Camille (1921)
Mar. 26th, 2006 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersAh, so that's where the plot of Baz's Moulin Rouge came from! And maybe some of the production design as well.
The production design for this silent version of Camille was by the fascinating figure of Natasha Rambova (born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy Hudnut of Utah -- it's worth checking out her biography at IMDb), and it is beautiful Art Nouveau design. I had previously seen her work on Salome (1923), which she based on Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for Oscar Wilde's play. Both of these movies are worth seeing just for the sets and costumes.
Both movies were productions of the star, Alla Nazimova (born Mariam Leventon in Yalta) -- another fascinating character of Old Hollywood. There's lots of interesting gossip about the glamorous parties she threw at her Hollywood home, which she called the Garden of Allah. She was also the aunt of producer-writer Val Lewton, who made a series of classic horror thrillers at RKO in the '40s that were amongst the predecessors of film noir. Camille is Nazimova's show, produced by her own company, and built to showcase her performance. You'd think she would have chosen a more appealing wig for herself. (I've read somewhere that it was an ancestor of the Bride of Frankenstein's hair, although it's not that tall.) Her self-regard also leads to the one major misstep in this film: a final act in which Marguerite's lover, Armand, is kept at an absent distance while Nazimova lays on the nigh-masturbatory bed-ridden pathos. Except for that final scene, the movie is otherwise pretty much perfect.
I've read that the disappearance of Armand from the ending was intentional, because she didn't want to share the limelight with her rising young co-star, Rudolph Valentino (born Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, if you can believe IMDb, in Italy). Valentino's next film, The Sheik (1921), made him a superstar, but here he mostly just stands around looking handsome and virtuous and anxious for Marguerite's well-being. He and Rambova met during the production and got married the next year, although rumors continued that they were shielding each other's homosexuality. (It appears that Valentino was the Tom Cruise of his day.)
One of the nice things about this movie is that it's only 70 minutes long. It has a compact, concise five-act structure that cuts right to the chase, as well as updating it to the modern era. It isn't very subtle in its story, but it is very beautiful and strange to look at. It does not overstay its welcome, whereas I gave up on Garbo's 1936 version less than halfway through. The silent version is treated as an extra on the DVD of Garbo's version, and I should note that another layer of its charm is the sweet, detailed score composed by Peter Vantine, which really captures and complements the flow of feeling in the images.
About four years ago, I decided for some reason to get seriously into film noir, and that quickly led me to the silent German Expressionist films of the '20s as one of the roots of the movement. Before I knew it, I had become fascinated by the whole world of silent film. Now I find myself watching silent genres like weepies that are about as far from film noir as you can get. One thing this movie shares with the German Expressionists is the stylized sets, and there's also one sequence in a rainstorm with utterly gorgeous low-key lighting. It's the pure visual style that I find so mesmerizing, and Nazimova's ornate gestural acting fits right in. Garbo is not the successor to this type of film-making, it is the films Josef von Sternberg made with Marlene Dietrich, particularly that "relentless excursion into style," The Scarlet Empress. The modern heir would be Baz Luhrmann. Nazimova would have felt right at home in the gilded elephant at the Moulin Rouge.
The production design for this silent version of Camille was by the fascinating figure of Natasha Rambova (born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy Hudnut of Utah -- it's worth checking out her biography at IMDb), and it is beautiful Art Nouveau design. I had previously seen her work on Salome (1923), which she based on Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for Oscar Wilde's play. Both of these movies are worth seeing just for the sets and costumes.
Both movies were productions of the star, Alla Nazimova (born Mariam Leventon in Yalta) -- another fascinating character of Old Hollywood. There's lots of interesting gossip about the glamorous parties she threw at her Hollywood home, which she called the Garden of Allah. She was also the aunt of producer-writer Val Lewton, who made a series of classic horror thrillers at RKO in the '40s that were amongst the predecessors of film noir. Camille is Nazimova's show, produced by her own company, and built to showcase her performance. You'd think she would have chosen a more appealing wig for herself. (I've read somewhere that it was an ancestor of the Bride of Frankenstein's hair, although it's not that tall.) Her self-regard also leads to the one major misstep in this film: a final act in which Marguerite's lover, Armand, is kept at an absent distance while Nazimova lays on the nigh-masturbatory bed-ridden pathos. Except for that final scene, the movie is otherwise pretty much perfect.
I've read that the disappearance of Armand from the ending was intentional, because she didn't want to share the limelight with her rising young co-star, Rudolph Valentino (born Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, if you can believe IMDb, in Italy). Valentino's next film, The Sheik (1921), made him a superstar, but here he mostly just stands around looking handsome and virtuous and anxious for Marguerite's well-being. He and Rambova met during the production and got married the next year, although rumors continued that they were shielding each other's homosexuality. (It appears that Valentino was the Tom Cruise of his day.)
One of the nice things about this movie is that it's only 70 minutes long. It has a compact, concise five-act structure that cuts right to the chase, as well as updating it to the modern era. It isn't very subtle in its story, but it is very beautiful and strange to look at. It does not overstay its welcome, whereas I gave up on Garbo's 1936 version less than halfway through. The silent version is treated as an extra on the DVD of Garbo's version, and I should note that another layer of its charm is the sweet, detailed score composed by Peter Vantine, which really captures and complements the flow of feeling in the images.
About four years ago, I decided for some reason to get seriously into film noir, and that quickly led me to the silent German Expressionist films of the '20s as one of the roots of the movement. Before I knew it, I had become fascinated by the whole world of silent film. Now I find myself watching silent genres like weepies that are about as far from film noir as you can get. One thing this movie shares with the German Expressionists is the stylized sets, and there's also one sequence in a rainstorm with utterly gorgeous low-key lighting. It's the pure visual style that I find so mesmerizing, and Nazimova's ornate gestural acting fits right in. Garbo is not the successor to this type of film-making, it is the films Josef von Sternberg made with Marlene Dietrich, particularly that "relentless excursion into style," The Scarlet Empress. The modern heir would be Baz Luhrmann. Nazimova would have felt right at home in the gilded elephant at the Moulin Rouge.
