Kino: Cabiria

[Scharphedin2]

Cabiria



1914 Italy B&W 123 Min.
Directed by Giovanni Pastrone

From the cover:

Inspired by grand opera and Italy's imperialist victory in the Libyan War (1911-1912), the Italian movie industry produced dozens of historical epics in the period just before World War I. The most influential and successful of these was CABIRIA, the visually spectacular film which set the standard for big-budget feature-length movies around the world and opened the way for D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. De Mille.

The story concerns a girl -- Cabiria -- who is separated from her parents during the Punic Wars in the Third Century B.C. In her odyssey through the world of ancient Rome, she encounters the eruption of Mt. Etna, capture by pirates, the barbaric splendor of Carthage, human sacrifice and Hannibal crossing the Alps. With meticulous care given to costume and set design, CABIRIA was shot in North Africa, Sicily and the Italian Alps.

This Kino edition was mastered from a premiere quality 35mm print at the correct projection speed. The piano soundtrack, performed by Jacques Gauthier, is adapted from the original 1914 score.

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Following the screening of a restored print of Cabiria -- utilizing footage from a number of different prints from a handful of film museums and private collections -- that brought the film almost back to its original running time of 3+ hours, Roger Ebert wrote a rapturious appraisal that also happened to mention a forthcoming Criterion DVD. This was three years ago, and it was largely responsible for my own postponement of viewing the Kino disc, which I had had on my shelf for a while even then. Since there has been little further substantiation of a Criterion release, I decided to finally view the Kino release, and my reaction at seeing this truncated version was not much different from Ebert's at seeing the restored print.

At the time of its initial release, Cabiria surely must have been seen as something akin to the eighth wonder of the world. The Italian producers did a massive marketing campaign to promote the film, and spared no expense in building an aura of "super artistic masterpiece" around the film. Gabriele D'Annunzio was brought in after the completion of the film to write the intertitles, securing the film a sense of high literary quality in the eye of the public, and the renowned Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti was commissioned to write the score for the tour-de-force sequence taking place inside the Temple of Morloch.

The scope of the film, and sheer sense of ambition, is awe-inspiring, even when seen today. The story (as described in Kino's liner notes above) moves from one astonishing set-piece to another -- The eruption of Mount Aetna early on with the vivid depiction of the destruction wreaked on the Sicilian civilization; the before-mentioned religious rituals inside the Temple of Moloch with fire-breathing idols and human sacrifice; Hannibal and his armies marching across the snowclad slopes of the Alps (with at least one elephant); the defeat of the Roman fleet in the siege of Syracuse at the hands of Archimedes ingenious sun-reflectors(!); the sacking of Carthage by the Romans; and it goes on and on. Many scenes involve hundreds, if not thousands of extras, garbed in beautifully realised costumes, and placed inside incredibly large and detailed sets. And, on top of that, the film boasted a number of technical advances. There are many process shots combining miniatures with live action, and almost imperceptible split screen shots. Above all, the camera moves like it never moved before -- slow, subtle tracking shots in scores of scenes that carefully move in on and reframe characters in closer shot, or pan laterally along a group of characters, and more elaborate setups that take the viewer on a journey across the hall of a temple or banquet to zero in on a group of people, and then in the next shot moves backward away from them. The effect is fantastic in creating a sense of three-dimensionality within the large sets, and it helps to create a stronger sense of identification with the larger-than-life characters. In all these ways, Cabiria sets itself apart from any number of other epics from this period that are accessible to us on DVD -- Last Days of Pompeii, Salaambo, Dante's Inferno, Anthony and Cleopatra (all interesting films, but nowhere near as accomplished or engaging as Cabiria).

A Criterion release of the longer and more complete restoration (or any release of this version by whatever label) would be fantastic news. In the meantime, the Kino disc is a fine way to experience the film.

Some stills from the DVD are located in the screen captures thread.

[Sloper]

Nice appreciation, Sharph – this film really is a jaw-dropping marvel. Watching it is like bathing in a vat of caviar. Only nicer.

After seeing it for the very first time, I had the very depressing experience of reading the other thread dedicated to the film, where this rumour about the three-hour version was discussed and then cruelly fizzled out. A new release of this – hopefully with the same score as on the Kino disc, or something similarly good – would be just about the best news ever.

One reason I’d love to see the longer version is because I feel the film, in its current state, flags a little in the second half, when it gets bogged down in the slightly impenetrable details of the plot. This happens in The Birth of a Nation as well, of course, but because Griffith is so much better than Pastrone at creating believable and sympathetic characters – at telling a story, really – that film holds the viewer’s interest for longer.

The lack of human interest is partly an issue of genre, I think, but even Griffith’s Judith of Bethulia, which is a wash-out in terms of character development, displays a better command of narrative than Cabiria. The otherwise inferior, but still very beautiful, Last Days of Pompeii is also a little more successful in its dealings with the human race. But it would be fascinating to see what this extra footage adds to the film, and whether the whole piece coheres better in its longer form.

Former thread here.

[Scharphedin2]

It has been more than 10 years since I saw Birth of a Nation, so I look foward to re-viewing it sometime soon to see how it compares to Cabiria, and in general how I see it now that I have seen so many more films from the early silent period. From what I remember of it, I cannot disagree with your assessment that Griffith was a director with a greater skill than Pastrone at depicting the human drama -- that much is clear even from his Biograph shorts. On the other hand, Pastrone's mode of storytelling in Cabiria seems to be entirely different from Griffith's (aside from the fact that both Birth and Cabiria are epics).

I think some of the difference in approach comes down to the former being almost a contemporary story, while the latter is an epic of antiquity. In memory, Birth seems to have greater flow and linearity, whereas Cabiria is almost episodic, and it jumps around a lot, and goes to fairly great lenghts to introduce characters that are by and large superfluous to the story. This, however, is also part of the charm to me, and one that in some ways reminded me of reading the classic epics of Greece and Rome. Pastrone breaks from the narrative of Machiste and Cabiria at a point, when he has just been chained to a grindstone for life. Then, "meanwhile," and we are shown the spectacular sequence of Hannibal and his troops crossing the Alps. There is little reason for us to see this famous historical event, except that the historical frame allows for it. Later, there is the excursion into Archimedes' lab, and his experiments with focussing the rays of the sun to generate fire. The sequence is fascinating, and it of course serves the purpose of setting up the defeat of the Roman fleet, but after that the character of Archimedes is dropped altogether.

Adding another hour of footage to the film might present a very different flow to the narrative (I do agree that the film holds together less well in the latter half), and possibly some of the storytelling problems will be cleared up.

[Sloper]

Yes, you’re right to compare it to classical epics – this is what I meant when I said the lack of human interest is partly a genre issue – and as you say, the digressions are a big part of the film’s charm. You could compare it to films like Die Nibelungen, Ivan the Terrible, or Mizoguchi’s 47 Ronin, all of which are instances where a culture is dramatising and reflecting on its own myths. It feels as if the audience is expected to know the story already, and you could easily see Pastrone’s lack of concern for conventional narrative technique as a strength rather than a weakness.

Even the best parts of the Babylonian and medieval strands in Intolerance (or the whole of Judith) have a sort of ‘high camp’ aura to them, a feeling of insecurity on Griffith’s part about telling stories that he doesn’t quite ‘own’ in the way he does that of the Civil War; and this is a characteristic of most subsequent Hollywood epics on biblical or classical themes. Perhaps the best thing about Cabiria (as with the similar films I mentioned above) is its sheer classiness, its decadent self-assurance. It is epic spectacle of the highest order, and it seems kind of obtuse to criticise it for what it lacks, when there is so much in it that is rare and beautiful.

I just read Ebert’s review, and thought this bit was interesting:

Although Pastrone pointed the way, certainly Griffith was a greater filmmaker than the Italian, and his "Birth of a Nation" (1915) moves the camera with greater freedom and has a headlong narrative and an exciting use of cross-cutting that Pastrone does not approach. "Cabiria" moves at a stately pace, depends on title cards of perplexing complexity, and introduces so many characters, cities and plot lines that we are grateful for a princess who becomes a slave and a giant who becomes a hero, because we can follow their stories all the way through.

The line about Griffith ‘moving the camera with greater freedom’ is a typical Ebertian howler: as far as I’ve noticed, aside from a few pans there are only three or four actual ‘moving camera’ shots in The Birth, and they all accompany charges into battle; in a sense, they’re no more innovative than shots taken from moving vehicles, which are in some of the earliest films. Pastrone, on the other hand, seems to get itchy feet if he’s not gliding all over the place, and I’m not sure any director moved the camera with such ‘freedom’ and apparent lack of purpose again until Robert Altman!

But it’s a telling comment, because Griffith’s films do seem far more dynamic, mainly due to his greater attention to editing and acting, and I suppose to the eyes of someone used to watching modern mainstream fare, Griffith stands out as the more advanced (and influential) director. It takes a certain aesthetic temperament, and perhaps the right mood, to appreciate something like Cabiria – I only really enjoyed it on a second viewing, and I wonder if its status as a slightly obscure ‘acquired taste’ movie is partly what’s keeping it from getting re-released.