Füge eine Handlung in deiner Sprache hinzuA drinking man arrives home, late and sozzled as usual. His wife reminds him that he promised to take their child to a play. The play proves to be a morality tale about the evils of drink; h... Alles lesenA drinking man arrives home, late and sozzled as usual. His wife reminds him that he promised to take their child to a play. The play proves to be a morality tale about the evils of drink; he sees the parallels in his own life and swears off the demon brew.A drinking man arrives home, late and sozzled as usual. His wife reminds him that he promised to take their child to a play. The play proves to be a morality tale about the evils of drink; he sees the parallels in his own life and swears off the demon brew.
Fotos
Handlung
WUSSTEST DU SCHON:
- VerbindungenEdited into Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America (1997)
In this one, the crosscutting comes at the beginning, as the scene transitions between the shot of a home and one of a tavern. The drunkard is getting loaded at the pub while his wife (played by Linda Arvidson, the director's real wife) and daughter await his return at home. As they look outside their window, it's almost as though they're watching him drink--anticipating the spectacle/spectator dynamic of the subsequent play-within-play sequence, and, nonetheless, it seems that they're looking for him to return. In recognition to the "AB" logo clearly visible on the wall in the home set, at least, let's call these first two shots, A) for the home, and B) for the tavern. The shot succession, then, is A-B-A-B-A, the dichotomy resolved only by the drunkard's return home. Additionally, there's a jump cut between the shots with the father at home, between his wild drunkenness and when he's in a more sedate state for his affectionate daughter to plead for him to take her to the play. To add the usual religion to the lecturing, the wife and mother prays as they leave for the theatre.
The rest of the film is technically even more sophisticated. The next sequence begins and ends with an establishing shot from the back of the theatre, with both the audience and stage in view. Let's call this establishing camera setup "E." The other two shots in the scene are, A) a proscenium arc view of the play-within-the-play, Émile Zola's "L'Assommoir," and B) a reverse-angle perspective of the father and daughter in the audience, which also creates eyeline matches, or shot/reverse shots, for us, the film's spectator, watching them watching the play. There are also two jump cuts that are cleverly divided by the theatre curtain, thus dividing the scenes within the inner, stage play. The shot succession here then is E-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-(curtain)-B-A-B-A-(curtain)-B-A-B-A-B-E. That's two establishing shots and ten shots each, not counting the curtain jump cuts, of the reverse-angled, point-of-view or look-based A and B. Quite elaborate for 1909.
Moreover, Zola's play is the same sort of teetotaler lecture as the film proper, with the film's drunkard learning the same lesson that the filmmakers surely intended for their audience to learn. As the father watches the play, note how he begins with his arms folded, but increasingly embraces his daughter as the drama unfolds. The reformation occurs off stage. Another slight point of interest is that the inner play somewhat reflects the window motif from earlier, of the wife and daughter awaiting the drunkard's return; on stage, this turns into a woman watching from outside as the play's drunkard accepts the bottle of booze she brings him. The play's denouement in contrast a tragic one.
After the theatre scene, the film returns to the family's home, for two scenes in its happy ending--one where he gives up the "demon drink" and a final insert of domestic bliss as chiaroscuro effects of the hearth are linked to the diegetic lighting of the fireplace. The final shot ends, too, as a frozen tableau vivant. These final frames in themselves are a lovely composition from Griffith's usual cinematographer Billy Bitzer. Who edited "A Drunkard's Reformation" doesn't appear to be certain, although Griffith's usual editors James and Rose Smith reportedly began working at Biograph in 1909.
The acting is interesting in this one, too. Roberta E. Pearson's has literally written the book, "Eloquent Gestures," on "The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films," as diverging, that is, from cinema's theatrical heritage. Such is not overwhelmingly evident in an early one-reeler such as "A Drunkard's Reformation," where the acting is somewhat similar on and off stage. The film proper's drunkard smashing dishes aside, however, there are some subtler moments, including the wife's slumping into a prayer position as her husband and daughter leave for the theatre, or the father gradually unfolding his arms and uncrossing his legs to increasingly tighten his embrace of his daughter during the play. By the final tableau, there's nary a melodramatic gesture to be had, with the married couple holding hands as the father slightly gestures towards his daughter in affirmation of her causing his reformation. This, at least, is in stark contrast to the unnatural frontal positioning in the "Ye Black Own Inn" stage bar and wilder antics from Zola's play--the drunkard throwing his arms about and tossing his wife (played by the "Biograph Girl" herself, Florence Lawrence) and child all over the home before himself collapsing.
In comparing "A Drunkard's Reformation" to a later play-within-a-play film with a prohibitionist message of Griffith's, "Brutality" (1912), Pearson says that while the earlier film doesn't embrace the latter's verisimilar code of acting, Griffith did appear to want to strike a difference between the unchecked histrionics on stage and the more, if still part of the "histrionic code," restrained actions of the "real" characters beyond the proscenium arc. Although Griffith began his show business career on stage and had dreams of being a playwright, he quickly surrendered any theatrical pretensions. Pearson quotes the film director as once stating, "Moving pictures can get nothing from the so-called legitimate stage," where he claims they act with unnatural gestures. "For range of delicacy, the development of character, the quick transition from one mood to another, I don't know an actress on the American stage," he continues, "who can begin to touch the work of some of the motion picture actresses." I suppose it would be more apt, then, not to refer to Zola's play as being within another play; it's a play inside of what was developing as distinctly another art form thanks to the likes of Griffith and his team at Biograph.
(From 35mm print preserved by LOC)
- Cineanalyst
- 26. Nov. 2020
Top-Auswahl
Details
- Laufzeit13 Minuten
- Farbe
- Sound-Mix
- Seitenverhältnis
- 1.33 : 1