The Dark Swan

A Doll’s House (1907)

Lost in translation …

The wonders of technology slowly crept up on the old world of oil painting and candlelight, throwing open doors of opportunity. Within reach of the working classes, portraiture and its visible record blossomed with the photograph. The spoken word and moving image soon followed. Inventors wisely chose presidents and poet laureates among their initial subjects, preserving a shadowy remnant of the nineteenth century. Many of these fragile records have been lost. The voice of Samuel Clemens, preserved in the wax of an Edison cylinder, exists today in legend only. Others serve as the final glimpse of former greatness. Guisseppe Verdi described Adelina Patti as the greatest singer he ever heard. Recordings of the famous soprano survive, but only as a vague suggestion, the voice of an elderly woman.

Stars of the stage considered motion pictures trivial and unworthy of their talents. Film was an inferior, two-dimensional facsimile of the live theatrical experience. Few submitted to the camera. One noteworthy exception, the great Sarah Bernhardt, produced a handful of very early films. A monumental artist in her twilight, she was undiminished, yet problematic on the screen. Bernhardt’s film work may be the earliest example of a dilemma that still exists.

While early film dramatizations were little more than photographed stage plays, their perspective was intimate and up-close. Flamboyant, exaggerated mannerisms translated quite differently on screen, and the realization of subtle technique in film acting was slow to develop. Bernhardt was magnificent, but her broad performance played to the back row, not the camera. While film had its place it clearly would never replace the experience of live theater.

Over time, developments in acting and technology produced moments of significance. The power found in live performance eluded others when confined to the limitations of film. The Great John Barrymore achieved his lofty status on the stage, not in movies. His persona on film presented a cynical, sarcastic ham actor, narcissistic, drunken and self-deprecating. While these qualities are delightfully intended in George Cukor’s Dinner at Eight (1933), an investigation of critical reviews and theatrical analysis in the nineteen twenties generally indicates that Barrymore was fully appreciated only from the stage. Unfortunately, the great actor chose not to commit his landmark 1922 stage performance of Hamlet to film. Would a dilute record of his melancholy Dane preserve or distort a performance that is now lost from living memory?

Camille (1921)
Saturday, July 14, 5:45 p. m., The Castro, San Francisco

Forbidden love, betrayal and tragic self-sacrifice resonate throughout Alexandre Dumas’ popular novel La Dame aux camélias, published in 1848. The story of a young aristocrat, who falls in love with a courtesan, the "Daughter of Chance," has appeared in a multitude of adaptations on the dramatic stage, in film and opera. Notable versions include Verdi’s La Traviata and a popular English stage adaptation Camille, the subject of many films, first in 1907 and most recently in 1980.

Exotic Russian actress Alla Nazimova developed and starred in this 1921 Metro Pictures production with Rudolph Valentino. A student of the great Stanislavsky, Nazimova first appeared on Broadway in 1906, introducing Ibsen and Chekhov to the American theater while starring in The Cherry Orchard, Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House and many others. Her immense popularity led to a film career, beginning with War Brides (1916) for Selznick Corporation, followed by a succession of financially lucrative films at Metro. During this period Nazimova became an influential figure within the developing ‘Café Society’ of actors, producers, writers and technicians who lived and socialized in the rolling hills above Hollywood.

Nazimova’s Camille showcased the talents of brilliant young scenarist June Mathis and production designer Natacha Rambova, who created unique, unconventional art deco sets and costumes for the film. Handsome young Italian Rudolph Valentino was cast as Armand, Camille’s lover, following his work in Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Conquering Power, both scripted by Mathis. The wave of intense popularity that followed Valentino for the rest of his abbreviated life began in 1921. Nazimova brought a dark elegance and restrained intensity to a character previously identified as cheerfully compliant.

Valentino & Rambova

While Nazimova came to film late, forty-two when Camille was released, and the appreciation of her talent was never fully realized on film, she did exert a planetary influence on many younger performers. Her smoldering, feline sexuality is visible in the thin veneer of sophistication and moody avoidance masking Mae Murray’s utter panic in The Merry Widow (1925), and Carole Lombard’s haughty, posturing, indifference in Howard Hawk’s Twentieth Century (1934).

The 12th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents, Camille with live musical accompaniment on the Castro Theater’s 4/21 Wurlitzer performed by Clark Wilson.