Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway | |
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Directed by | Joseph Rosenthal |
Written by | E. Armstrong |
Cinematography | Joseph Rosenthal |
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Running time | 15 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway is a 1903 dramatic short film shot in Canada directed by the American pioneering cinematographer and director Joseph Rosenthal, based on the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, The Song of Hiawatha , made in Desbarats, Ontario, with a cast of Ojibway First Nations people. According to the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, it was the first dramatic narrative film to be shot in Canada. [1]
Joseph Rosenthal was the director and cinematographer. E. Armstrong adapted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem The Song of Hiawatha . Hiawatha was 15 minutes long using 800 feet of film. It is considered the first dramatic film in Canadian history. [2] [3] It was considerably longer than the usual productions of 1903, which rarely exceeded three minutes. The film's subtitle was The Passion Play of America and was largely a photographed stage play with Longfellow's words spoken in a natural surrounding. [4] It is now a lost film and only a few pictures remain. [2]