Projection La vie d’artiste. Le cinéma et les (autres) arts

Descriptions des films

Dans la mesure des ressources disponibles, les descriptions proposées ici proviennent de sources contemporaines de la sortie du film : catalogues des maisons de production ou presse à grand tirage ou spécialisée. Quand il n’a pas été possible de trouver de description d’époque, on a retenu celles fournies par des archives ou des chercheurs.

The film begins on a set designed to be an artist’s studio. A man wearing a smock and flowing tie, with an artist’s palette in one hand and a brush in the other, is studying a three-dimensional full-length painting of an unclothed woman. The artist backs away, as if to get a better perspective, and the figure comes to life, stretching out her arms to him. He approaches the now live figure of the woman and falls to his feet.

Niver, Kempt R., Early Motion Pictures. The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress, Washington, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress, 1985, p. 138.

The opening scene shows the interior of an artist’s studio. Mephisto appears mysteriously and signals the pictures to come to life. They step down from the frames and walk forward, admiring their costumes. Mephisto then touches the artist on the shoulder, awaking him, and disappears. The artist, after rubbing his eyes sees the picture on his right hand side, and jumps to embrace her. After embracing her once, he makes a second attempt, but she disappears. The artist now wakes up, jumps to his feet and run to see if the pictures are still in the frames. He examines them, and finding that they are still fast on the wall, realizes that he has been dreaming and seeks consolation in the bottle.

Edison Films, No. 288, July 1906, p. 44.

Note : le titre du film dans le catalogue est Artist’s Dream.

The professor is a strenuous individual who is so carried away in his instruction to a pretty young girl that he attempts to make real love to her. Her father catches him at it and throws him bodily through window. Very well done and very funny.

Niver, Kemp R., Biograph Bulletins, 1896-1908, Los Angeles, Locare Reaserch Group, 1971, p. 86.

The first visible indication of what is to happen is a stage with undecorated backs of flats. A man, dressed as a choreographer and accompanied by four women in dancer’s practice clothes, enters. The ballet master attempts to teach all of them to dance some steps in unison. The film ends as though he has given up in despair because one of the dancers, who is especially large and ungainly, cannot follow the pattern. All of the scenes were photographed from one position.

Niver, Kempt R., Early Motion Pictures. The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress, Washington, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress, 1985, p. 21.

An artist is painting a picture of a woman clothed in a full-length leotard, but he appears weary and fall asleep. By either stop motion or a quick dissolve, the full figure of the women is changed to a similarly costumed one with the skeleton visible. The artist awake as though from a bad dream and the skeleton is transformed back again into an attractive woman.

Niver, Kempt R., Early Motion Pictures. The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress, Washington, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress, 1985, p. 14.

Showing how the lady-artist showed her male model how to make love, and what her husband did when he happens to drop in.

Niver, Kemp R., Biograph Bulletins, 1896-1908, Los Angeles, Locare Reaserch Group, 1971, p. 84.

Note : Description sous réserve. On ne trouve dans les Biograph Bulletins aucun film portant le titre The Artist’s Studio. Le synopsis, reproduit ici, du film A Model Courtship tourné par Bitzer en 1903 correspond toutefois à la description de la copie de la Library of Congress. Vu la concordance des dates et de l’attribution, il s’agit probablement du même film.

This scene opens with a view of a stage setting and private box. After Miss Dolly Lightfoot has finished a clever dance, a card is placed upon the stage announcing an extra turn. An Italian vocalist appears and starts to sing. He is received with a shower of missiles, to which he pays no attention, until he is finally floored. He rushes from the stage and reapers with an umbrella for protection. He defiantly continues to sing. Two stage hands rush from the wings, seize him, and drag him from the stage.

Edison Films, No. 200, January Supplement, 1904, p.12.

The stage-setting represents a bedroom. An Italian ballet-master, Signor Saltarello, undresses while his maid prepares the bed and wishes him a good-night. As he is absorbed in the study of a new step for a ballet which he is about to compose he makes several trials of steps and goes to bed dissatisfied at not having found the one desired. He falls asleep while beating time and dreams. Two dancers appear in a vision and dance at first upon his bed, then upon the floor. These two dancers are merged into one who executes a very remarkable step in an eccentric dance. When she has finished her turn, she falls into the arms of the ballet-master who in his dream prepares to kiss her, but just as Saltarello presses his lips to hers she vanishes and the mother of the dancer appears in the place of the daughter. In his rage the ballet-master gives the old woman a sound thrashing upon his bed. He rolls to the floor while administering terrific blows and he awakes with a leap to find that he is drubbing his pillow and bolster. At the noise from the great commotion the maid returns to ask if her master has not become insane. The ballet-master recognizing that it was all a dream nearly bursts with laughter.

Supplement No. 10, Star Film, [sd], p.2.

Assis à son piano, M. Tape-Dur tente plusieurs fois de développer une mélodie, mais sa Muse n’est décidément pas au rendez-vous. Vaincu par la fatigue, il s’endort dans son fauteuil tout en continuant de battre la mesure. La déesse de la Musique apparaît devant lui ; elle le transporte dans un ravissant palais où hommes et femmes dansent, enchantés par la musique qu’ils entendent. Tape-Dur bat toujours la mesure, lorsqu’il se réveille. Il s’aperçoit à son grand désespoir que le beau morceau qu’il a encore dans l’oreille n’est en fait que le fruit incongru de son imagination surmenée. Furieux, il veut se suicider en s’enfonçant sa baguette dans le cœur. Voyant que cela est impossible, il devient enragé et fonce tête baissée dans le piano, avec une telle force qu’il se tue en faisant exploser l’instrument.

Association « Les amis de George Méliès », 158 scénarios de films disparus de George Méliès, Paris, Association « Les amis de George Méliès », 1986, p.83.

Seated before his piano, Mr. Bang-the-Box is trying to improvise a bit, but his muse somehow refuses to work. He starts on his theme, but cannot develop it satisfactorily, and he begins anew several times. At last, overcome by fatigue, he falls asleep in his armchair while beating the time of his embryonic composition. The goddess of music appears before him. She bears him away to a lovely palace where the men and women dancers, enchanted by her music, revel in the pleasures of the ball. Mr. Bang-the-Box continues to beat the time most energetically as he recovers his senses. To his despair it finally dawns upon him that the wonderful composition he has created was only a fantasy of his overwrought imagination. In his rage he seeks to end his life by trying to stick his baton into his heart. Finding this an impossible feat, he becomes so furious that he shoves his head into the piano with such force that it kills him and causes the piano to explode.

Supplement No. 28, Star Film, [sd], p. 1

An actor having delayed in a café, finds himself late for his engagement. He rushes out, boards a racing automobile and reaches the theatre where he finds everybody greatly excited over his non-appearance. He bolts across the stage and up to his dressing room, knocking down people in his way. He changes his clothes amid a score of stage folk berating him for his tardiness. Finally he rushes down the stairs butting into various people, among them the managers, and knocking over a waiter carrying articles to the actors. He reaches the tire-door and in his frenzy and haste batters that down and leaps against the back door of the stage setting. He lifts it up and thus goes before the foot-lights. The audience, angered, bombards him with programs, pillows and other things. This film is full of life and movement. There are a dozen highly ludicrous episodes which will cause roars of laughter.

Where all is not Gold that Glitters.

It may be true that the eyes are the windows of the soul, but how very often does the actor or actress have to shade those windows with the blinds of artifice, as does the heroine of this Biograph story. Mrs. Bailey, the young widowed mother of a child, now ill, and with but faint chance of recovery, must undergo the torture of smilingly responding to the generous plaudits of a thoughtless throng at the theatre, while her hearty is torn with anguish that only a mother can appreciate, for “Earth holds no symbol, has no living sign to image forth a mother’s deathless love.” ‘Tis the opening night of a big production at the opera house, and at eight o’clock we still find the distracted actress in her humble apartment bending over the wan figure of her little one, while her own mother stands by in mute distress. A knock at the door signals the entrance of the call-boy, with a note from the manager to say that she must come at once to the theatre or suffer the loss of her position- a thing she can ill afford as it furnishes the only revenue, meagre as it is, with which she maintains her little home. Madly rushing to the theatre, she hastens into her costume and appears at the entrance just as the curtain raises. Here is the crucial test of the actor’s art. With heart as heavy as stone, she trips on to be greeted by the thousand smiling faces of pleasure-seekers in anxious anticipation of her dance, which is a feature of the performance. The dance over she exits to be met by her mother, who has been sent by the doctor to bid her hurry home if she would see her loved one alive. Meanwhile there are storms of applause from an insistent public, soliciting an encore; hence she is aroused from her apparent lethargy by the stage manager, who fairly pushes her back on the stage. Again before the audience, her art befriends her, but in the course of the dance a mother’s intuition asserts itself and in her mind’s eye she sees her little one-but only for a moment, for the audience is thrown into a wild tumult, which tends to recall her to the exigencies of her position and so she finishes the number. Dashing wildly from the theatre to her home, she arrives- but too late. For when she meets the kind-hearted doctor at the door, her worst fears are confirmed. The scene that follows positively defies description, and we can only say that it is unquestionably the most powerful ever shown in motion pictures.

Niver, Kemp R., Biograph Bulletins, 1896-1908, Los Angeles, Locare Reaserch Group, 1971, p. 384.

Mrs. Youngwife has become stage-struck. She purchases a book “How to become a great actress” and soon imagines she is ready for her debut. The husband tries in vain to bring her to her senses and follows her in disguise.

He breaks up her first performance, thrashes a too ardent admirer and tells her he will get a divorce. She prefers to sacrifice her “art” to her darling hubbub and peace reigns forever.

His Little Girl/She Would Be an Actress, Lubin Manufacturing Company, August 5, 1909.

Two sets were used in this drama of a supposed incident in the life of Edgar Allan Poe. One set is the interior of his home, and the other is two rooms in a publishing house. The film begins by showing a desperately ill woman in bed. A man with flowing hair and a mustache enters, attempt to comfort his wife, and then sits down at a table to write. By the use of stop-action photography, a raven appears and perches on top of a bookcase. His manuscript completed, Poe reads it to his wife and then rushes off to sell it. His poem his rejected by several individuals in the publisher’s office, until, as a last resort, he forces his way into the editor’s office. The editor buys the poem. Poe hurries home only to find that he is too late and his wife is dead.

Niver, Kemp R., Early Motion Pictures: the Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress, Washington, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress, 1985, p. 86.

A young painter wearing the traditional beret is seated at his easel before his “classically” draped model (who holds a broom for a spear). He has just begun to daub a “fantoche” stick figure on his canvas when a collector interrupts, asking to see some pictures. One by one the painter displays blank canvases and announces their titles. By using animated inserts, each picture draws itself. The jokes arise from the interplay between the ridiculous titles and (…) the various pictures (…). The collector begins to rave deliriously and agrees to buy everything in the studio.

Crafton, Donald, Émile Cohl: caricature and film, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990, p. 291.

Mozart feels compelled to finish a final requiem as he fears death is quickly approaching. Although the doctor has specifically ordered Mozart not to play or compose, Mozart begins a composition after listening to his student play the violin and having visions of three of his operas: Cherubino’s Romanza from The Marriage of Figaro, Don Juan’s Serenade from Don Giovanni, and a scene from The Magic Flute. After Mozart has finished his requiem a group of friends comes to visit him, and as they sing his last composition to him, Mozart dies.

Library of Congress Online Catalog
http://catalog.loc.gov/

Dans un parc, des passants regardent un peintre à l’œuvre. Celui-ci lie connaissance avec une jeune fille qui se montre fort intéressée par son travail. Plus tard, dans un studio, elle pose pour lui et peu à peu une relation amoureuse s’établit entre eux. Cependant, le peintre s’en lasse et met la jeune fille à la porte malgré ses supplications. Quelques mois plus tard, la jeune fille avance dans la rue avec un enfant dans les bras, frappe à une porte et s’effondre. La femme de la maison la recueille alors avec son bébé.

Gaudreault, André (dir.), Cinéma 1900-1906. Filmography/Filmographie, Bruxelles, FIAF, 1982, p.221.

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