Vie et Passion du Christ | |
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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.
Its original French title was La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ (The Life and the Passion of Jesus Christ).
The year 1903 in film involved many significant events in cinema.
The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 American epic biblical drama film produced, directed, and co-written by Mel Gibson. It stars Jim Caviezel as Jesus of Nazareth, Maia Morgenstern as Mary, mother of Jesus, and Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It also draws on pious accounts such as the Friday of Sorrows, along with other devotional writings, such as the reputed visions attributed to Anne Catherine Emmerich.
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.
Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré was a French printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravings illustrating classic literature, especially those for the Vulgate Bible and Dante's Divine Comedy. These achieved great international success, and he became renowned for printmaking, although his role was normally as the designer only; at the height of his career some 40 block-cutters were employed to cut his drawings onto the wooden printing blocks, usually also signing the image.
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.
Michel Henry was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japan.
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.
La Comédie humaine is Honoré de Balzac's 1829–48 multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48).
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.
Henri Ghéon, born Henri Vangeon in Bray-sur-Seine, Seine-et-Marne, was a French playwright, novelist, poet and critic.
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 Church of Old Saint Peters is a by simultaneum Catholic and Lutheran church building in Strasbourg, Alsace is first mentioned in 1130.
Détresse et Charité, released in the United States as The Christmas Angel and in Britain as The Beggar Maiden, is a 1904 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 669–677 in its catalogues.
The Pleyben Parish close is a historical cathedral complex at Pleyben in the Châteaulin arrondissement of Brittany in northwestern France. The enclosed paroissial comprises the parish church dedicated to Saint Germain of Auxerre, a funeral chapel/ossuary, a triumphal arch serving as the enclosed entrance, and the Calvary at Pleyben. The building is dominated by two bell towers. The rightmost, known as the Saint Germain, is in the Renaissance style and is topped by a lanterned dome; whilst the other has a Gothic style spire. Between the towers is a stair turret with pinnacles and an ornate spire. The close is a listed historical monument since 1846.
Christ Walking on the Water is an 1899 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès.
The Buhl Altarpiece is a late 15th-century, Gothic altarpiece of colossal dimensions now kept in the parish church Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Buhl in the Haut-Rhin département of France. It was painted by followers of Martin Schongauer, most probably for the convent of the Dominican sisters of Saint Catherine of Colmar, and moved to its present location in the early 19th century. It is classified as a Monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.
Eddy de Pretto is a French singer-songwriter and actor.
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.