society. Sherwood was a pacifist and
like many members of the public at the time believed that America’s
involvement in the First World War had been intimately connected to
American industrialism and business interests abroad.30 He was critical of
unchecked capitalism, rampant consumerism and American imperialism.
Urbane and humorous enough to appeal to audiences, The Road to Rome
had a clear anti-war message directed at warmongering politicians and
industrialists who earned huge profits from the First World War.
Wilson attempted to add a similar political edge to Korda’s film. From
the outset, Ulysses, Ajax and Achilles urge Menelaus to go to war to
undermine Trojan dominance in the clothes industry. Wilson’s script
instructs them to ‘wear characteristic glowering expressions . . .’ and
informs them that they are supposed to be ‘cartoonish like caricatures of
the god of War used in modern newspaper cartoons’ (Figure 19.5). Helen’s
affair with Paris provides the rationale for war against Troy; and when
Helen attempts to return to Menelaus, they refuse to let her because ‘then
there would be no war’. But Wilson’s political message was swamped by
the camera’s focus on Maria Corda’s Helen and her vast wardrobe. None of
the reviews comments on the relationship between the clothes industry
and the war against Troy. Instead, reviews and advertisements praised the
film’s spectacular sets and Helen’s beauty and her clothes: ‘It took over a
year and cost over a million dollars to bring Helen and her playmates to

29
Alonso 2007: 95–107 discusses Sherwood’s anti-war politics and the play’s criticism of
warmongering politicians and industrialists who profited from the First World War.
30
Alonso 2007: 94–5.
344 Margaret Malamud

Figure 19.5 The ‘generals’: Ulysses (Tom O’Brien), Achilles (Bert Sprotte) and Ajax (Mario Carillo).

the screen. Hundreds of beautiful women – gorgeous clothes – dazzling

pageants of breathtaking splendor – all woven into this sensational
movie.’31 ‘Korda deserves a laurel branch for a fine job . . . Gorgeous,
dainty, graceful frocks . . . and photography that enhances all rare beauty
that has been put into sets, costumes, and action . . . ’32 Corda was hailed as
‘beautiful, statuesque and decorative’; other reviews called her the ‘vamp of
Sparta and Troy’.33 Silent film star Maria Corda’s glamorous Helen rather
than political critique dominates the screen.
According to Koszarski, the percentage of men in motion picture audi-
ences began to decline in the 1910s, whereas the number of women rose
from 60 per cent in 1920 to a staggering 83 per cent in 1927.34 For the

31
Advertising card for the Penn Theatre, in the clippings file for The Private Life of Helen of Troy
in the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles.
32
‘Newspapers’ opinions on new pictures’, Motion Picture News, 14 January 1928.
33
Ibid.; New York Times, 10 December 1927; Photoplay 33, 2 January 1928: 53.
34
Koszarski 1990: 30.
 Consuming passions: Helen of Troy in the jazz age 345

film’s largely female audience, Erskine’s emancipated Helen becomes

Korda’s consumer. The specific conditions of silent cinema assist her
transformation into a woman who sees herself in terms of her appearance,
implicitly encouraging the same in the female audience. Helen has no
voice; no interiority; no conscience. Her moods are defined by what she
sees in the mirror: she is in a narcissistic rapture when she has on new
clothes, and despondent and deflated when she briefly wears a dull Spartan
dress. Like modern female consumers, she defines herself through the
purchase of clothing and adornment. What we remember about the
cinematic Helen is not her passion for Paris but rather her insatiable desire
for, and her over-the-top consumption of, luxurious Trojan goods.
The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald famously argued that one characteristic
of the jazz age ‘was that it had no interest in politics at all’.35 What, then,
were most Americans interested in? Fitzgerald thought the answer was
entertainment and consumption. And indeed, Helen’s trunks full of
dresses mirror the Great Gatsby’s closets stacked high with piles of linen
shirts in every colour of the rainbow. Consumption on a grand, even epic,
scale was one of the characteristics that defined the jazz age; and the
cinematic Helen’s overflowing boxes of gowns and shoes were in sync with
shopping trends of the 1920s. Whereas John Erskine’s fictionalised Helen
of Troy had integrity and moral clarity, Hollywood’s Helen signified
glamour, indulgence and conspicuous consumption. Erskine’s Helen was
an autonomous, desiring subject who subverts social values because she
understands herself and what she wants, and gets what she desires.36
Korda’s Helen consumes in order to be desirable but, ironically, none of
the men in the film seem to want to keep her once they get her.
Crucially, the cinematic construction of Helen of Troy functions not to
subvert societal norms, but to privilege the model of a woman who
subordinates passion, independence and autonomy to what is most
important and essential to female identity – her role as a consumer. The
Spartan queen’s desires have been displaced onto her vast wardrobe
(Figure 19.6). Maria Corda’s designer-dressed Helen, in the words of one
scholar, ‘capitalizes on a recognizable film shorthand: the woman with the
best wardrobe is the most beautiful woman’.37 The film’s art deco

35
Fitzgerald 1931: 460.
36
John Erskine was invited to the New York premiere of the film. After seeing the film, Erskine
praised Alexander Korda and Maria Corda who were present at the premiere and then said that
having seen the cinematic Helen, he ‘could hardly remember his previous conception of Helen’.
New York Times, 10 December 1927.
37
Maguire 2009: 185.
346 Margaret Malamud

Figure 19.6 Helen (Maria Corda) gazes in rapture at her reflection as her Trojan dressmaker (Charles
Puffy) dresses her in dazzling new outfits.

representations of opulence and luxury in Greek antiquity served the very

modern purpose of stimulating material dreams and desires in film
audiences. Alexander Korda’s epic burlesque projects Helen’s mythological
stardom onto the glamour, indulgence and flirtatiousness of female self-
actualisation through consumerism.
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Index of films discussed
Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, Die (1926)
see Adventures of Prince Achmed, The
Adam’s Rib (USA, 1922, dir. Cecil B. DeMille),
262, 284–5
Adventures of Prince Achmed, The (Die
Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, Germany,
1926, dir. Lotte Reiniger), 79
‘Aesop’s Fables’ (USA, 1921–9, dir. Paul
Terry), 3
Androcles and the Lion (Androclès, France,
1912, dir. L. Feuillade), 283
Anneau fatal, L’ (1912) see Fatal Ring, The
Antony and Cleopatra (Marcantonio e
Cleopatra, Italy, 1913, dir. Enrico Guazzoni),
53, 116, 118, 120, 122
Apocalisse, L’ (Italy, 1947, dir. Giuseppe Maria
Scotese), 258
Attila (Italy, 1918, dir. F. Mari), 255
Augen der Mumie Ma, Die (1918) see Eyes of
the Mummy Ma
Balthasar’s Feast (Le Festin de Balthazar,
France, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade), xiii
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (1924)
see Hermannschlacht, Die
Behold the Man (USA, 1921, dir. Spencer
Gordon Bennet), 172
Bending Her (USA, 1928, dir. Lupino Lane), 275
Ben-Hur (USA, 1907, dir. Sidney Olcott), 9, 20,
189–204, 280
Ben-Hur (USA, 1925, dir. Fred Niblo), 1, 23,
27, 275, 280, 313, 319, 321, 336
Ben-Hur (USA, 1959, dir. William Wyler), 27,
100, 320, 327
Beyond the Rocks (USA, 1922, dir. Sam
Woods), 56, 66–7, 72, 127
Bible, The (La Bibbia, Aquila, 1913), 117
Birth of a Nation, The (USA, 1915, dir.
D. W. Griffith), 109, 249, 279
Blade am satans bog (1921) see Leaves from
Satan’s Book
Burning Sands (USA, 1922, dir. George
Melford), 84
By the Cross (In Hoc Signo Vinces, Italy, 1913,
dir. Nino Oxilia), 122
Cabiria (Italy, 1914, dir. Giovanni Pastrone), 1,
13, 20–1, 27, 109–11, 115, 123, 152, 229–46,
248–9, 255, 278, 310
Caduta di Troia, La (1911) see Fall of Troy, The
Cajus Julius Caesar (Italy, 1914, dir. Enrico
Guazzoni), 14, 118
Carthage in Flames (Cartagine in Fiamme, Italy
and France, 1959, dir. Carmine Gallone), 240
Cheat, The (USA, 1915, dir. Cecil DeMille), 109
Christ Walking on Water (Le Christ marchant
sur les flots, France, 1899, dir. Georges
Méliès), 170
Christus (Italy, 1916, dir. Giulio Antamoro), 117
Circe, the Enchantress (USA, 1924, dir.
Robert Z. Leonard), 147
Cleopatra (USA, 1908, dir. J. Stuart Blackton), 53
Cleopatra (USA, 1917, dir. J. Gordon
Edwards), 54, 71, 275, 328
Cleopatsy (USA, 1918, dir. Hal Roach), 275
Colossus of Rhodes, The (Il Colosso di Rodi,
Italy, France, Spain, 1961, dir. Sergio
Leone), 240
Cupid and Psyche (Edison Manufacturing Co.,
USA, 1897), 1
Daniel (USA, 1914, dir. F. A. Thomson), 117
Dante’s Inferno (L’inferno, Italy, 1911, dir.
Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan,
Giuseppe de Liguoro), 32–4, 115
Daughter of the Gods (USA, 1916, dir. Herbert
Brenon), 139
Dust of Egypt, The (USA, 1915, dir. George
D. Baker), 62
Egyptian Mummy, The (USA, 1914, dir.
Lee Beggs), 53
Egyptian Mystery, The (USA, 1909, dir. J. Searle
Dawley), 63
Emperor Nero and the Fire of Rome (Keizer
Nero en de Brand van Rome, 1913), 122
369
370 Index of films discussed
Eyes of Mummy Ma, The (Die Augen der
Mumie Ma, Germany, 1918, dir. Ernst
Lubitsch), 56, 65–7, 71
Fall of Troy, The (La caduta di Troia, Italy,
1911, dir. Luigi Romano Borgnetto &
Giovanni Pastrone), 114–15, 122, 148, 151,
155, 159–60, 163, 229, 241
Fatal Ring, The (L’anneau fatal, France, 1912,
dir. Louis Feuillade), 63
Fazil (USA, 1928, dir. Howard Hawks), 71
Frate Sole (Brother Son, Italy, 1918, dir. Mario
Corsi), 248–9, 255
Friends, Romans and Leo (USA, 1917, dir. Alan
Crosland), 275
From the Manger to the Cross (USA, 1912, dir.
Sidney Olcott), 53, 117
Giuditta e Oloferne (1908) see Judith and
Holofernes
Giuditta e Oloferne (1920) see Judith and
Holofernes
Giuliano l’Apostata (1919) see Julian the
Apostate
Haunted Curiosity Shop, The (UK, 1901,
dir. Walter R. Booth), 60
Heimkehr des Odysseus, Die (1918) see Return
of Odysseus, The
Heimkehr des Odysseus, Die (1922) see Return
of Odysseus, The
Helen of Troy (Helena, Germany, 1924, dir.
Manfred Noa), viii, 147–8, 151–2, 155,
158–60, 162–3
Héliogabale (Heliogabalus, France, 1910, dir.
André Calmettes), 113
Her Husband’s Trademark (USA, 1922, dir.
Sam Wood), 127
Hermannschlacht, Die (Battle of the Teutoburg
Forest, Germany, 1924, dir. Leo König),
22, 297–312
Hero of the Arena, The (Der Held Der Arena,
Germany, 1928), 162
His Prehistoric Past (USA, 1914, dir. Charlie
Chaplin), 275
Horitz Passion Play, The (Klaw & Erlanger,
USA, 1897), 1, 6, 12, 169
Image Maker, The (USA, 1917, dir. W. Eugene
Moore), 62
In Hoc Signo Vinces (1913) see By the Cross
In the Hands of Imposters (Den hvide Slavehandel,
Denmark, 1911, dir. August Blom), 114
Intolerance (USA, 1916, D. W. Griffith), 1, 13,
37, 43, 46–8, 50–2, 74–5, 79, 94–6, 98, 100–1,
106–7, 152, 177, 180, 234, 241, 244, 262, 265,
275, 278–9, 284, 287, 295
Island of Calypso, Ulysses and the Giant
Polyphemus (L’île de Calypso, Ulysse et le
géant Polyphème, France, 1905, dir. Georges
Méliès), 147, 155–7
Joseph in the Land of Egypt (USA, 1914, dir.
W. Eugene Moore), 53
Judgment of Paris, The (Le jugement de
Pâris, France, 1902, dir. Georges Hatot),
112, 147
Judith and Holofernes (Giuditta e Oloferne,
Italy, 1908, dir. Mario Caserini), xiii, 207,
211–15, 217, 219–20, 228
Judith and Holofernes (Giuditta e Oloferne,
Italy, 1920, dir. Aldo Molinari), 255
Judith and Holofernes (Judith et Holopherne,
France, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade), 207,
214–18, 220
Judith of Bethulia (USA, 1914, dir. D. W.
Griffith), 95, 98–100, 106, 207, 217–28, 279
Jugement de Pâris, Le (1902) see Judgment of
Paris, The
Julian the Apostate (Giuliano l’Apostata, Italy,
1919, dir. Ugo Falena), 21, 247–61
Julius Caesar (USA, 1909, dir. J. Stuart
Blackton), 118
Julius Caesar (1914) see Cajus Julius Caesar
King Menelaus at the Movies (König Menelaus
im Kino, Austria, 1913, dir. Hans Otto
Löwenstein), 3, 147
King of Kings (USA, 1927, dir. Cecil
B. DeMille), 170
Last Days of Pompeii, The (Gli ultimi giorni di
Pompeii, Ambrosio, Italy, 1913, dir. Mario
Caserini and Eleuterio Rodolfi), 116, 119,
122, 124, 283, 326
Last Days of Pompeii, The (Gli ultimi giorni di
Pompeii, Italy, 1908, dir. Luigi Maggi and
Arturo Ambrosio), 115, 236
Last Days of Pompeii, The (Gli ultimi giorni di
Pompeii, Italy, 1926, dir. Carmine Gallone
and Amleto Palermi), 254
Last Days of Pompeii, The (Ione o Gli ultimi
giorni di Pompeii, Pasquali, Italy, 1913, dir.
Giovanni Enrico Vidali), 122, 237
Last Days of Pompeii, The (UK, 1900, dir.
Robert Paul), 111–12

Leaves from Satan’s Book (Blade am satans bog,
Denmark, 1921, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer),
20, 171, 180–8
Legend of Midas, The (La légende de Midas,
France, 1910, dir. Louis Feuillade), xiii
Life and Passion of Jesus Christ, The (La vie et
passion du Christ, France, 1905, dir.
Ferdinand Zecca & Lucien Nonguet), xiv, 20,
31, 171, 178, 187–8
Life of Christ, The (La vie et passion du Christ,
Gaumont, France, 1906, dir. Alice Guy), 30,
35
Life of Moses, The (USA, 1909, dir. Charles
Kent and J. Stuart Blackton), 5, 123, 264
Life of Moses, The (La vie de Moïse¸ Pathé,
France, 1905), 264, 268
Luke, the Gladiator (USA, 1916, dir. Hal
Roach), 275
Male and Female (USA, 1919, dir. Cecil B.
DeMille), 126, 262–3, 268, 284
Man’s Genesis (USA, 1912, dir. D. W. Griffith),
284
Manslaughter (USA, 1922, dir. Cecil
B. DeMille), 262, 267, 284
Market Scene in Cairo (Edison, USA,
1903), 53
Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled (USA, 1918, dir.
R. W. Phillips), 53
Messiah, The (La vie et la passion de nôtre
Seigneur Jésus Christ, France, 1913–14),
117
Miracle, The (Das Mirakel, Austria/Germany,
1912, dir. Cherry Kearton and Max
Reinhardt), 117
Miracle, The (Das Mirakel, Germany, 1912, dir.
Mime Misu), 118
Modern Sphinx, A (USA, 1916, dir. Charles
Bennett), 62
Monster, The (Le monstre, France, 1903, dir.
Georges Méliès), 60
Monstre, Le (1903) see Monster, The
Moon of Israel, The (1924) see Sklavenkönigin,
Die
Moses Saved from the Water (Moïse sauvé des
eaux, France, 1911, dir. Henri Andréani),
xiii, xiv
Mummy, The (USA, 1932, dir. Karl Freund), 64
Mystery of Osiris, The (Il mistero di Osiris,
Italy, 1919, dir. Aldo Molinari), 255
Naidra, the Dream Woman (USA, 1914, dir.
W. Eugene Moore), 63
Index of films discussed 371
Nero (Nerone, Italy, 1909, dir. Luigi Maggi),
115, 323
Nero (USA, 1922, dir. J. Gordon Edwards), 323
Nero Trying out Poisons on His Slaves (Néron
essayant des poisons sur des esclaves, France,
1896, Georges Hatot), 1, 111
Noah’s Ark (USA, 1928, dir. Michael Curtiz),
262
Odissea, L’ (1911) see Odyssey, The
Odyssey of a Countryman in Paris (Odyssée
d’un paysan à Paris, France, 1905, dir.
Charles-Lucien Lépine), 151
Odyssey of a Scholar, The (L’Odyssée d’un
savant, Pathé, France, 1908), 151
Odyssey of a Spaceship, The (L’Odyssée de la
voiture astral, France, 1905, dir. Georges
Méliès), 151
Odyssey of a Super (Odissea di una comparsa,
Italy, 1909, dir. Romolo Bacchini), 151
Odyssey of the North, An (USA, 1914, dir.
Hobart Bosworth), 147, 159
Odyssey, The (L’Odissea, Italy, 1911, dir.
Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe di Liguoro,
Adolfo Padovan), xiv, 8, 147–9, 151, 153–5,
159–60, 162–3
Oil and Water (USA, 1912, dir. D. W. Griffith),
96, 102, 105
Passion Play of Oberammergau, The (USA,
1898, dir. Richard Hollaman), 170
Passion Play, The (USA, 1898, dir. Sigmund
Lubin), 170
Passion, The (La Passion, France, 1897, dir.
Léar [Albert Kirchner]), 169
Passion, The (La Passion, Gaumont, France,
1898), 169
Polynesian Odyssey, A (USA, 1921, dir. Burton
Holmes), 147, 159
Princess in the Vase, The (USA, 1908, dir.
Wallace McCutcheon), 61
Private Life of Helen of Troy, The (USA, 1927,
dir. Alexander Korda), 14, 23, 147, 151,
158–9, 162, 330–46
Pyramides (vue générale), Les (Lumière, France,
1897, dir. Alexandre Promio), 53
Queen of Nineveh, The (La regina di Ninive,
Italy, 1911, dir. Luigi Maggi), 7, 241
Queen of Sheba (USA, 1921, dir. J. Gordon
Edwards), 263–4
Quo Vadis (USA, 1951, dir. Mervyn LeRoy),
100, 237, 243, 321, 326
372 Index of films discussed
Quo Vadis? (Italy, 1913, dir. Enrico Guazzoni),
1, 27, 115–16, 118, 120–1, 123–4, 236, 278,
280, 293, 325
Regina di Ninive, La (1911) see Queen of
Nineveh, The
Regina di Sparta, La (The Queen of Sparta,
USA, 1931), 162
Retour d’Ulysse, Le (1909) see Return of
Ulysses, The
Return of Odysseus, The (Die Heimkehr des
Odysseus, Germany, 1918, dir. Rudolf
Biebrach), 147
Return of Odysseus, The (Die Heimkehr des
Odysseus, Germany, 1922, dir. Max Obal), 147
Return of Ulysses, The (Le retour d’Ulysse, France,
1909, André Calamettes), 113, 147, 158
Rigadin and the Pretty Manicurist (Rigadin et
la jolie manicure, France, 1915, dir. Georges
Monca), 151
Roman de la momie, Le (1911) see Romance of
a Mummy, The
Roman Orgy, The (L’orgie romain, France,
1911, dir. Louis Feuillade), 7
Roman Scandals (USA, 1933, dir. Frank
Tuttle), 276
Romance of a Mummy, The (Le roman de la
momie, France, 1911, dir. Albert Capellani), 61
Romans and Rascals (USA, 1918, dir. Larry
Semon), 275
Salomé (USA, 1918, dir. J. Gordon Edwards),
263
Salomé (USA, 1923, dir. Charles Bryant), 96,
107–8
Samson and Delilah (Samson et Dalila, France,
1902, dir. Ferdinand Zecca), 263
Samson and Delilah (Samson und Delila, Austria,
1922, dir. Alexander Korda), 262–3, 333
Sappho (Saffo, Italy, 1918, dir. Aldo Molinari),
255
She’s a Sheik (USA, 1927, dir. Clarence
Badger), 72
Sheik, The (USA, 1921, dir. George Melford), 84
Silent Mystery, The (USA, 1918, dir. Francis
Ford), 63
Sklavenkönigin, Die (The Moon of Israel,
Austria, 1924, dir. Michael Curtiz), 57, 71
Sodom and Gomorrah (Sodom und Gomorrha,
Germany, 1922, dir. Michael Curtiz), 262
Soldiers of the Cross (Australia, 1900, dir.
Herbert Henry Booth), 6
Sumurun (Germany, 1920, dir. Ernst
Lubitsch), 83
Target of Dreams, The (Knickerbocker Star
Features, USA, 1916), 151
Tarquin The Superb (Tarquin le superbe,
France, 1908, dir. Albert Capellani), 113
Ten Commandments, The (USA, 1923, Cecil
B. DeMille), 1, 21, 177, 262–74, 284–5, 287,
294
Ten Commandments, The (USA, 1956, Cecil
B. DeMille), 177, 262
The Mummy (Thanhouser, USA, 1911), 61
The Mysterious Stranger (Éclipse, France,
1911), 169
The Passion Play: Flight into Egypt (Lubin,
USA, 1903), 53
Théodora (France, 1912, dir. Henry Pouctal),
123
Theodora (Teodora imperatrice di Bisanzio,
Italy, 1909, dir. Ernesto Maria Pasquali), 123
Theodora (Teodora, Italy, 1921, dir.
L. Carlucci), 123
Thief of Baghdad, The (USA, 1924, dir. Raoul
Walsh), 79
Three Ages (USA, 1923, dir. Buster Keaton
and Eddie Cline), 13, 22, 275–96
Undying Flame, The (USA, 1917, dir. Maurice
Tourneur), 62
Vengeance of Licinius, The (La vengeance
de Licinius, France, 1912, dir. Georges
Denola), 113
Venus (Venere, Italy, 1919, dir. Aldo Molinari),
255
Venus of the South Seas (USA, 1924, dir. James
R. Sullivan), 139
Vestal, The (La vestale, France, 1908, dir.
Albert Capellani), 113
Vie de Moïse, La (1905) see Life of Moses, The
Vie et la passion de nôtre Seigneur Jésus Christ,
La (1913–14) see Messiah, The
Vie et passion du Christ, La (1906) see Life of
Christ, The
Vie et passion du Christ, La (1905) see Life and
Passion of Jesus Christ, The
Wandering Jew, The (Le juif errant, France,
1904, dir. Georges Méliès), 170
Weib des Pharao, Das (The Loves of Pharaoh,
Germany, 1922, dir. Ernst Lubitsch), 54
General index

Abadie, Alfred Camille, 53 Bambrick, Gertrude, 99, 101, 105–7

Academy Awards, 334 Bara, Theda, 54, 107, 275, 328
Achilles, 49, 151–2, 164, 339, 343 Bardèche, Maurice, 109
Acropolis, the, 42 Barnum, P. T., 95–7
actualities see newsreels Barrett, Wilson, 92
Aesop, 3 Bazin, André, 68, 290
Africa, 102, 235–7, 243, 325 Belshazzar, 44, 97, 234
Ajax, 339–40, 343 Benjamin, Walter, 46, 48–50, 52
Akhnaten, 83 Berger, Germaine, 172
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 99, 206, 218–20, 227 Bergson, Henri, 289
Alexander the Great, 3, 125 Bernini Film, 247
Alfano, Franco, 248 Bible, 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 28–9, 35, 44, 53, 76, 92,
Allan, Maud, 101, 104–6 100, 107, 133, 169–88, 205, 262–3
Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence, 5, 109, 111, Exodus, 21, 265, 271–4, 285
255, 280 Gospel of John, 175, 177, 179, 185–6, 320, 326
Angelopoulos, Theo, 5, 145–7 Gospel of Luke, 174, 177, 179–80, 182,
anti-Semitism, 183, 186–7, 299, 314–17, 323 185–6, 223, 323
Aphrodite, 134–6, 152, 320, 337 see also Venus Gospel of Mark, 177, 179, 185–6, 208, 264
Apollo, 9, 134 Gospel of Matthew, 174, 177, 179, 182,
Apollo Belvedere, The, 134, 137 185–6, 209, 264, 322
Arabian Nights, 79, 83 Old Testament, 96–7, 99, 123, 207, 213, 234
archaeology, 12, 17, 37–45, 58, 68, 233, 238, Sermon on the Mount, the, 175, 320
241, 257 Stations of the Cross, 175
Archimedes, 110, 233, 239 Borgnetto, Luigi Romano, 148, 230
architecture, 8, 41, 45–8, 81, 91–108, 234, 238, Brasillach, Robert, 109
246, 325 Brenon, Herbert, 121
Aristotle, 4, 243 British Empire Exhibition (1924), 89–90
Arminius, 22, 297–312 British National Film Archive, 28
Assmann, Jan, 58 Joye Collection, 29–30, 34–6
Assyria, 7, 13, 21, 38, 99, 105–6, 206, 209–10, Bruno, Giordano, 229
212, 218, 220, 222–3, 227, 241 Bryant, Charles, 107
Athena, 135–6, 250, 334 Buchanan, Thompson, 206, 227
Athens, 42, 239, 241 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 111–12, 116, 119–20,
audience, 32, 40–51, 75, 104, 112–25, 138–44, 232, 279
151–60, 180, 215, 229–46, 253, 264–71, Burden, Jane, 256
278–83, 302–6, 313, 323–4, 330, 345–6 burlesque, 19, 147, 151, 275, 335, 346
Augustan History, The, 40
Augustus, 297, 300, 303 Calypso, 147, 155–6
Aurelian, 40 Cambellotti, Duilio, 253–6, 258
Australia, 4, 6, 139 canonisation, 159, 165
Capellani, Alberto, 61, 113
Babylon, 37–8, 43–8, 51–2, 74, 91–100, 107–8, Caravaggio, 207, 214
161, 181, 234, 240–3, 244, 278, 284, 295 Carl, Renée, 207, 216
373
374 General index

Carnarvon, Lord, 82, 90 dance, 5, 18, 21, 70, 97–108, 268, 314
Carter, Howard, 82, 89–90 Salomé, 93, 102, 104, 107
Carthage, 3, 13, 109–10, 231–44 Dante, 32–3, 35, 115
Caserini, Maria, 207, 214 de Medici, Catherine, 74
Caserini, Mario, 211, 237 Debussy, Claude, 250
cataloguing, 17, 24, 31–2, 34 Deleuze, Giles, 48, 65, 151, 287
Chaplin, Charlie, 275 Delilah, 208, 263
chariot races, 148, 193–4, 336 DeMille, Cecil B., 1, 21, 109, 126, 177, 262,
Christ, 20, 30–1, 74, 169–88, 278, 295, 319–22 284–7, 294–5
Christianity, 117, 119, 123, 188, 233, 253–60, deserts, 70–3, 80
281, 295, 315–16, 320, 328–9 desire, 12, 17, 61–2, 68, 127, 133, 136–7, 152,
Cicero, 302 206, 218–25, 267, 270, 298, 328, 330,
cinemas, 8, 16, 18, 28, 84–5, 93, 113, 115–17, 345–6 see also eroticism, sexuality
120–2, 155 Desmet Collection, 29
cinematography, 155, 215, 229, 290 Desmet, Jean, 29, 122
see also close up, editing, lighting, location Dickens, Charles, 35, 112
shooting, long shot Dido, 233
Cines, vii, 30, 116–18, 207, 211, 214, 228, distribution, film, 1–4, 16–24, 27–36, 113–24,
236, 295 149–65, 173, 200–2, 214, 230, 279, 301, 334
Circe, 220 Domitian, 91
Cirta, 110, 231–2, 235, 238, 243–5 Doré, Gustave, 35, 177, 180
city, the see urbanism drawing and etching, 39, 48, 179, 203, 230, 238
classicism, 8, 12–13, 15, 126, 131–2, 138, dreams, 17, 61–2, 69, 97, 275
142–3 Dreyer, Carl Theodore, 171, 173, 176, 180–8
Cleopatra, 54, 60, 71, 78, 83, 220, 237, 258 Du Camp, Maxime, 56, 69–70
close up, 55, 68, 71, 86, 182–6, 188, 267–8, Duffy, Mary, 142
277–8, 324 Dukas, Paul, 250
colonialism, 15, 54, 71, 159, 234–5 Duncan, Isadora, 101–2
colour, 10–11, 17–18, 21, 28, 34–6, 83, 172,
188, 215, 264, 321 East, the see orientalism
comedy, 23, 31, 35, 64, 275, 281, 285, 287, ecphrasis, 49
330–1, 335, 342 see also parody, satire Edison, Thomas, 1, 9, 53, 164
alternative history, 294–6 editing, film, 17, 21, 34, 48, 55, 60, 86, 129, 196,
anachronism as, 285–7 237, 265, 278, 290, 310
historical comedy, 284–6 education, 7, 10–11, 33–4, 56, 84, 112, 154–5,
self-reflexivity, 295–6 278
slapstick, 275, 283, 287–90, 295–6, 335 Egypt, 1–3, 8, 12, 17–18, 21, 53–90, 92, 161,
Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur, 60 174, 244–6, 265, 275, 326–8
Constant, Benjamin, 5 see also deserts, mummies, orientalism,
consumerism, 9, 141, 340, 343, 345–6 pyramids, Sphinx
Coolidge, Calvin, 342 ‘Book of the Dead, the’, 60, 77–8
copyright, 9, 20, 189–91, 195, 202–3 Egyptology, 18, 70, 76, 82–3, 88–90
Corda, Maria, 159, 333–4, 336, 344–5 past-present interaction, 63
Corelli, Marie, 180–2 spiritualism, and, 57
costume, 30, 104, 142, 153, 162, 184, 192, 215, electricity, 58–60, 63
237, 246, 253–4, 291, 319, 327–9, 334, Elgin Marbles, 137
336–7, 344–5 elite culture, 32, 137, 153, 215, 218
Cruze, James, 263 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 75
Cyrus (Persian king), 74, 94, 97 Endell, August, 50
epic, 3, 19, 145–65
D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 109–10, 115, 230, 248 ancient Greek, 147, 160–2
Da Vinci, Leonardo, 37, 183, 321 film, 148–57, 237, 246, 263, 279, 300
Dali, Salvador, 142 Hollywood, 4, 21, 23, 109, 150
 General index 375

Erlanger, Abraham L., 169, 190–1, 201, 203, Graziosi, Guido, 254
280, 313–15 Greece, 3, 8, 18, 28, 40–3, 81, 91, 101, 117,
eroticism, 17–22, 60–6, 84, 92–108, 113, 123, 125–31, 147–50, 233, 241, 254, 326,
134, 150–1, 205, 215, 267 see also desire, 331–41, 346
homosexuality, sexuality Grenander, Alfred, 43
Erskine, John, 158–9, 330–3, 335, 342–3, 345 Griffith, D. W, 1, 13, 37–51, 63, 74–9, 91–102,
The Private Life of Helen of Troy (novel), 331–3 109, 150–2, 177–81, 207, 220, 225, 234,
Europe, 17–19, 30, 37, 127–30, 138, 155, 244, 249, 275–87, 294–5
169–71, 231–44, 250–8, 279, 295, 317 Grimm Brothers, 35, 53
exoticism see orientalism Guazzoni, Enrico, 1, 116, 236
Guy, Alice, 35
Fables, William, 275
Fairbanks, Douglas, 79 Haeckel, Ernst, 57
Falena, Ugo, 247–9, 254–5, 260 Haggard, H. Rider, 61
Faure, Elie, 81–2 Hannibal, 110, 243, 342
femininity, 7, 54, 127, 132, 134, 157, 205, 211, Harrison, Tony, 5
217, 227, 237, 291, 293–4, 344–5 Hatot, George, 1, 111, 147
emancipation of women, 54, 91, 212, 227 Hawthorne, N., 202
female body, the, 54, 112, 139, 142 Hector, 67, 151, 164–5
feminism, 91, 330 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm, 56, 58, 152
gender roles, 209–11, 213, 345 Helen, 14, 23, 151–2, 158, 255–6, 330–46
women in comedy, 293, 332 Heliogabalus, 7, 113
Feuillade, Louis, 7, 63, 207, 214–15 Herculaneum, 238
First World War, 14, 44, 111, 135, 141–2, 153, Herodotus, 97, 234
299, 308, 317 Hesiod, 134
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 345 hieroglyphics, 8, 18, 59, 61, 74–90, 161
Flaubert, Gustave, 57–8, 69–70, 231, 239 historical narratives, 74, 294
Fokine, Michel, 105 historiography, 15–16, 233
Ford, Henry, 313, 315–17 history, 6, 10–22, 27, 37, 49, 54–8, 146–57,
Foucault, Michael, 276 229–46, 275–312, 341
Fox Studios, 263 historical accuracy, 39, 108, 233–4, 257, 279, 305
fragmentation, 141–2, 153, 165, 181, 222, 340 Hoffman, Gertrude, 101, 104–5
Franco-Prussian War, 127 Hollaman, Richard, 170
Freud, Sigmund, 70, 152, 158 Holmes, Sherlock, 229
Holofernes see Judith
Galatea, 131–2 Homer, 19, 49, 145–65
Gaumont, 30–1, 35, 114, 169, 207, 214–17 film reception, 146–7
Gauntier, Gene, 191–6, 200, 203 Iliad, 49, 158, 164–5, 330
Gautier, Théophile, 60 Odyssey, 9, 19, 113, 145, 147, 158, 162
Gaye, Howard, 181 homoeroticism, 55, 267 see also desire,
gender see femininity, masculinity eroticism, sexuality
George V, King, 119 horror, 157
Germany, 45, 147, 162, 297–312, 316 Horus, 88
Gérôme, Jean-Léon, 109, 131 Hull, E. M., 84
ghosts see supernatural, the humour see comedy
Giacometti, Paolo, 99
Gilbert, James, 58–9 imperialism, 13, 45, 86, 91, 153, 232, 342–3
Gish, Lillian, 74, 95, 106, 132 India, 13, 21, 234, 243, 243, 246
Glyn, Elinor, 127 intertitles, 21–3, 30, 112, 152, 160, 181, 184–5,
Godward, John William, 256 187, 196–7, 230, 266, 306–7, 324, 335–6
Gorky, Maxim, 11, 55 Isis, 60
Gounod, Charles, 250 Italy, 28, 119, 136, 147, 232–6, 239–41, 243,
Grand Tour, The, 136, 143 248, 254, 259–60
376 General index

Jackson, G. Hunt, 132 Man Ray, 142

Jael, 207, 209 Mancinelli, Luigi, 248–50, 255, 258
jazz age, 291, 345–6 Marinetti, Filipo, 51
John, disciple of Jesus (biblical figure), 177, Marion, Frank J., 191, 193
179, 183–4 Mark Antony, 54
John the Baptist, 107 marketing, 32–5, 114–20, 126–40, 149–50, 159,
Johnson, Adrian, 54 188–97, 215–18, 230–8, 278–80, 303, 320,
Johnson, Samuel, 91 334–7
Judaism, 313–19, 323, 327 Marlowe, Christopher, 78, 158, 182
‘The Jewish Question’, 316–17 Marx, Groucho, 315
Judas (biblical figure), 176–9, 182–7 Mary, mother of Jesus, 174–5, 209, 213,
Judith, 20, 99, 104, 205–28 321–2, 324
Julian (emperor), 21, 253–4, 256, 258–61 Mary Magdalene (biblical figure), 169, 175
Julian, Rupert, 240 Mascagni, Pietro, 248–9
Julius Caesar, 54, 71, 229, 252, 258 Mascalchi, Ignazio, 256
masculinity, 7, 22, 291, 293–4
Kalem Company, 189–204 mass culture, 6–14, 32, 137, 153–5, 278
Karnak, 64 Melford, George, 84
Keaton, Buster, 13, 22, 275–96 Méliès, Georges, 60, 79, 147, 155, 157, 170
Kellermann, Annette, 139 melodrama, 63, 154, 250–1, 253, 295, 302
Kephren, 72 Mencken, H. L., 333
Kiralfy, Imre, 95–7, 108, 191, 193 Menelaus, 151–2, 331–2, 336–7
Klaw, Marc, 1, 169, 190, 201, 203, 280, 313, 315 Mercié, Antonin, 127
Kleine, George, 112, 191–2, 201 Mesguich, Felix, 64, 68–70
Klimt, Gustav, 206 Mesopotamia, 1, 3, 13, 44, 49, 91, 93, 241
Koldewey, Robert, 38, 43–5 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 313, 318
König, Leo, 299–300, 302, 306, 309–11 Mills, Samuel Alfred, 206
Korda, Alexander, 23, 263, 330, 333–6, 345 Milton, John, 182
Kracauer, Siegfried, 51, 298–9 modernism, 15, 142
Moloch, 110, 234, 237, 239–40
Lang, Fritz, 240 morality, 19, 22, 45, 51, 84, 117, 119, 155, 205,
Lapper, Alison, 142 222, 227, 262–72, 278–85
Lazarus (biblical figure), 175 Moses, 21, 29, 123, 264–6, 271–3
legitimisation, 5–6, 38, 42, 50, 125 Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC),
Leighton, Frederic, 109 201–3
Lemaître, Jules, 158 mummies, 3, 11, 17, 28, 53, 60–2, 66
Leone, Sergio, 240 murals, 41–2, 101
Lewis, C. S., 123 Murnau, F. W., 181
lighting, 35, 69, 119, 153, 234, 319 Museums, 6, 42, 53, 204
Lindsay, Vachel, 57, 59, 75–83, 90, 95, 102–4 British Museum, 92, 137
Lloyd, Harold, 275 Louvre, 131, 134, 137, 233, 257
location shooting, 21, 229, 299 Neues Museum, Berlin, 41–2
Long, Samuel, 191–2 music, 6, 10, 18, 21, 71, 92, 134, 144, 155,
long shot, 21, 47, 71, 186, 214, 265, 268, 290, 247–51, 258, 314, 331
311, 329 accompaniment, 93, 116, 249, 287
love, 17, 54–5, 62–8, 84, 131–6, 148–52, 244, music hall see vaudeville
252–3, 295, 301, 318, 340–2 myth, 3, 19, 72, 81, 108, 125, 131, 133–8, 143,
Lubin, Sigmund, 170 147, 156–7, 217, 232–3, 298, 312, 334
Lumière Brothers, 9, 11, 53, 68, 145, 164
Napoleon, 63–4, 86, 249
Maciste, 233, 237 narrative, film, 31, 65, 101–8, 110, 151–62,
magic, 11, 60, 79, 88, 251 169, 205–6, 232, 264–71, 276–8,
make-up, 55, 102 284–6, 294
 General index 377

nationalism, 13–14, 28, 34, 91, 152–3, 155, Paul, Robert, 111–12
278, 318 peplum, 3–4, 150, 247–8, 250, 254, 258
British, 85 Persians, 40, 97
German, 297–312 Peter, disciple of Jesus (biblical figure), 176,
Italian, 233–5 179, 186
Navarro, Ramon, 134, 280, 318 Petrie, Flinders, 82, 87
Nazimova, Alla, 96, 101, 107–8 photography, 6, 15, 17, 20, 35–6, 48–9, 68–70,
Nazism, 298–9, 303, 307–9, 312 128–31, 138, 143, 179, 202, 215
Nebuchadnezzar, 97 Pickford, Mary, 127
Negri, Pola, 66, 310 Piranesi, Giovanni, 38–9
neoplatonism, 253 Plato, 80, 331
Nero, 1, 91, 111, 115, 122, 193, 237, 243, 254, Pliny, 243
258, 323 Polyphemus, 155–7
New Zealand, 119 Pompeii, 3, 111–12, 119–20, 122, 193, 232, 238,
newsreels, 32, 46, 72 279–80, 283
Niblo, Fred, 313, 319 Poppaea, 237
Nickelodeons, 93, 102 popular culture see mass culture
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 151, 158, 276, 287 Pre-Raphaelites, 256
Nineveh, 3, 7, 241 Priam, 151–2, 241
Northall, John, 136 production, film, 3–4, 16, 18, 28, 30, 33, 114,
Novello, Ivor, 134 161–3, 191, 194–5, 279
nudity, 34–5, 54, 104–5, 107, 112, 123, 269 costs, 229, 263, 265, 309, 318, 334
Numidia, 231, 233–5 in Britain, 28, 120
in France, 3, 28, 169
O’Neil, Nance, 99, 219 in Italy, 3, 28
O’Neill, Eugene, 110, 122 in the USA, 3, 28, 169
Odysseus, 145–7, 150–1, 155, 157, 164 Prometheus, 233
see also Ulysses propaganda, 233, 235, 309, 315–17
Olcott, Sidney, 191, 193, 195–6 psychoanalysis, 63, 70, 156–7 see also Freud,
opera, 5, 104, 193, 206, 238, 248–9, 310 Sigmund
opulence, 7, 238, 280, 330, 346 publicity, 5, 9, 17, 102, 122, 127, 149–50, 153,
orality, 19, 160–2 280, 334
orientalism, 6–15, 21, 32, 39–40, 68–73, Punic War see Carthage
94–101, 158, 231–46, 314, 328 pyramids, 53, 57, 65, 68, 70–1
Osiris, 60, 66
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 131 racism, 102, 322 see also anti-Semitism
Oxilia, Nino, 122, 249 reincarnation, 58, 62, 69
Reinhardt, Max, 83, 117
painting, 5–6, 35, 37–51, 76, 109, 125–36, Rettig, John, 95–6
177–87, 213–14, 256, 279 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 125, 137
Palestine, 316–18 Riegl, Alois, 81
Palmyra, 39–41 Ristori, Adelaide, 99
Paramount, 84, 126–7 romance see love
Paris (mythological figure), 112, 135, 137, romanticism, 75
147–52, 332–45 Rome, 3, 13, 28, 31, 38–43, 91, 110–19, 232–43,
parody, 3, 22, 147, 151, 275–83, 291, 294 279–84, 297–303, 309, 322–3, 326–9, 342–3
Parry, Milman, 161–2 as oppressor, 325–6
Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 5 toga-plays, 91
Pastrone, Giovanni, 1, 13, 152, 229–46, 249, 310 Rose, Frank Oakes, 194
Pathé, 30–1, 112–13, 120, 172–3, 177, 182, 187, Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 256
264, 295 Royal Albert Hall, 116, 118
Pathé-Gaumont Archives, 29 ruins, 8, 27, 136, 141
Paul, R. W., 60 Russia, 3, 105, 121
378 General index

Salgari, Emilio, 232 Swanson, Gloria, 126, 137–8

Salome, 164, 169, 208 see also dance Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 75
Samson, 208, 232, 283 Sweet, Blanche, 99, 101–2, 106, 220–1, 225
Sappho, 3 sword-and-sandal film see peplum
Satan (biblical figure), 169–71, 181–3,
185–7 tableaux vivants, 174, 183, 187, 279
satire, 290–4, 335 Tacitus, 298, 307
Schliemann, Heinrich, 40 Talbot, William Henry Fox, 70
Schmalz, Herbert, 39–40, 42 temporality, 17, 37–73, 79, 83, 144, 162, 165,
science fiction, 156–7, 240 277, 284–5, 290
Scipio Africanus, 231–2 Thalberg, Irving, 319
scopophilia, 14, 157, 216, 269 theatre, 5, 14, 17, 48, 84, 91, 254, 269
Scorsese, Martin, 231 ancient, 7
Scriabin, Alexander, 6 compared with cinema, 85–6
sculpture, 5–6, 35, 41–2, 76–82, 123, 137–42, modern, 48, 51, 76, 91
244, 257, 279 Thor, 303
Second World War, 45, 155 Tissot, James, 5, 35
Semon, Larry, 275 Titian, 213
Serov, Alexander, 206 tragedy, history as, 152, 276
set design, 37–40, 48, 83, 234, 238, 244, 279, travelogues, 27, 29, 32
334 Troy, 3, 14, 23, 40–1, 114, 146–7, 150, 152,
sexuality, 142, 157, 206, 210, 212, 215, 229, 340
219–20, 225, 227, 269–72, 285, 291, 317, Tutankhamun, 18, 56, 78, 82, 88, 90
330 see also desire, eroticism, feminism,
homoeroticism, masculinity Ulysses, 147, 155, 157–9, 339–40, 343
Shakespeare, William, 12, 28, 78, 118, 254 see also Odysseus
Sherwood, Robert E., 341–3 United Kingdom, 114–16, 120–1
Sicily, 229, 231–2, 235, 237–9 United States of America, 75, 77, 87, 287, 291,
Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 122 295, 341–3
Quo Vadis (novel), 111, 117, 233, 279 and race, 75, 102
Simmel, Georg, 50–1 Supreme Court of, 189, 192–3, 203–4
sound, 1, 3, 10–11, 21, 71, 93, 100, 143, 145–6, urbanism, 38, 43, 45, 50–1
161, 169, 262, 276
special effects, 20, 110, 148, 155, 170, 175, 188, Valentino, Rudolph, 67, 84, 143
237, 290 vamps, 20, 107, 156, 205, 275, 286, 328
spectacle, 6–21, 76, 90, 94–108, 110–17, 150–7, Varus, Quintilius, 297, 301–3
191, 220, 262–72, 314, 344 vaudeville, 6, 17, 32, 35, 101, 288, 290, 296
pyrodramas, 112 Venus, 19, 125–43 see also Aphrodite
scale of, 115, 149, 264, 280 Venus de Milo, 128–31, 134–6
spectatorship, 8, 14, 145, 157, 160, 165, Verdi, Giuseppe, Aida, 66, 248
281, 325 Victoria, Queen, 48
gaze, 157, 269 violence, 7, 54, 206, 271, 293, 299
Sphinx, 53, 69, 265 Virgil, 32
spiritualism, 57, 60 Vitagraph, 5, 118
St. Denis, Ruth, 101, 104, 106–7 voyeurism see desire, scopophilia, sexuality,
stars, 54, 125–44, 216 spectatorship
classical gods and, 134, 139
sculpture and, 128–35 Wagner, Richard, 13, 152, 249, 310
star system, 137, 144 Walker, Aida Overton, 102
Steiner, Rudolph, 57 Wallace, Lew, 189, 191, 193, 195, 295, 313, 315,
Stinnes, Hugo, 299 323, 326
supernatural, the, 11–12, 32 Ben-Hur (novel), 9, 111, 189, 279, 313,
surrealism, 142 316–17

Warncke, Paul, 304–5, 308–9
Weigall, Arthur, 76, 82–90
Whitefield, George, 206
Whitman, Walt, 74–6
Wilde, Oscar, 107
Wilkinson, John Gardner, 70
General index 379
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 134
Wood, Robert, 40
Worringer, Wilhelm, 80–1, 83
Zecca, Ferdinand, 173
Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, 39–42