1908 - A Very Fine Lady - Louis Feuillade

Today, Louis Feuillade is primarily remembered for his pioneering work on the serial thrillers Fantomas (1913) and Les Vampires (1915). However, the scope of Feuillade’s influence was broader and deeper than is currently remembered.

In 1905, Feuillade started to sell screenplays to Gaumont, who at the time were the second largest film company in France after Pathé. He was recruited by Alice Guy, the pioneering film maker who was responsible for Gaumont’s growth during its formative years.  

Given that by 1910, two-thirds of worldwide film production was produced by French companies, this was a remarkably influential position to hold, the likes of which there is no modern equivalent of today. The likes of Abel Gance, Romeo Bosetti and Marcel L’Herbier worked at Gaumont while he was creative director at Gaumont. Feuillade was also a prolific director; before his death in 1925, he made close to 700 films.

A Very Fine Lady demonstrates Feuillade’s versatility and will surprise those who only know Feuillade through Fantomas and Les Vampires. The film is a simple comedy that owes a significant debt to the early work of Max Linder. Linder’s growing popularity meant that there was demand for more comedy films, but they needed to combine slapstick with a sense of adventure. A Very Fine Lady is as humorous as any of Linder's early films, successfully structuring its comedy around a single conceit. If the film has a weakness, it is that it tails off slightly as it reaches is its climax. But overall, it is a highly amusing film that should have the ability to win over any silent film sceptics that you know.  

A Very Fine Lady follows a beautiful young woman and traces the trouble and fuss she creates among the male population. What makes the film enjoyable is the manner in which the scenarios on display become both increasingly absurd and funny; starting with a shop keeper pouring a bucket water the wrong way (see image above) and reaching its comic peak with a man taking out another gentleman with a large plank of wood, as his sight is distracted by the pretty lady as she walks by (see image below).

We also have one of cinema’s first allusions to an earlier film. As the young lady walks past a gardener watering a public park, you are reminded of one of the Lumiere Brothers’ first films, Le Jardinier (l'Arroseur Arrosé) (1895), where a similar gag is played with a hose pipe (see image below).  

The film is also the first example that we have of the ‘male voyeur's gaze’. In her landmark 1975 essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema ,  Laura Mulvey stated that:

The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man takes the argument a step further into the structure of representation, adding a further layer demanded by the ideology of the patriarchal order as it is worked out in its favorite cinematic form - illusionistic narrative film. The argument returns again to the psychoanalytic background in that woman as representation signifies castration, inducing voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to circumvent her threat. None of these interacting layers is intrinsic to film, but it is only in the film form that they can reach a perfect and beautiful contradiction, thanks to the possibility in the cinema of shifting the emphasis of the look. It is the place of the look that defines cinema, the possibility of varying it and exposing it. This is what makes cinema quite different in its voyeuristic potential from, say, strip-tease, theatre, shows, etc. Going far beyond highlighting a woman's to-be-looked-at-ness, cinema builds the way she is to be looked at into the spectacle itself.

I have always felt that Mulvey’s argument is over-exaggerated and slightly dated, but she certainly raises an interesting debate which I think is well worthwhile pursuing. And although A Very Fine Lady is a straightforward comedy, there is no denying that if we were to apply Mulvey’s reading to film, the genealogy of the ‘male voyeur's gaze’ can be traced back to this film.

For example, returning to the hosepipe scene, the sexual innuendo of the gardener’s hosepipe ushering a fountain of water as the lady walks by (see image below) could be interpreted as adding weight to Mulvey’s assertion.

Film: Ab Initio will return to her argument and the above quote in more detail, when the idea of the ‘male voyeur's gaze’ is found in later films, and it will be interesting to see how well Mulvey’s hypothesis holds (particularly in relation to the Hitchcock films, Vertigo and Rear Window, that Mulvey's argument is predominantly aimed at).

A Very Fine Lady is a fine foray into the world of film making by Feuillade, and it will be interesting to observe the genesis of his directorial skills over the next ten years or so.

The first successful Shakespeare adaptation - 1908 - The Tempest - Percy Stow

Is the concept of a silent Shakespeare film an oxymoron? Absolutely not, I would argue. Shakespeare’s language is a crucial ingredient of his dramatic works, but far too often in recent cinematic adaptations it has been over-emphasised. There is a visceral visual element to many of the key works of Shakespeare that film can capture in a way that the theatre cannot. For example, my favourite cinematic Shakespeare moment involves no language at all: it is when Macbeth has been slain by a sheaf of arrows that pin him against a door in Kurosawa’s 1957 film Throne of Blood (I will have a lot more to say about this scene when we eventually get round to looking at the film).

Percy Stowe’s The Tempest is an extremely brave adaptation of its source material. With the film running at around twelve minutes, Stowe had very little scope to convey the plot of the play. However, limitation often breeds innovation, and the limited running time of the film allowed Stowe to concentrate on the key visual moments of the play.

Yet unlike with his earlier 1903 collaborative effort Alice in Wonderland, which Film: Ab Initio described as ‘enjoyable, charming but lightweight’, The Tempest is a more significant and substantial film. Whereas Alice in Wonderland picked a selection of moments from Carol’s work that felt episodic, with The Tempest, Stowe skilfully constructs a narrative thread that allows the film to have a more cohesive feel to it.

This is partially to do with Stowe’s development as a film maker, but Stowe also owes a significant debt to the rapid speed with which film was developing as a medium. Since 1903, film had witnessed its first superstar (Max Linder), ventured into the world of animation and tackled key historical events in films such as La Presa Di Roma and Stenka Razin.

Although the film leaves out some of the play’s major plotlines, the film is complete enough in itself to convey the narrative threads it does follow to someone who had not read the play (although there is no denying that a viewing of the film, as with any Shakespeare film, is enriched if one has read the play beforehand).

The film’s major success is its portrayal of Ariel. When Ferdinand chases Ariel in the film and she disappears using a simple Mélièsian trick, film has another one of its pivotal moments. This moment crystallises the difference between theatre and film; to put it simply, film can do things that theatre cannot. Although this is not the first time such a moment occurs in film history, given that it happens during the adaptation of a Shakespeare play, it explicitly confirms that film is developing in a separate direction to theatre. And this point extends beyond technical differences; it allows film to accentuate different emotional currents through such visual trickery. Ariel’s ‘disappearances’ in this scene (see image below) highlights the playful nature of Ariel, and more importantly, Ferdinand.

I have seen an awful production of The Tempest where Ferdinand was played in a dry, one-dimensional manner; this film gives the character more colour and depth in twelve minutes than that production managed to do so in two and a half hours!

From the perspective of film history, Ariel is also interesting because she is a Méliès visual trick that is removed from the confines of his studio and transposed onto a naturalistic setting. The most impressive Mélièsian trickery, however, is saved for when Prospero shipwrecks the King of Naples’ ship. I am surprised that the image is not more iconic (see image below).

The bfi’s screenonline is in agreement as to the quality of the film, though it also notes that the film’s attempts to uncover the cinematic qualities of Shakespeare’s text were not followed:

Comfortably the most visually imaginative and cinematically adventurous silent British Shakespeare film, Percy Stow's The Tempest (1908) takes a different approach from that of Dickson's 1899 film of King John, in that it attempts a complete précis of the entire play staged specifically for the cameras...

Curiously, though, no-one seems to have built on its lead, as all surviving silent Shakespeare films have tended to be as stagebound as those made by Stow's predecessors - Frank Benson's Richard III (1911) being typical.

Film: Ab Initio will carefully monitor the progress of adaptations of Shakespeare’s works; with Stow’s The Tempest, film has made a promising start.

Note: Unfortunately, the film for The Tempest cannot be found online, it can only be found on the bfi’s DVD Silent Shakespeare. It is well worth the purchase, and contains several other Shakespeare films that this blog will cover.  

D.W. Griffith's Directorial Debut - 1908 The Adventures of Dollie - D.W. Griffith

It is a common mistake to over-emphasise the importance of a major artist’s first work, particularly when it is framed in the context of his oeuvre rather than the period he was working in. In a thoroughly comprehensive piece on The Adventures of Dollie, Peter Gutmann of Classical Notes overstates the importance of the film:

The Adventures of Dollie is assured of a permanent niche in the annals of art if only because it was the first movie directed by D. W. Griffith, arguably the most important director in the history of cinema. Yet, it is far more significant than a mere historical anecdote – as the starting point from which Griffith’s genius would flow it provides a baseline against which his remarkable achievements can be measured.

Among other first works, Griffith’s first movie leans more toward the technically competent but wholly imitative juvenilia of Mozart than the early works of Beethoven, in which glimmers of a mature, confident and innovative artist are already evident. (Or, to take two extreme examples from the world of film, contrast the soft-core porn that launched the careers of so many famous directors and stars with the astounding brilliance of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.) But even considering that film, by its nature, necessarily is a collaborative art that forecloses most private experimentation and development before embarking on a feature project, Griffith’s first film hardly sprung out of a void.  

(Before I deconstruct the above quote, it must be said that the majority of Gutmann’s piece is an essential read - particularly in regards to providing biographical information in regards to Griffith’s life when he made the film)

I am wholly unconvinced that Griffith is ‘the most important director in the history of cinema’. In fact, one of my major complaints with misconceptions of film in the second decade of the twentiethcentury is that it is viewed as being ‘Griffith’s decade’ and that he alone was moving film into the realm of the feature film and the more naturalistic style of film making that we are accustomed to today.

The framing of The Adventures of Dollie ‘as the starting point from which Griffith’s genius would flow it provides a baseline against which his remarkable achievements can be measured’ burdens this pleasant film 
with expectations it cannot live up to.


The Adventures of Dollie involves a gypsy kidnapping a young girl named Dollie in order to seek revenge against Dollie’s father, who had earlier attacked the gypsy for harassing his young family. The plot is almost identical to Hepworth’s 1905 film Rescued by Rover and quite similar Griffith’s acting debut Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest.

It is a film firmly rooted in its era’s conventions and genres. When we observe the film from this perspective rather trying to ponder whether it is more like the early works of Mozart or Beethoven, a more balanced reading of the film can be obtained. And the film does contain some impressive moments which suggest Griffith will go on to become a substantial director. The shot of the reflection of the surroundings before the horse drawn cart pounds into the water is elegant; the sequence of the film where the barrel rolls down the river adds a layer of suspense while also being an attractive framework for the sequence.

There is a logical flaw in an important part of the set up of the film. When the gypsy hides Dollie in the barrel, surely Dollie would have made some sort of noise to alert the search party she had coming looking for her?
Given the sheer inventiveness of several of the recent films we have looked at (e.g. the lightning-paced animation of Fantasmagorie, the birth of slapstick in Début d'un Patineur, etc.s), the Adventures of Dollie feels slightly underwhelming.

The Early & Silent film blog provides us with some useful information about the film as well as detailing its instant success:

The biography by Richard Schickel [D. W. Griffith An American Life, Touchstone Book 1984) we learn that Griffith directed his first one reel film for Biograph after receiving advice from the veteran cameraman Billy Bitzer. Bitzer was later to become a stalwart of the Griffith production team. The film was taken from a written synopsis at Biograph. Griffith was able to cast the film himself. The cameraman was a Biograph regular, Arthur Marvin. It was he who suggested the locations for the film. The filming took two days. And a month later it was released with apparent success. Biograph still sold its films outright at this period, before a rental system had fully developed. The best total for a film to that date was fifteen prints; The Adventures of Dollie sold twenty-five prints, a new house record.

It is always interesting to learn about a major film maker’s collaborators as it provides the viewer with a more complete understanding of the creative genesis of a movie. The film was written by Stanner E.V. Taylor; it was his first writing credit – he would go on to write and direct films until 1929.


The commercial success of the film does suggest that Griffith had an intuitive sense of what the audience wanted to observe in the new medium of film. As with many commercially successful films that would follow in its steps for the next 102 years, the film plays on the fears of the middle classes as well as having a simple good-evil dichotomy.


The Adventures of Dollie is a solid yet unspectacular venture into filmmaking for Griffith. It will be interesting to observe him hone and develop his craft over the next decade. 

A surreal comic delight - 1908 - The Thieving Hand - J. Stuart Blackton

One can draw a comparison between the birth and exponential growth of cinema and the formation of a star:

Stars are formed from huge clouds of dust and gases, mainly hydrogen and helium (which, combined, are called nebula). As the dust and gases swirl around, they break into clumps and contract due to gravitational forces. As the clumps bump each other and collect more dust and gases, they get bigger, and their gravity, which holds the star together, becomes stronger. Since gravity is so strong, the particles become more tightly packed. Once it is hot enough for nuclear fusion to occur, a star is formed. 

What makes this period (1904-13) so exciting is that it is before the art of film is ‘hot enough for nuclear fusion to occur’ and its star is born. Due to the rapidly evolving technology of the camera (within thirteen years, filmmakers were already making films that were twenty times the length of the Lumiere Brothers’ first actuality films from 1895) and the pioneering vision of filmmakers around the world (the Australians made the first feature film in 1906, the Italians made the first explicit political film a year earlier, etc.) film was very much still ‘dust and gases swirling around’.  

In 1908, film had yet to settle on an expected estimate length or branch off into particular genres; there was a wonderful overlap and fusion of unexpected ideas. There are few better examples of this then J. Stuart Blackton making The Thieving Hand two years after making the first American animated film, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Whereas Humorous Phases was a primitive but entertaining attempt at making an animated film, The Thieving Hand was a pseudo-surrealist live action comedy centring around a false limb.

The Thieving Hand amalgamates some of the most interesting ideas that we have encountered in the films of the first decade of the twentieth century; one can find the visual trickery of Méliès, the comic timing of Max Linder, the narrative sequencing of Porter and the playfulness of Blackton’s own animation work. The film shares certain surrealist elements with Porter’s Dream of a Rarebit Fiend; however, the surrealist aspects of The Thieving Hand are less explicit but more comic. 

The film involves a one-armed street cobbler helping an upper class man (whose hat and cigar bear an uncanny resemblance to Max Linder in Le Premier Cigare d’un Collegien ), who repays the favour by purchasing him an arm from a limb shop (see above). The otherworldliness of the limb shop juxtaposes with the previous scene on the street in an unerring manner that Méliès’ shorter films do not quite manage. The use of a false limb functions in a more subtle and effective manner than one of Méliès’ demons; the limb also manages to function as the proverbial devil on the shoulder of the protagonist (or perhaps even, the protagonist’s subconscious) and land him in trouble.   

The film successfully synergises the aforementioned influences and styles and delivers a simple and thoroughly enjoyable film. In fact, I would suggest that it is an excellent ‘entry point’ for films from this decade. It is thoroughly engaging for a first time viewer, while also alluding to much of the best work of this decade.

The first dramatic Russian film - 1908 - Stenka Razin - Vladimir Romashkov

One need only compare American, French and German films to see how greatly nuances of shading and colouration can vary in motion pictures. In the photographic image itself, to say nothing of the acting and script, there somehow emerge differences in national character

This astute observation from Japanese author Tanizaki Junichiro can apply equally to the film of other nations, and with this idea in mind, we can compare and contrast various countries initial attempts at film making. Stenka Razin, Russia’s 1908 entry into the world of film, re-tells a specific moment in Russia’s history, thus drawing immediate parallels with Italy’s first feature film, La Presa Di Roma. Where La Presa Di Roma was based on the key events which led to the unification of Italy in 1870, Stenka Razin focuses on the Cossack leader of the same name, who led an uprising against the Russian nobility two centuries earlier.

And as with the 1903 version of Alice in Wonderland and the 1907 version of Ben Hur, it was based on a literary source. However, unlike Alice and Ben Hur, it was not based on a source that was so long that meant only specific moments could be shot from that text. Instead, it was based on a popular Russian folk song, which had been written in 1883:

From beyond the wooded island

To the river wide and free
Proudly sailed the arrow-breasted
Ships of Cossack yeomanry.

On the first is Stenka Razin

With his princess by his side
Drunken holds in marriage revels
With his beauteous young bride

From behind there comes a murmur

"He has left his sword to woo;
One short night and Stenka Razin
Has become a woman, too."

Stenka Razin hears the murmur

Of his discontented band
And his lovely Persian princess
He has circled with his hand.

His dark brows are drawn together

As the waves of anger rise;
And the blood comes rushing swiftly
To his piercing jet black eyes.

"I will give you all you ask for

Head and heart and life and hand."
And his voice rolls out like thunder
Out across the distant land.

Volga, Volga, Mother Volga

Wide and deep beneath the sun,
You have never seen such a present
From the Cossacks of the Don.

So that peace may reign forever

In this band so free and brave
Volga, Volga, Mother Volga
Make this lovely girl a grave.

Now, with one swift mighty motion

He has raised his bride on high
And has cast her where the waters
Of the Volga roll and sigh.

"Dance, you fools, and let's be merry

What is this that's in your eyes?
Let us thunder out a chanty
To the place where beauty lies."

From beyond the wooded island

To the river wide and free
Proudly sailed the arrow-breasted
Ships of Cossack yeomanry.

This was a sensible, smart move which allowed Stenka Razin to use a literary source that actually matched film’s relatively short length at that period.

The folk song is a helpful companion piece to the film; it is clear that the film follows its plot quite closely. It is worth pointing out that by using the folk song as the film’s source rather than any historical account of Razin’s life, it allows the film to focus on an emotionally charged moment in his life, rather than focusing on one of his military conquests. The mythology of Razin would only add to the film’s popularity, as was the case with earlier films passed on popular figures, The Great Train Robbery and The Story of the Kelly Gang. Yet unlike those two films, which centre on the violent actions of outlaws, Stenka Razin focuses on its protagonist’s (drunken) abandonment of his princess. 

Thus from its inception, Russian film proved itself to be capable of combining various themes in a populist yet subversive manner.

Stenka Razin, produced by Alexander Drankov (who had previously made a number of Lumiere-esque actuality films), was released on 15^th October 1908 (see the original poster for the film above), a date widely acknowledged as being the birth of Russian cinema. Drankov was very much aware of the importance of this film:

Having spent enormous amounts of money, human labour and time I did everything in my power to ensure that the technical and artistic level of the movie is appropriately high for an epoch-making film in our cinema. 

Unfortunately, the version of the film we have does not contain any score. This is a pity, because Brigit Beumers’ well written A History of Russian Cinema emphasises the importance of the film’s score:

The score for the film was specially composed by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov; this was an outstanding innovation at the time, if we bear in mind that most cinemas of the period employed only pianists to accompany the films. The use of specially composed music highlights the importance of the occasion: the folk songs written for this first Russian film were intended for the audience to hum along to.

Therefore from its inception, Russian cinema was attempting to form a more symbiotic relationship with its audience. Rather than the audience being passive and merely watching the film, Stenka Razin actively encouraged their participation. This adds further weight to the suggestion that choosing a popular folk song as the film’s source was a clever idea. The audience would not only be aware of the film’s story, but the score would also have been familiar to them (listen to the full Russian folk song at the bottom of this post).

The film opens with a shot of Razin’s boat in the distance, with the Volga river at the forefront of the shot. The movement of the river foreshadows some of Tarkovsky’s finest cinematic moments, and is perhaps this film’s most visually impressive scene. 

The majority of the film involves a large number of characters accompanying Razin and his Persian princess around his ship and a forest. Their function is similar to that of the mob in one of Shakespeare’s Roman plays – they are a fickle bunch who will ultimately have a big say in the protagonist’s prospects. After joining in the merriments of the princess’ arrival, then soon turn on her and decide to get Razin drunk in order to make him abandon her and return to their cause.

A slight criticism of the film would be that the titles play too large a role in conveying the plot.  For example, they make us aware of the mob’s plot to get Razin drunk, but we then only get a glimpse of the mob throwing their hats in the air – it would have been more helpful to have actually seen the act of Razin getting drunk.  

Returning to Junichiro’s quote, Stenka Razin is a distinctly Russian film. From its shots of the Volga to its almost obstinate refusal to focus on its main protagonist for more than one minor scene, it is a real pleasure to see Russia enriching the melting pot of cinema with its unique ingredients.