ItalianoThis Domitor programme aims to shine a new light on early cinema. It is conceived as a visual experiment intertwining films with more than 30 paintings, allowing us to compare these now largely forgotten (but at the time very famous) compositions with early films of all genres. The aim is to discover, examine, and evaluate how early cinema production directly referenced paintings, creating visual re-enactments known as Tableaux vivants (literally, “living pictures”).
The link between cinema and painting is usually said to have emerged around 1910, when purportedly “artistic” film productions such as the Film d’Art strove to assert a cultural legitimization of cinema. This programme however will show that pictorial references of all kinds and provenances haunted films from the very first animated images. The screening will start with a 1902 duel film, recreating down to the last detail an 1857 genre painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Suites d’un bal masqué, also known as The Duel After the Masquerade. On both sides of the Atlantic, at Pathé as well as American Mutoscope & Biograph, early films staging petty crime, picturesque everyday life, or mischievous children were using genre painting as a major source of visual inspiration. But early cinema’s depictions of “Great History” were no less pictorial: the deaths of Nelson or Marat, American Revolution battle scenes, Franco-Prussian War episodes, French Revolution trials… In order to bring history back to life, early films were modelled on historical paintings. Whether still famous today, like Archibald Willard’s The Spirit of ’76 (c. 1875), or mostly forgotten, like the non-David Assassinat de Jean-Paul Marat par Charlotte Corday (engraved in 1793 and often reproduced), these naturalistic and well-documented 18th- and 19th-century historical paintings were considered “authentic” visual references for early filmmakers.
However, our programme doesn’t focus on costume films alone. On the contrary – an important part is devoted to films featuring nudity. Recreating a painting of Venus, the Ancient Greek courtesan Phryne, or other mythological/artistic subjects offered the perfect justification for the exhibition of naked models, making tableaux vivants the first alibi of erotic cinema. Through an association that may seem surprising, it was also the ally of religious cinema. In many theatres, the depiction of Christ was considered as outrageous as displaying nudity on stage. Yet the pictorial treatment of the cinematic embodiments of the Life and Passion of Jesus made it a “hit” of early cinema. Not only did these images of light appear in two dimensions (sometimes even projected on church walls), but many of the first biblical films were composed of highly accurate tableaux vivants, reanimating large academic paintings, or making Bible illustrations by Gustave Doré or James Tissot come to life.
Exceptional films are included, such as early advertising clips (imitating posters derived from paintings), and lustful 1903 images of nude models “artistically” posing while rotating and exhibiting their unclothed corporeality. We’ll also discover the successful tableaux vivants created as a series by Biograph from 1899 to 1903, promoted as “excellent photographically, and of the very highest grade pictorially”. When these “risqué” paper prints were rediscovered in the 1960s, they were stigmatized as “pseudoartistic” by scholars ignorant of the original paintings and the precision of the imitation. Now, a comparison with the newly identified pictorial sources allows us to evaluate the seriousness of their pictorial efforts, and enables us to properly appreciate the skillfulness of these often ignored tableaux.
Another element of the programme is the juxtaposition of multiple remakes of the same tableaux. For example, Alphonse de Neuville’s painting of a Franco-Prussian War episode, Les Dernières Cartouches (1873), formed the subject for films by Lumière (1897), Méliès (1897), Pathé (1899), Gaumont (1898), and Gaumont again (1907). Who is copying who, and where is the original? Yet these questions are irrelevant. Early cinema’s remakes of tableaux vivants represent the culmination of an aesthetic of reproduction that reigned in visual culture around 1900. Every medium reproduced and renewed the same Images, which were treated as models to be repeated. As just one example, Neuville’s painting was re-appropriated in engravings, sculptures, photography, and theatre, as well as film. Imitation came with emulation, and tableaux vivants (also extremely popular on stage and in photography) were considered edifying as much for the imitators, challenged in their artistic means, as for the public, challenged in their visual knowledge. Tableaux vivants in early cinema thus became a laboratory for artistic consciousness and aesthetic experiment, exploring the new medium’s ability to transform painting into flesh (more or less unveiled), movement (more or less posed), and life (more or less immortal).
Valentine Robert
Acknowledgements
To realize the screening of this programme required the digitization of a wide variety of prints, from many archives and on many film supports. The editing was financially supported by the Film Studies Department of the University of Lausanne, and has been expertly executed by Andrea Tessitore at the Cineteca del Friuli in Gemona.
Special thanks for their invaluable help and collaboration also to: Jay Weissberg, Elena Beltrami, Alessandro De Zan, Rosa Cardona, Mariona Bruzzo, Bryony Dixon, Steve Tollervey, Mike Mashon, Mark J. Williams, Peter Bagrov, Béatrice de Pastre, Éric Le Roy, Fereidoun Mahboubi, Aleksandar Erdeljanović, Agnès Bertola, Stéphanie Tarot, Ana Marquesán, Begoña Soto Vázquez, Michel Dind, Caroline Fournier, Carole Délessert, Pierre-Emmanuel Jaques, Carlo Montanaro, David Robinson, Tami Williams, Scott Curtis, Paolo Cherchi Usai.
Finally, an extra-special thank-you to Roland Cosandey, who initiated the project.
Prog. DCP, 120‘. fonte/source: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto / Université de Lausanne, Section d’histoire et esthétique du cinéma.
THE POUTING MODEL (US 1901)
regia/dir: F.S. Armitage. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. fonte/source: Library of Congress Packard Center for Audio-Visual Conservation, Culpeper, Virginia.
LIVING PICTURES PRODUCTION (US 1903) [re-edition of 1900 footage]
regia/dir: Arthur Marvin. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. fonte/source: Library of Congress Packard Center for Audio-Visual Conservation, Culpeper, Virginia.
BIRTH OF THE PEARL (US 1901)
regia/dir: F.S. Armitage. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. fonte/source: Library of Congress Packard Center for Audio-Visual Conservation, Culpeper, Virginia.
UN DUEL APRÈS LE BAL (Duel After the Ball) (FR 1902)
regia/dir: Ferdinand Zecca? prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Gosfilmofond of Russia, Moscow.
SPIRIT OF ’76 (US 1905)
regia/dir: G.W. Bitzer. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. fonte/source: Library of Congress Packard Center for Audio-Visual Conservation, Culpeper, Virginia.
COMBAT SUR LA VOIE FERRÉE (Combat on the Railway) (FR 1898)
regia/dir: Alexandre Promio, Georges Hatot. scen: Marcel Jambon. prod: Lumière. fonte/source: Archives françaises du film du CNC, Bois d’Arcy.
COMBAT SUR LA VOIE FERRÉE (Combat on the Railway) (FR 1899)
regia/dir: Ferdinand Zecca? prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Filmoteca de Catalunya – ICEC, Barcelona; Filmoteca Vasca-Euskadiko Filmategia, San Sebastián.
MORT DE MARAT (Death of Marat) (FR 1897)
regia/dir: Alexandre Promio, Georges Hatot. scen: Marcel Jambon. prod: Lumière. fonte/source: Filmoteca de Catalunya – ICEC, Barcelona.
CHARLOTTE CORDAY (FR 1908)
regia/dir: Georges Denola. prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Archives françaises du film du CNC, Bois d’Arcy; La Cinémathèque française, Paris.
DEATH OF NELSON (GB 1905)
regia/dir: Lewin Fitzhamon. cast: Sebastian Smith, Tim Mowbray. prod: Hepworth. fonte/source: BFI National Archive, London.
LES DERNIÈRES CARTOUCHES (The Last Cartridges) (FR 1897)
regia/dir: Alexandre Promio, Georges Hatot. scen: Marcel Jambon. prod: Lumière. fonte/source: Filmoteca de Catalunya – ICEC, Barcelona.
LES DERNIÈRES CARTOUCHES (The Last Cartridge) (FR 1899)
prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Cinémathèque suisse, Lausanne.
LES DERNIÈRES CARTOUCHES / BOMBARDEMENT D’UNE MAISON (The Last Cartridges) (FR 1897)
regia/dir: Georges Méliès. prod: Star-Film. fonte/source: Archives françaises du film du CNC, Bois d’Arcy; La Cinémathèque française, Paris.
LA FIANCÉE DU VOLONTAIRE (The Hand of the Enemy) (FR 1907)
regia/dir: Alice Guy-Blaché. prod: Gaumont. fonte/source: BFI National Archive, London.
FLAGRANT DÉLIT D’ADULTÈRE (FR 1899)
prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Archives françaises du film du CNC, Bois d’Arcy.
LE JUGEMENT DE PHRYNÉ (The Trial of Phryne) (FR 1899)
prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Cineteca di Bologna.
AKT-SKULPTUREN (DE 1903)
regia/dir: Oskar Messter. prod: Messter Projection GmbH. fonte/source: Jugoslovenska Kinoteka, Beograd.
LA VIE ET LA PASSION DE JÉSUS-CHRIST (Life and Passion of Christ) (FR 1902): Les Noces de Cana, La Cène, Jésus devant Pilate, L’Ange et les Saintes Femmes
regia/dir: Ferdinand Zecca? prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Cinémathèque suisse, Lausanne.
Les Noces de Cana (Le nozze di Cana/At the Wedding Feast)
La Cène (L’ultima cena/The Lord’s Supper)
Jésus devant Pilate (Gesù davanti a Pilato/Jesus before Pilate)
L’Ange et les Saintes Femmes (L’angelo e le pie donne/The Angel and the Holy Women)
LA NAISSANCE, LA VIE ET LA MORT DU CHRIST (The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ) (FR 1906): La Flagellation, Ecce Homo, La Crucifixion, L’Agonie
regia/dir: Alice Guy-Blaché. asst: Victorin Jasset. scen: Henri Ménessier. prod: Gaumont. fonte/source: Gaumont Pathé Archives, Saint-Ouen, Paris.
La Flagellation (La flagellazione/The Scourging)
Ecce Homo
La Crucifixion (La crocefissione/The Crucifixion)
L’Agonie (L’agonia/The Agony)
VIE ET PASSION DE N.S. JÉSUS-CHRIST (Life and Passion of Jesus Christ, Our Savior) (FR 1907): Jésus devant Pilate, La Fuite en Égypte
regia/dir: Lucien Nonguet, Ferdinand Zecca. spec. eff: Segundo de Chomón. prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Cineteca del Friuli, Gemona.
LA VIE ET LA PASSION DE JÉSUS-CHRIST (FR 1897): La Fuite en Égypte
regia/dir: Alexandre Promio, Georges Hatot. scen: Marcel Jambon. cast: Gaston Breteau? prod: Lumière. fonte/source: Archives françaises du film du CNC, Bois d’Arcy.
LA NATIVITÉ (FR 1910): Le Repos en Égypte
regia/dir: Louis Feuillade. prod: Gaumont. fonte/source: Gaumont Pathé Archives, Saint-Ouen, Paris.
Le Repos en Egypte
LES CLOCHES DU SOIR (FR 1913)
prod: Gaumont Phonoscène. cast: Marie Dorly? fonte/source: Gaumont Pathé Archives, Saint-Ouen, Paris.
ROUGET DE LISLE CHANTANT LA MARSEILLAISE (FR 1899)
prod: Gaumont. fonte/source: Cinémathèque suisse, Lausanne.
WHAT ARE THE WILD WAVES SAYING, SISTER? (US 1903)
regia/dir: A.E. Weed. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. fonte/source: Library of Congress Packard Center for Audio-Visual Conservation, Culpeper, Virginia.
WAITING FOR SANTA CLAUS (US 1901)
regia/dir: F.S. Armitage. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. fonte/source: Library of Congress Packard Center for Audio-Visual Conservation, Culpeper, Virginia.
LE RÉVEIL DE CHRYSIS (FR 1899)
prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Filmoteca de Zaragoza; Filmoteca Española, Madrid.
LE BAIN DES DAMES DE LA COUR (FR 1904)
prod: Pathé Frères. fonte/source: Filmoteca de Zaragoza; Filmoteca Española, Madrid.
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR (US 1897)
prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. fonte/source: Library of Congress Packard Center for Audio-Visual Conservation, Culpeper, Virginia.
MAX JOUE LE DRAME (FR 1914)
prod: Pathé Frères. cast: Max Linder. fonte/source: La Cineteca del Friuli, Gemona.
THE SPIRIT OF HIS FOREFATHERS (GB 1900)
prod: British Mutoscope & Biograph Co. fonte/source: BFI National Archive, London.
Advertising film for Dewar’s Whisky.
THE WHISKY OF HIS ANCESTORS (GB 1977)
prod: ?. fonte/source: BFI National Archive, London.
Modern television commercial for Dewar’s Whisky incorporating a variant version of the 1900 British advertising film.