Obsessive Love: and Go to the Movies

Reinhold Zwick

The biblical story of Samson, which the recognised ‘Introductions to the ’ rubricate under the somewhat sparse genre-labels of ‘heroic narrative’ (Niehr 2001, 199), ‘heroic saga’ or ‘folk tale’ (Dohmen, no date given, 1f.), is irrespective of its episodic structure and some inner tensions1 an excellent plot for the movies. For it contains all ingredients for an opulent spectacular in cinemascope. The biblical story, already, is organised in a markedly scenic-dramatic if not proto-filmic fashion: with its precise dialogues, its appealing settings ranging from bedroom to battlefield and scores of incentives for special-effects. Also regarding the storyline, the four chapters of the (Judg 13:1–16:31) deserve the predicate ‘ideally suited for the cinema.’ Only few printed pages bursting with action, offering everything the movies—as before the opera!—have at all times held near and dear: desire and brutality, pas- sion and hate, love and blindness, and deceitfulness, treachery and vengeance, beauty and strength, violence and sacrifice. Since such narrative coordinates had for decades attracted the attention of Holly- wood’s ambitious censors and guardians of public morals—on the side of Churches converging in the ‘Legion of Decency’ or by appointment of the state observing compliance with the strict ‘Production Codes’ (aka. ‘Hays Code’, cf. Skinner, 1993; Black 1994, Walsh 1996)—, a foundation in religious material proved most advantageous. At all times, the religious, or best biblical subject rendered a good deal of violence and sex possible, which otherwise would have fallen victim to the censors. Therefore, it was far from surprising that Samson made his way quite early onto movie screens: His career began in 1903; and he is thus argu- ably the first figure of the Old Testament on celluloid! The firstling, pro- duced by the French film-studio Pathé, was directed by Ferdinand Zecca, who shortly after became well-known for his movies about . In 1905

1 For a recent source-critical attempt to distinguish different layers of the text cf. Meurer 2001. 212 reinhold zwick two movies about followed the strong man from the tribe of ; 1906 to 1908 Judith, Moses2 and ensued (cf. Fernández Cuenca 1960, 1f.). In 1908 Zecca himself directed a remake of his first Samson movie, with more than thirty minutes twice as long as the first. At the end of the movie, after Samson has killed thousands of , himself dying a heroic death, Zecca lets him ascend into the heavens. Apparently Zecca’s perspective on the Old Testament had already been thoroughly affected christologically, due to the strong growth of his œuvre about Jesus (cf. ibid., 5). The same year, 1908, saw another ‘Sansón’ presented by Pathé: This ten minute long film was directed by routinier Alberto Capellani, who realized twenty films in this very year. The titles oscillated between ‘La Belle au bois dormant’ and ‘Don Juan’, which did not prevent him from jaunting into , surely enough without being unfaithful to his affection for erotically charged subjects (cf. www.imdb.com).

1. Samson as Hero of Neomythic Spectaculars

Once Samson was established as a movie-hero he experienced numerous remakes. He was particularly en vogue during the period of silent movies, which on its own displayed just under twenty adaptations. The encyclo- paedic ‘Internet Movie Database’ has more than sixty movies registered featuring a ‘Samson’ (in various spellings) in the title for movie history up to the present day. However, closer examination reveals that around half of these movies only share the name with the biblical character. The remaining movies—after subtracting four movie adaptations of Camille Saint-Saëns’ famous opera ‘Samson et Delilah’ (premièred 1877)—can be divided into two categories. The smaller one forms itself around the actual Bible movies which have been produced for the cinema or, subsequently, for broadcast on television.3 Yet, the larger group is constituted by the so-called neomythic films. These can be understood as films which (in the present case) nominally have ancient or biblical characters as heroes. However, they do not try to adapt time-honoured traditions of myths, legends or sagas, but invent new, mostly quite fantastical plots. The Amer- ican jargon uses the term ‘sword and sandal’-movies, given that the mov- ies deploy a setting in ancient history. Among German film-critics, on the

2 Different sources state with varying precision that , too, became a movie hero for the first time in 1903. 3 Among them the American cartoon for children: ‘Samson & Delilah’ (1985).