| Vie et Passion du Christ | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Lucien Nonguet (co-director), Ferdinand Zecca (co-director) |
| Starring | Madame Moreau (Virgin Mary) Monsieur Moreau (Joseph) |
| Distributed by | Pathé Frères |
Release dates |
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Running time | 44 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | Silent (French intertitles) |
Vie et Passion du Christ (English: Life and Passion of the Christ) is a 44-minute French silent film that was produced and released in 1903. As such, it is considered the first feature-length narrative film. [1]
The film, with sequences made in the stencil color process Pathéchrome, takes a straightforward approach to its subject matter. All scenes are introduced by an inter-title giving the traditional name of the event (the Annunciation, the Nativity, etc.) followed by the actors playing out the familiar stories from the Gospels. Other than the scene titles, there are no other inter-titles. Many of the scenes attempt to recreate the illustrations of the life of Christ by Gustave Doré in detail. [2]
In 1932, the film was re-issued in the U.S., distributed on a states-rights basis. Instead of the stencil coloring effect, however, the film was printed on red-tinted stock, with a musical score compiled by James C. Bradford.
The original French title for the film was La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ (The Life and the Passion of Jesus Christ). At least ten different Passion Play films were released between 1897 and 1914, including three by Pathé in 1902, 1907, and 1914. [3] The 1902 version was expanded and revised several times by Pathé before an all-new remake was released in 1907. [4]
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The year 1903 in film involved many significant events in cinema.
A feature film or feature-length film, also called a theatrical film, is a narrative film with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term feature film originally referred to the main, full-length film in a cinema program that included a short film and often a newsreel. Matinee programs, especially in the US and Canada, in general, also included cartoons, at least one weekly serial and, typically, a second feature-length film on weekends.
Jesus of Montreal is a 1989 Canadian comedy drama film written and directed by Denys Arcand, and starring Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening and Johanne-Marie Tremblay. The film tells the story of a group of actors in Montreal who perform a Passion play in a Quebec church, combining religious belief with unconventional theories on a historical Jesus. As the church turns against the main actor and author of the play, his life increasingly mirrors the story of Jesus, and the film adapts numerous stories from the New Testament.
Charles Morand Pathé was a pioneer of the French film and recording industries. As the founder of Pathé Frères, its roots lie in 1896 Paris, France, when Pathé and his brothers pioneered the development of the moving image. Pathé adopted the national emblem of France, the cockerel, as the trademark for his company. After the company, now called Compagnie Générale des Éstablissements Pathé Frères Phonographes & Cinématographes, invented the cinema newsreel with Pathé-Journal.
Stories from the Bible have frequently been used in films. There are various reasons for motion picture producers to turn to the Bible as source material. The stories, in the public domain, are already familiar to potential audiences. They contain sweeping, but relatively straightforward, narratives of good versus evil, and feature crowd-pleasing battles, sword fights, natural disasters, and miracles.
Ferdinand Zecca was a pioneer French film director, film producer, actor and screenwriter. He worked primarily for the Pathé company, first in artistic endeavors then in administration of the internationally based company.
Alfred Machin was a French actor and film director. He is remembered to have been one of the few French film directors whose films expressed progressive tendencies before World War I. He was also a pioneer of aerial filming. After 1920 Alfred Machin devoted himself to films of animals.
Gertrude Homan Thanhouser, wife of co-founder Edwin Thanhouser, worked at the Thanhouser Company film studio as actress, scenario writer, film editor, and studio executive. Her efforts made the studio one of the key independent US film studios in the nickelodeon and transitional era, praised for its erudite adaptations of Shakespeare and other "classical" stage dramas to the screen.
Segundo Víctor Aurelio Chomón y Ruiz was a pioneering Spanish film director, cinematographer and screenwriter. He produced many short films in France while working for Pathé Frères and has been compared to Georges Méliès, due to his frequent camera tricks and optical illusions. He is regarded as the most significant Spanish silent film director in an international context.
Julienne Alexandrine Mathieu was one of the earliest French silent film actresses who appeared mostly in French silents between 1905 and 1909. She appeared in the silent film Hôtel électrique released in 1908, one of the first films to incorporate stop animation. She was the wife of the director Segundo de Chomón. Her contribution to his work was not only her participation in the cast, but also in the script and the special effects.
The Conquest of the Pole is a 1912 French silent science fantasy trick film directed by and starring Georges Méliès. The film, loosely inspired by contemporary events and by Jules Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires, follows the comic misadventures of an international group of explorers on an expedition to the North Pole, where they encounter a man-eating frost giant and a dangerous magnetic needle.
Georges Méliès (1861–1938) was a French filmmaker and magician generally regarded as the first person to recognize the potential of narrative film. He made about 520 films between 1896 and 1912, covering a range of genres including trick films, fantasies, comedies, advertisements, satires, costume dramas, literary adaptations, erotic films, melodramas, and imaginary voyages. His works are often considered as important precursors to modern narrative cinema, though some recent scholars have argued that Méliès's films are better understood as spectacular theatrical creations rooted in the 19th-century féerie tradition.
Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset was an early film pioneer in France, active between the years 1905 and 1913. He worked on many genres of film and was particularly associated with the development of detective or crime serials, such as the Nick Carter and Zigomar series.
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès was a French magician, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of cinema.
Cinderella is an 1899 French trick film directed by Georges Méliès, based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 219–224 in its catalogues, where it is advertised as a grande féerie extraordinaire en 20 tableaux.
Christ Walking on the Water is an 1899 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès.
Par le trou de la serrure is a 1901 French silent short comedy film directed by Ferdinand Zecca and distributed in France by Pathé Frères. It was also distributed in the United States under the titles What Is Seen Through a Keyhole and What Happened to the Inquisitive Janitor, and in the United Kingdom under the titles What Happened: The Inquisitive Janitor and Peeping Tom.
William Tell is a 1903 French silent short film directed by Lucien Nonguet and distributed in France by Pathé Frères. The original French title is Guillaume Tell. It is the first film adaptation of the eponymous play by Friedrich Schiller.
Lucien Henri Nonguet was a French film director, actor and screenwriter. He was one of the first film directors and screenwriters of the Pathé company.
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