BEGINNINGSOF THE WESTERN – 3 | Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

BEGINNINGS
OF THE WESTERN – 3

“The western is the only genre whose origins are almost identical with those of the cinema itself and which is as alive as ever after almost half a century of uninterrupted success. … Its world-wide appeal is even more astonishing than its historical survival.” (André Bazin, 1953)
In the past two years, the Giornate has featured two different series of programs devoted to early American westerns – whether Indian, cowboy, or cowgirl pictures – made and released between 1908 and 1913. This year features another series of three programs, but the subject this time is early European westerns.
The reason? American westerns probably were the most popular film subjects shipped to Europe in the early 1910s. Several things may explain their popularity. Images of the American West had long been familiar to Europeans, from the exhibitions of George Catlin in the 1840s to the initial tours of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Shortly after the turn of the century, according to Francis Lacassin, in both France and Germany, the publisher Eichler began releasing translations of Buffalo Bill dime novels (as well as adapted tales), followed by other series such as Texas Jack, la terreur des Indiens and Sitting Bull le dernier des Sioux. As American film imports began to “invade” Europe by 1910, the Bioscope reported that anyone visiting picture theaters in London or the provinces, for instance, would find that “Western films are the favorites of an audience.” Within a year, those of Selig, Pathé American, Flying A, and Vitagraph became more and more available through their rental exchanges in London and Paris. At the same time, Essanay opened a sales office in Berlin that distributed its Broncho Billy films far and wide. And the company boasted that Broncho Billy (G.M. Anderson) was the first American “world famous character-creation.”
Europeans soon got caught up in the Wild West craze with their own versions of western stories. Film producers from Great Britain and Germany to Italy and Denmark (and likely elsewhere) tried their hand at exploiting what was an emerging genre. Luke McKernan has found more than two dozen British westerns released between 1908 and 1916; but only one, The Scapegrace (1913), seems to survive. Similarly, Matthias Knopp has identified at least ten German westerns released between 1908 and 1915; however, none are extant. How many westerns Italian film companies produced is unclear, but at least two survive from Cines, better known for its spectacular historical epics: Sulla via dell’oro (1913) and Nel paese dell’oro (1914), obviously very unlike the “spaghetti westerns” that became so famous fifty years later. In parallel with the film series at this year’s Giornate curated by Casper Tybjerg and Magnus Rosborn devoted to the impact of Swedish films on other Scandinavian countries, Holger-Madsen’s feature-length Manden uden Fremtid (The Man Without a Future, 1916), starring the popular Danish star Valdemar Psilander, aptly concludes the third of these early European western programs.
But the Wild West craze was particularly acute in France. There Gaumont became the most prominent producer when it hired the actor-writer-director Joë Hamman (1883-1974). Hamman was unique in having lived as a young man for several years in the United States. In 1904, he toured the West and spent several months living among the Plains Indians on the Standing Rock and Pine Ridge reservations. There he observed their way of life and listened to stories of their struggles to survive in the late 19th century. His memories of those experiences were published much later in “1904 … mon séjour à la réserve des Sioux de Pine Ridge” (Western Revue [Paris] 14, December 1973). Hamman first acted in western roles for Lux and Eclipse, and one of the latter company’s films came in for praise in the U.S. as The Red Man’s Honor in late 1912. Then, for Gaumont, Hamman wrote scenarios for and starred in more than half a dozen cowboy and Indian pictures, from 1911 to 1913, all one or two reels in length and directed by one of the company’s chief filmmakers, Jean Durand. The stories – with the startling exception of Le Railway de la mort, released in the U.S. as Their Lives for Gold and receiving conflicting reviews – may be rather conventional, but Durand and Hamman made these films distinctive by shooting them on location in the Camargue region on the south coast of France, whose flat landscapes of watery expanses, sandy beaches, and hillocks of reeds and brush created a setting relatively similar to those of American westerns. Moreover, Hamman was a versatile actor who not only could perform roping and riding stunts rivaling those of Tom Mix but also could adopt the stoic, dignified posture and gestures considered at the time characteristic of the American Plains Indians. Fortunately, along with the fragment of Eclipse’s Face au taureau (1913), many of these Gaumont titles survive (plus several comic films, with casts that included Gaston Modot and the acrobatic troupe “Les Pouittes”) and are more or less intact. The Giornate is especially pleased to screen six of them in the first two of these three early European western programs.

Richard Abel

With thanks to
Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, EYE Filmmuseum; Émilie Cauquy, Céline Ruivo, Cinémathèque française; Stéphanie Salmon, Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé; Bryony Dixon, BFI National Archive; Archives françaises du film du CNC; Casper Tybjerg, Ivo Blom, Matthias Knopp.

Prog. 1
Sab/Sat 30 – 15:30 – Teatro Verdi

CALINO VEUT ÊTRE COWBOY
Jean Durand (FR 1911)

PENDAISON À JEFFERSON CITY
(FR 1911)

LA PRAIRIE EN FEU
Jean Durand (FR 1912)

CENT DOLLARS MORT OU VIF
Jean Durand (FR 1912)

LE REVOLVER MATRIMONIALE
Jean Durand (FR 1912)

THE SCAPEGRACE
Edwin J. Collins (UK 1913)

Prog. 2
Mar/Tue 3 – 10:30 – Teatro Verdi

COEUR ARDENT
Jean Durand (FR 1912)

LE RAILWAY DE LA MORT
Jean Durand (FR 1912)

FACE AU TAUREAU
Prod: Société Générale des Cinématographes Eclips (FR 1913)

NEL PAESE DELL’ORO