Film: Silent No More Author(S): Kevin Rockett Reviewed Work(S): Source: Circa, No

Home , Rex Ingram (director)

Film: Silent No More Author(s): Kevin Rockett Reviewed work(s): Source: Circa, No. 66 (Winter, 1993), pp. 28-33 Published by: Circa Art Magazine Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25557855 . Accessed: 22/01/2012 09:10

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FILM

Silent No More

Rex Ingram was a major force inAmerican cinema of the 1920s. Kevin Rockett re-assesses his importance for Irish film studies.

To mark the centenary of the birth of land, silent films including Battleship who viewed Ingram's films in Dublin expe Rex Ingram, the Irish-born film Potemkin (1926) and New Babylon (1929), rienced as smooth a technical exercise as any was one maker who at time Holly have been presented with live orchestral ac in their local cinema. wood's highest paid director, The Four companiment at the National Concert Hall Brownlow's work on the silent cinema Top: a drawing by Rex Horsemen the was the few years the Irish Film was well established the time the of Apocalypse (1921) during past by already by Ingram for The Four screened at the National Concert Hall last Institute. The of The Four Horse series was screening Hollywood transmitted, especially Horsemen of the Apocalyse September. Four more of Ingram's silent men of the Apocalypse, organised by the Film due to his mammoth book of interviews features were shown at the Irish Film Centre Institute, was the first occasion on which the with American silent cinema workers, The Opposite: Rex Ingram team and cameraman and the Pordenone Film Festival in Italy, the Brownlow/Davis presented their work Parade's Gone By..., first published in 1968. John Seta only film festival devoted exclusively to in Ireland. The rapturous reception accord But it was in fact the Irish film historian a event to silent cinema, organised retrospective of ed the testifies the popularity of the Liam O'Leary's Silent Cinema, published Ingram's work. These events allow us not experience. three years earlier, which was the first 'mod to some can only explore of Ingram's cinematic Popular interest in the silent cinema ern' book to celebrate the rich diversity of to to an area most to concerns, but draw attention of be clearly traced Brownlow and the silent cinema in English. And, it was cinema history which has been little appre David Gill's Hollywood television series first O'Leary's biography of Rex Ingram, first ciated in Ireland until recently. transmitted in 1980, with music by Carl published in 1980 [1], which drew attention During the last twenty years in particular, Davis. The series showed clips together with to Ingram as a major force in the American a wide range of sophisticated film research directors, cameramen and actors recalling cinema of the 1920s, a fact confirmed since on and academic scholarship has focussed the early years of American cinema. The then in Michael Powell's autobiography: to a can the silent period. This work has, degree, programmes be readily criticised for Powell learned his trade under Ingram's su united film archivists, 'traditional' film histo anecdotal and ahistorical impressionism, and pervision in France. reason con on as rians and theorists. The for this its concentration great auteurs such What O'Leary and Brownlow have in are was a common a vergence and upsurge of interest many D.W. Griffith, who the subject of sep is historiography which is largely same and diverse, but one of the happy results has arate three-part series by the team confined to a celebratory appreciation of a move been concerted to establish silent transmitted in 1993. cinema while often reducing the cinema and as a area as as a to cinema valid of study well However, despite these qualifications, its history the anecdotal, biographical and to as desire celebrate the silent cinema 'experi Brownlow and Gill's series have served impressionistic recall by its practitioners. as a own a ence' major aesthetic event in its useful statements of the cultural and histori What they lack is critical methodology. right, thanks to newly struck copies of the cal value of this neglected area of cinema. This missing dimension received its first films and specially commissioned orchestral The simple technical feat of projecting silent major public expression at the International accompaniment. cinema at the correct speed, rather than with Federation of Film Archives' Conference at com we Film historian Kevin Brownlow and the jerkiness associate with, for example, Brighton in 1978. There, and in its subse poser Carl Davis have been at the forefront the Charlie Chaplin films projected at 24 quent publication, Cinema 1900-1906: an of this development through their restora frames per second rather than the required analytical study (1982), and in many other tion work in the Thames Television's Silent speed (which approximates 18-frames per fora and publications, silent cinema, espe a sense Classics, and through television documen second), immediately establishes of cially the Early Cinema (the period before tary series devoted to silent cinema. In Ire visual continuity with sound cinema. Those the establishment of Classical Narrative Cin

CIRCA 29 a ema by about 1917), became of major inter pay higher ticket prices. As consequence, est to film scholars. new production and exhibition patterns Ingram's visual comment When we talk about the silent we evolved both social class lines and in on the IrishCivil War cinema, along are, therefore, exploring two quite different the content of films themselves. was but complementary projects: Early Cinema, In Ireland, however, the pattern dif and also the establishment of Classical Nar ferent. With the exception of occasional rative Cinema, the form of Hollywood cin nomic discourses informing 'production', local interest actuality items, and, from 1910 some ema which had its apotheosis during the pe but has also been concerned with the dis onwards, fiction films by foreigners, all courses a riod from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of of 'consumption', that is to say, films shown were imported. With severely areas was the main which has proved to be pro what the audience making of all this. depressed local economy in Dublin during was ductive in the study of Early Cinema has The inter-relationships between the devel the early 1900s, it primarily the middle been the close examination of the develop opment of film form, technology, industry class which could afford to attend the cine ment of film form and narrative. One well and audiences have become key elements in ma. As a result, news, travel and some com were known example, La Sortie des usines Lumiere the study of cinema. Indeed, with only edy items shown in programmes a were (1895) (Workers Leaving Factory), made about 20 per cent of the films of the silent which accompanied by operatic and to a as as a by the factory's owners, helps illustrate period surviving, it is pragmatic well other high art musical interludes. That the the methodological break in approach to necessary amendment to those versions of advertisements for such programmes at the Early Cinema. Traditionally, film studies film history which confine themselves to Rotunda, the main Dublin 'cinema' venue or might have confined this single-shot film to chronicles of matters industrial to textual during this decade, announced the availabili or a or a simple 'plotless' 'documentary' record analysis of small group of 'key' 'classic' ty of carriages to take the patrons home after a a of workers leaving factory after day's films. As Douglas Gomery and Robert C. the show, confirms that during the 1900s, ex a was work. But, Marshall Deutelbaum [2], for Allen declared [3] in famous phrase, "for film viewing in Dublin both socially an ample, draws attention to its careful struc certain investigations, film viewing is really in and ideologically geared to the middle class. was ture which begins with the gates of the fac appropriate research method". This pattern broken by James Joyce as tory closed, then opened the workers This statement helpfully draws attention when he opened the Volta Cinema in De leave and walk past the camera, and the away from the often over-determined film cember 1909. Choosing to screen an Italian gates then closing again, an action which textual readings to the exclusion of the film telling a story of patricide, The Tragic was also closes the film and the narrative. Tradi broader contexts of industrial production, Story of Beatrice Cenci (1909), he rebuked a tionally, such film has been described, de distribution and exhibition practices. Exami by the Freeman's Journal for showing such a a as at ploying simplistic opposition, being nation of cinema in Ireland before 1914 il film only five days before Christmas. While the origins of so-called documentary cine lustrates the usefulness of this approach. Joyce did not remain long as manager of the as ma, while Georges Melies. is cited the Unlike the metropolitan centres of film Volta, it is the first known public qualifica origin of fiction or fantasy cinema. Now, production in Europe and the USA, Ireland tion of a film being shown in Dublin. With are seen as a more no a both kinds of film parts of had indigenous fiction film production in year, others, including the Archbishop two were on complex process: the elaboration of cine during the first decades of cinema. In of Dublin, calling for restrictions matic narrative. Ireland, the consequence for film studies of the films being shown, while the whole Within a short time, these one-shot films the late development of indigenous fiction spectrum of Catholic and nationalist politi a were superseded by multi-shot films, with film production allows for broader ap cal, cultural and sporting groups could find the consequent development of editing and proach to questions of film narrative and a themselves in comfortable alliance by 1913 more on the evolution of key genres, especially topi direct focus exhibition and distrib calling for film censors to be established by cals or actualities, but also the chase film and ution practices. Here we can trace often im Dublin Corporation. the western. By the end of the first decade portant differences from the institutional What had changed, of course, during the of'cinema', its commercial institutional pat patterns which predominated in the metro four years before World War One, was that more a terns were also becoming clearly iden politan centres. For example, and to simplify there had been huge expansion in cinemas tifiable. a complex set of industrial, demographic and in Dublin. In 1914 Dublin Corporation is It has been one of the strengths of the social class data, cinema exhibition in Britain sued 25 cinema licenses. This transformation not out as scholarship of Early Cinema that it has and in the USA started being of pri in commercial entertainment brought to to to confined itself the development of film mary interest the working class, and cheaper-priced local cinemas to working form or to close textual readings of films. immigrants in the case of the USA. Soon, class areas, while the content of American at were Instead, it has looked the whole range of however, the need for large-scale capital in and European films increasingly at discourses which surround and help define vestment in production necessitated the mo variance with the conservative Christian as an a the cinema aesthetic-industrial institu bilisation of middle class audience and the morality which remained prevalent in a pre tion. This scholarship has paid particular at consequent re-organisation of exhibition via dominately rural Ireland. Indeed, the Amer eco tention, of course, to the industrial and Picture Palaces to attract people who could ican film, Neptune's Daughter (1914), direct

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was never to ed by Irish-born Herbert Brenon, prob the left Ireland return, it could be said Ingram retained all One of the elaborate sets the first film a of re that while not on ably disrupted by group attributes of the Ingram, directly drawing built for The Four zealots as part of their campaign Ireland for his films, did parasitically draw ligious Irishman Horsemen of the the cinema. A and occa on many other cultures for his films. He against scantily-clad professional Apocalypse - not so. sionally nude Annette Kellerman plays the abroad including was, of course, unique in doing But, title role in the film whose while all the attributes of the notoriety pre celebrating St. Patrick's Day retaining pro ceded it to Ireland. It wasn't before the fessional Irishman cele long and Irish tunes on abroad, including censorship campaigners achieved their goal playing brating St. Patrick's Day and playing Irish censors film sets tunes on of having film appointed by Dublin this his film sets, Ingram's ignoring of as matter Corporation. Appropriately, perhaps, this Ireland subject for his films while occurred within six months of the 1916 a cloaked and hooded skeleton symbolising exploring the exoticism and mystique of a man a seem so sur Rising and serves as a useful reminder that death offers a revolver to ploughing non-western cultures, may not the decade preceding independence laid the field. While the evidence suggests that In prising when you consider the effect of the a events groundwork for the cultural protectionism gram had relatively happy childhood in traumatic of both World War One was not on that was such a significant feature of the Ireland, he obviously enamoured of and of the Irish War of Independence a someone policies of the Irish state from 1922 until the the country's politics, view shared by his of his generation and background. mid-1960s. father, who, like many other Protestants, left By the time Four Horsemen was released, an Like his fellow countryman Herbert Ireland for Britain, in his case in 1924. The Ingram was already established film direc one was to an Brenon in the 1910s, Rex Ingram was also drawing constitutes of Ingram's few tor, though this epic make him on a to face the wrath of the changing and in comments Ireland, country he left in internationally famous director. In the tradi at a creasingly insular social and cultural climate 1911, the age of 18. tion of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of Nation of the 1920s. In January 1923, when The Liam O'Leary prefaced his biography of (1915), Four Horsemen employed 12,000 was a one Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse released Ingram with series of quotations, of people, including 14 cameramen, while five a film were one in Dublin, "a savage attack by narrow-minded which cites James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, million feet of shot for the as mas sectarian press did not lessen its popularity" [4]. describing Ingram simply 'pageant million dollar production. Four Horsemen traces a In his own way, Ingram returned the com ter'. Another quotation is from Rostand's the fortunes of two branches of fam a am too pliment with drawing of his vision of the Cyrano de Bergerac, beginning: "J proud ily who, following the death of the grandfa a as someone return to Ar then raging Irish Civil War. In the drawing, to be parasite". Ironically, who ther/patriarch, Europe from

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one to the other to masses is dissolved. roles Left: Ingram in The Spirit gentina, going Germany, Ingram was rash enough to quickly Leadership before World War One. The are first of all taken a and theQay Vrtagraph France, just state that by young cleric, hardly son is as a a European an 1914. patriarch's represented libertine, institution leading revolutionary change on would account trait passed to his son, Julio (Rudolph production at this time, while the cleric's friend, Andre, at work on as an Right Ingram Valentino). Working artist in France, for half world output within who takes up the cause, and is elected a a in sculpture, Hollywood, draws the married member of the National the Julio Marguerite (Alice a few years Assembly by 1940s an to Terry) into affair, which leads her democratic masses, turns out to be the ille It is son a abandoning her husband. only when gitimate of degenerate and blood her conscience is stirred her guilt-ridden by thirsty aristocrat. This relationship of father returns as as son husband who blind from the battle and Four Horsemen well in many earlier and could readily benefit from an oedi is torn are now field that she between love and duty. films which lost, contain many such pal reading, not least through an examina for In However, her love Julio draws her back elements. Four Horsemen, the riders of the tion of their regular swordplay. Andre leaves to him but in the tradition of title Famine and Paris again, many represent Conquest, War, with his aristocratic mother and girl the lovers do not live but it is the Ingram films, young Death, Mystic who signals their friend with the blessing of the revolutionary ever after. dies on the battle at happily Julio presence. Ingram's displacement of the hor mob whom he calms. As the beginning of to rors war onto a as field and Marguerite commits herself her of mystical plane, is also evi the film, set it is in a pastoral village, so, husband's welfare. Before his death, Julio, dent in Mare Nostrum, where the young too at the end, as the trio leave the new encounters are in sea. while fighting for France, his lovers reunited death beneath the 'Terror' behind to return to pastoral bliss. cousin on an anti career was a German the battlefield, Another aspect of Ingram's his Though the film ends with sympathetic war in theme which the film endorses. interest North Africa, where he made representation of the revolutionary masses, war or inter The theme of national duty three films, including his only sound feature, by then their mob-like behaviour has clearly with or romance recurs in In Baroud some fering family (1932). Indeed, evidence sug signalled their unsuitability for power. Lying In Prisoner gram's films. The of Ztnda (1920), gests that having abandoned his Protestant in the wings, observing the revolutionary to for example, Rassendyll, who impersonates upbringing he converted Islam while in mob, is Napoleon Bonaparte, the man who the imprisoned king, falls in love with Morocco. In The Garden of Allah (1927), would not only reverse many of the gains of Princess Flavia, but they sacrifice their love Christian self-sacrifice is displaced to North the Revolution, but would embark on a de as to her national duty is marry the real Africa. A Trappist monk who leaves his structive imperialist conquest of much of even not a king, though she does love him. In monastery meets young woman, Dominie, Europe and beyond. For Ingram it is the re a treat Mare Nostrum (1926), World War One and marries her, without revealing his past. to the pastoral idyll, abandoning the story, the married ship-owner Ulysses Fer Overcome by guilt, and pledging to return city, which becomes his ideal. in a to are a was ragut falls love with German spy, Freya, the monastery if they rescued from By the time Scaramouche being made, are new the consequences of which that Ulysses' storm, Dominie is consoled by her Ingram himself was planning his own form son is is is is as killed, his marriage ended, Freya found faith and the child she bearing, of retreat from the ironically titled City of sea. executed, and Ulysses himself dies at the monk returns to his celibate existence. Angels. Despite the commercial success of war once seen overcome The intervention of is again While the young lovers in Baroud his films, and his apparent integration within as war a responsible for the destruction of the fam sectarianism and in Moroccan setting, the Hollywood studio system, he was far as are ily, Ulysses' greed leads him away from they, too, separated in the end. from happy with its work environment. a was home and into fatal attraction. Bizarrely, Ingram apparently less concerned Even at the level of his films' narrative clo a war The Magician (1926), where demonic Alas with the material conditions of and sures, and interestingly he has this in com tair Crowley-type character who has used power, rather than more abstract notions of mon with Herbert Brenon, his films did not, to a one his mystical powers entrance young duty and sacrifice, and film which is set in general, provide the narrative resolutions one at a woman, is of the few Ingram films time of revolutionary change, Scara perhaps being demanded by the studios. are re where the real lovers successfully mouche (1923), betrays Ingram's limited ide However, after the critical and commercial united. ological and historical sense. Set in the peri success of Scaramouche, which does have a Ingram's interest in the exotic and in od of the French Revolution, the film's ap conventional ending, Ingram was given recurs mysticism in his films. The Magician parent sympathy with the revolutionary grudging permission by Metro to make The

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was Arab in Tunisia, with interiors filmed in gram's wife, Alice Terry, who played the his interest in the visual arts to continue Ingram instructs Rudolph Paris. While he was in Metro lead in his decided to re his life. he even away Europe, greatest triumphs, throughout Indeed, played Valentino for his role as a screen an career as a became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, develop tire from acting. Another factor in the role of artist in his early an artist in FourHorsemen was as ment which was designed to propel Ingram Ingram's retreat from the cinema the film actor, such in The Spirit and the Clay a further away from Hollywood. Because he imminent arrival of synchronous sound (1914), and number of characters in his so loathed the autocratic Louis B. Mayer, films. Unlike Herbert Brenon, who tried to films, including Julio in Four Horsemen are new Ingram had written into his contract that his work with the technology despite his artists. One of the surviving photographs of as as a films would be known only Metro-Gold antipathy to it, Ingram, already noted, Ingram shows him making bust of one of one wyn productions. made only sound film, Baroud. his ancestors, while the sketches for his films are While in France, Ingram examined the Ingram's search for' cinematic indepen of interest in themselves because of the was no possibility of working at the Victorine Film dence in the 1920s less quixotic than high standard of his drawing. It is, perhaps, coun Studios at Nice. On his return to the coun that of the policy makers in his native not surprising therefore, that Ingram would to to resonate to a try the following year he used the Victorine, try three decades later, who also tried wish European rather than own on which MGM had by then taken an op challenge American cinema with their American artistic sensibility, while also try to tion to buy, as his base for Mare Nostrum. version of Cervantes' lance, Ardmore Stu ing blend it with the century's most in When MGM decided it did not want to dios. By the 1920s, the American cinema novative popular culture, the cinema. to was so purchase the studios, the option passed already dominant that it has largely Ingram, who paid $5 millions for them and remained unchallenged since then. Ironical [I] Liam O'Leary, Rex Ingram: master of the rented them back to MGM for The Magician ly, it was European film workers, in particu silent cinema, Dublin: The Academy Press, which was also made there. Ingram's next lar those from Germany, who profoundly 1980, p.82. Re-issued (1993) by the Porde none film, The Garden of Allah, was his last pro influenced American cinema during the fol Film Festival in conjunction with the renew duction for MGM, which did not his lowing decades and who helped refine and British Film Institute. contract when he refused to return to Hol revitalise its classical style. Ingram continued [2] Marshall Deutelbaum, "Structural Pattern to lywood. In reply to criticism of his decision hope that he could be part of that ing in Lumiere Films", Wide Angle Vol. 3, No. to remain in Europe, Ingram argued that process, but his attempts to realise film pro I, 1979. Reprinted in John L Fell (ed.) Film were film production costs lower in Europe jects during the 1930s and 1940s all proved Before Griffith Berkeley: University of Califor was than in Hollywood. He also rash unsuccessful. Until his death in 1950 his nia Press, 1983. was to arts enough to state that European production artistic life confined the visual [3] Quoted in the excellent collection by would account for half world output within and to writing. Thomas Elsaesser, (ed.) Early Cinema: space, a few years, a view which was both unrealis Ingram's interest in European-based pro frame, narrative, London: British Film Institute, was a tic and which did not endear him to Holly ductions not just quirky search for in 1990, p.3. was a wood. Despite the continuing use of the dependence, but probably reflection [4] O'Leary, Rex Ingram: master of the silent were a set resonances Victorine studios, they not financial of the different of artistic he cinema, 1980, p.82. on success, and Ingram lost control of them by favoured. One of Ingram's first acts his B was to at to 1930. By then, his long time collaborators, arrival in the USA enroll Yale was an such as cameraman John Seitz, had drifted study sculpture. He accomplished, if Kevin Rockett teaches at the Centre for Film same back to Hollywood. At the time, In immature artist before leaving Ireland, and Studies, University College, Dublin.

CIRCA 33