Cabiria (1914)
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Collection: Motion Picture News, November 1914
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Carolina Catena | Lidia Quaranta | Teresa Marangoni | Dante Testa | Umberto Mozzato | Bartolomeo Pagano | Giovanni Pastrone (Director | Producer)
Rest of cast:
Raffaele di Napoli | Emilio Vardannes | Edoardo Davesnes | Italia Almirante-Manzini | Alex Bernard | Luigi Chellini | Vitale Di Stefano | Enrico Gemelli | Ignazio Lupi | Francesca Bertini | Giuseppe Ferrari | Soava Gallone | Domenico Gambino | Pina Menichelli | Felice Minotti | Amedeo Mustacchi | Fido Schirru | Eugenio Bava (Special Effects Technician) | Segundo de Chomón (Special Effects) | Gabriele D’Annunzio (Titles) | Titus Livius (Book) | Giovanni Pastrone (Writer) | Emilio Salgari (Novel) | Manlio Mazza (Music) | Ildebrando Pizzetti (Music) | Augusto Battagliotti (Cinematographer) | Eugenio Bava (Cinematographer) | Natale Chiusano (Cinematographer) | Segundo de Chomón (Cinematographer) | Carlo Franzeri (Cinematographer) | Giovanni Tomatis (Cinematographer)
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Cabiria
Italia’s big new twelve-part spectacular masterpiece, a worthy successor to illustrious predecessors.
Reviewed by W. Stephen Bush.
This is the day of the new masters. We are witnessing a new style in dramatic kinematography. Within the last four weeks there have been splendid manifestations of a new art on the screen. The skill and the inspiration of the director, the skill and the patient striving of the camera man, a deep and conscientious study of screen possibilities, a new school of actors who have fathomed the mysteries of unspoken language — all these elements working toward the harmony of the whole have in part been responsible for the new school, which is opening the eyes of the world. I have not mentioned the keystone of the success of the new art in this hasty enumeration. The keystone is the story written for the screen and for the screen alone. The freest adaptation imposes restraints on the producer. In the novel we are confronted by the problem of what to leave out and what to leave in, in the adaptation of the speaking stage we are still in the bonds of tradition. How different is the free untrammelled flight of the Muse of the Screen. She conquers every obstacle which is insurmountable to pen or stage.
In Cabiria a genius furnishes the theme — Gabriel d’ Annunzio. He wrote the story directly for the screen. Nobly does the screen respond to every touch of the gifted hand. D’Annunzio is a very wizard of description. In this filmdrama his thoughts and images stand forth as vividly as the summer landscape in a prolonged flash of lightning. The tremendous moral of the play, the keenly dramatic and the broadly humorous, the historic facts — are all absorbed in an incredibly short time. Of course the spectacular features help — with all due respect to its classic predecessors I must confess that in the portrayal of the spectacular this film creates new records. The torrent of fiery flakes, the mouth of the volcano a veritable furnace of the Inferno, spewing forth unceasing sheets of fire, the rush of the fugitives lit up by a ruddy glow which half conceals and half reveals, the temple of Moloch with its worshippers and its fearful rites, the hero of Carthage passing over the Alps, the siege of Carthage, the burning of the ships which the aged Archimedes fought with the power of the sun, all these and a hundred other marvels of the spectacular make this feature pre-eminent among the spectacular successes in all the history of spectacles. It is true that the classic theme always carries the spectacular element best and this advantage the producer has pressed to the limit.
It would be a grave mistake however, to emphasize the spectacular in this film above the dramatic. The spectacular is all the more impressive because an artistic masterhand has subordinated it to the dramatic and poetic moments of the play.
Cabiria is the name of the child whose strange salvation after cruel perils forms the skeleton of the story. The plot takes us to the days when the dominion of Rome was threatened by the growing power of Carthage. To this day the site of Carthage has remained more or less of a mystery. We know that the plough of the Roman conqueror passed over the site of the fated city, but no mortal even in our day knows where the site is. Carthage magnificently situated on the Northern coast of Africa was sending her ships and her soldiers into every part of the world, her trade and the martial spirit of her people made her a conquering nation. At last she threw the gauntlet down and challenged Rome. Rome in later years achieved a magnificence never equalled in the chronicles of man, but at no time in her career was she as rugged, as noble and as brav as in the third century before the Christian era, when the hordes of Carthage set their foot on her sacred soil. In the midst of this struggle between two nations and two civilizations the little girl Cabiria was born in Italy of noble parents. The city in which her parents lived was overwhelmed by a fearful eruption of a volcano and when the wretched survivors looked about themselves even as Nature seemed at last to have tired of her anger, little Cabiria could not be found. She was believed to have perished in the general destruction. Such however, was not the case. She and others were captured in their flight — Phoenician pirates brought them into the slave market at Carthage. She was with her nurse and the man who bought Cabiria also took the little girl’s faithful nurse Croessa. The sweetness and purity of the child attracted the notice of the High Priest of Moloch, the horrible idol to whom little children were sacrificed. He places little Cabiria with the children in the temple where they are being prepared for sacrifice. In spite of all the protests of Croessa little Cabiria is selected as a victim for the next day of sacrifice. Croessa in despair looks about for means of rescuing the little child. Fulvius a Roman patrician and his slave, a huge black, named Maciste are wandering about the outer temple when Croessa begs them to save Cabiria, giving the Roman a charm which she promises will never let him perish.
Just as in the midst of the worshippers in the temple little Cabiria is offered to Moloch the monster that glows and shines and devours, Fulvius and Maciste defy the priests by seizing the child in the moment of its supremest peril. They flee and the black slave escaping offers the child to the queen into whose protection Cabiria is now commended. She grows up to be a beautiful young woman. In the meantime the arms of Carthage have suffered defeat after defeat, the noble Scipio has risen up to grapple with the armies of Carthage and the mighty Hannibal the hero and the hope of Carthage perishes. The priests seeking to divine the cause of the anger of their gods discover that a victim has been hidden from Moloch, hence the impending destruction of Carthage and her people. Cabiria is found and her sacrifice demanded by the priests. How Cabiria is saved again and finally re-united to her parents and joined in wedlock to Fulvius who has dared so much for her is the theme of the last part.
I have only mentioned the more prominent parts of the story, which has many episodes too numerous for detailed recital here. I must at least allude to the tragicomic part of Maciste and the wine-merchant in whose shop so many of the strange adventures of the knight and his servant took pace.
Summing up it may well be said that Cabiria ranks in the very first flight of the masterpieces of kinematographic art. Nor must I omit a tribute to Italy, the country which has given us all our greatest classics in films. Those of us who remember the Italia Company’s first ambitious effort The Fall of Troy will be in a good position of judging of the giant’s strides with which the art is approaching its summit. The Fall of Troy was considered a new departure in 1910, four years later it is eclipsed by Cabiria. Who knows what the next four years may bring?
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- The Attempted Sacrifice of Cabiria
- The Queen’s Dream of Love
- The Death of Sophonisba
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Collection: Moving Picture World, May 1914