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Voidsville Follies

Works featuring "obsession" (6)

She Would Be An Actress

Lubin (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Aug 1909
Minutes: 5

Intense drama unfolds when wife must choose between the two greatest joys in her life: dancing on stage, and whacking her hubby upside the head. What will she choose: the glamour of stage life, or the fulfillment of pummeling Papa?

Featured elements:

: abuse; backstage; by the book; comedy; dance; emblematic shot; family; forsaken; marriage reconciliation; neglected spouse; obsession; patriarchy; shrew; slapstick; undercover agent; zero to hero

Daydreams (Грёзы)

Yevgeny Bauer (director)
Boris Zavelev (cinematographer)
Georges Rodenbach (author)
Alexander Wyrubow (lead)
N. Tschernobajewa (lead)
Khanzhonkov (production)

Language: Silent, Russian titles, English subtitles, released in Oct 1915
Minutes: 38

Inspirational tale of a closet fetishistic necrophiliac who bravely comes out as a proud necrosadist.

Featured elements:

: abstraction; alienation; alter ego; backstage; breaking class; dance; death scene; flashback; obsession; psycho; servitude

After Death (По́сле сме́рти)

Yevgeny Bauer (director/writer)
Boris Zavelev (cinematographer)
Ivan Turgenev (author)
Vera Karalli (lead)
Vitold Polonsky (lead)
Georg Asagaroff (lead)
Olga Rakhmanova (lead)
Khanzhonkov (production)

Language: Silent, Russian titles, English subtitles, released in Dec 1915
Minutes: 46

Stark, gripping, haunting, enigmatic - not your average drive-in flick...Go deeper: see review on Silents, Please!

Featured elements:

: abstraction; afterlife; alienation; backstage; death scene; flashback; humanoids; melodrama; obsession; suicide; unrequited love

The Fire (Il fuoco (la favilla - la vampa - la cenere))

Giovanni Pastrone (director)
Segundo de Chomón (cinematographer)
Gabriele D'Annunzio (author)
Pina Menichelli (lead)
Febo Mari (lead/writer)
Itala (production)

Language: Silent, Italian titles, English subtitles, released in Apr 1916
Minutes: 50

A privileged poetess plucks a peasant painter from his mundane seclusion, flying him to the height of passion in their brief encounter. Breathes new life into a classic “femme fatale theme” (a.k.a., “misogynistic influence” that may be better left dead) by using creative cinematography and careful choreography of the poetess' movements. The result explodes with a visual extravagance within its minimalist domain and, like the painter, the viewer is seduced into an unquenchable thirst for more.

Featured elements:

: abstraction; abuse; agent of discontent; alienation; alter ego; animal act; automobile; baptism of fire; breaking class; femme fatale; forsaken; infidelity; manipulator; obsession; psycho; servitude; sexuality; tragic artist; unrequited love

The Dying Swan (Умирающий лебедь)

Yevgeny Bauer (director)
Boris Zavelev (cinematographer)
Zoya Barantsevich (writer)
Vera Karalli (lead)
Aleksandr Kheruvimov (lead)
Vitold Polonsky (lead)
Andrey Gromov (lead)
Khanzhonkov (production)

Language: Silent, Russian titles, English subtitles, released in Jan 1917
Minutes: 49

“There is no need for words if your soul is singing” - the lawyer told her...

Featured elements:

: abstraction; afterlife; alienation; backstage; dance; death scene; foreshadowing; forsaken; humanoids; obsession; psycho; tragic artist; unrequited love

Carmen/Gypsy Blood

Ernst Lubitsch (director)
Alfred Hansen (cinematographer)
Hanns Kräly (writer)
Prosper Mérimée (author)
Pola Negri (lead)
Harry Liedtke (lead)
PAGU (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Dec 1918
Minutes: 80

The power of a Carmen production derives from a hot Carmen and a tortured Don José. This version is only semi-powered: we see a tortured José, but this Carmen has nothing that could make a good man fall. So, a heavy dose of suspension of belief is required to get through this, yet in the end it wasn't worth the effort.

Featured elements:

: Bizet's Carmen; bookends; dance; death scene; ethnic stereotype; femme fatale; forsaken; music; obsession; prison

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