Cabiria

thumb|thumbtime=12|Cabiria (full video)

Cabiria is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War (218–202 BC). It follows the story of an abducted little girl, Cabiria, and features an eruption of Mount Etna, religious rituals in Carthage, the alpine trek of Hannibal, Archimedes' defeat of the Roman fleet at the Siege of Syracuse and Scipio maneuvering in North Africa. Apart from being a classic on its own terms, the film is also notable for being the first film in which the long-running film character Maciste makes his debut. According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the epic movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Among those was the extensive use of a moving camera, thus freeing the feature-length narrative film from "static gaze".

The historical background and characters in the story are taken from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita (written ca. 27–25 BC). In addition, the script of Cabiria was partially based on Gustave Flaubert's 1862 novel Salammbô and Emilio Salgari's 1908 novel Cartagine in fiamme (Carthage in Flames). It was the first film shown at the White House, having been viewed on the South Lawn, by the President, First Lady, Vice President, his wife, members of the Cabinet and their wives, due to the summer heat in June 1914.

Plot summary

First episode

Batto and his young daughter, Cabiria, live in a lavish estate in the shadow of Mount Etna, at Catania, on the island of Sicily. Cabiria plays with dolls with her nurse, Croessa. When the volcanic Etna erupts violently, Batto prays to the god Pluto for deliverance but receives only a brief respite before his home and gardens are destroyed. While attempting to escape, servants discover a secret stairway leading underground. Taking advantage of the chaos and plundering Batto's hidden underground treasure, the servants, along with Croessa and Cabiria, flee to the countryside. Batto and his wife mourn the loss of Cabiria, as they believe her to be buried beneath the rubble.

Second episode

thumb|left|The Temple of Moloch episode, as seen on a poster

The fugitive servants divide up the treasure (Croessa gets a ring) and make for the sea but soon run afoul of Phoenician pirates who take Croessa and Cabiria to Carthage, where the little girl is sold to Karthalo, the High Priest. He intends to sacrifice her to the great god Moloch. Also in Carthage are two Roman spies: Fulvius Axilla, a Roman patrician, and Maciste, his huge, muscular slave. The innkeeper, Bodastoret, welcomes Fulvius and Maciste to his Inn of the Striped Monkey. Croessa tries to prevent the sacrifice of Cabiria by pretending that the child is ill, but Croessa is whipped for her deception. Later, she chances upon Fulvius and Maciste. Recognizing them as fellow countrymen, she implores them to assist her. The film was noted as being the first popular film to use the tracking shot – the camera is mounted on a dolly allowing it to both follow action and move within a film set or location. The tracking shot in itself was nothing new. "Panorama" effects (lateral and vertical) had been used frequently in film since 1896, but Cabiria, with the new freedom provided by the dolly, is innovative in introducing "zoom" movement, towards and away from the scene, which for years afterwards was referred to by both cameramen and directors as a "Cabiria" shot. This movement was such an innovation at the time that other film makers quickly incorporated it. The film was a major influence on D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916) but he never uses "Cabiria" shots; the famous crane shot moving down and into the festival in Babylon is a "panorama" effect.

The elephants used in several scenes in the film are Indian elephants, rather than the much smaller and less intimidating North African elephant (which, though used in Hannibal's invasion, was long extinct at time of filming) or the African elephant (which is undomesticable).

Film critic Roger Ebert has said that Griffith "moves the camera with greater freedom and has a headlong narrative and an exciting use of cross-cutting that Pastrone does not approach", (The Birth of a Nation was the first movie shown in the White House, in the East Room.)

A restored version of Cabiria was screened on 27 May 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival, featuring a filmed introduction by director Martin Scorsese.

Plot summary

First episode

Second episode

See also

References

Footnotes

Sources

External links