Cabiria

Cabiria
Directed by	Giovanni Pastrone
Written by	Gabriele d'Annunzio (portrayed as the "auteur" in this poster) and others
Release date(s)	April 18, 1914
Running time	181 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Silent film Italian intertitles

This article is about Giovanni Pastrone's 1914 silent film; for the Federico Fellini film, see The Nights of Cabiria.

Cabiria (1914) is a silent movie from the early years of Italy's movie industry, directed by Giovanni Pastrone.

Plot

The movie is based on Emilio Salgari's Cartagine in fiamme (Carthage in Flames) and Gustave Flaubert's novel Salammbo. Set in ancient Carthage during the period of the Second Punic War, it treats the conflict between Rome and Carthage through the eyes of the title character, who is kidnapped by pirates, sold as a slave in Carthage, and rescued from being sacrificed to the god Moloch by a Roman nobleman and his muscular slave Maciste (who would later become the protagonist in a whole successful series of films on his own). Hannibal and his war elephants fit into the plot of this epic film.

Production

Italian author Gabriele d'Annunzio contributed to the screenplay writing all of the intertitles and naming all characters and the movie itself. The film was noted as being the first popular film to use the trucking shot - the camera is mounted on a dolly allowing it to both follow action and move within a film set or location. For years afterward a trucking shot was referred to by both cameramen and directors as a 'Cabiria' shot. However in many cases Pastrone used these shots with no real purpose other than the novelty of camera movement within a location. In some instances the camera rolls toward and then right past what should be the focus of the shot. However, the movement was such an innovation at the time that other film makers quickly incorporated it. The film was a major influence on D.W. Griffith's Intolerance. The famous crane shot moving down and into the festival in Babylon is in a sense a 'Cabiria' shot taken to the ultimate extent. Film critic Roger Ebert has said that Griffith "moves the camera with greater freedom and has a headlong narrative and an exciting use of cross-cutting that Pastrone does not approach."^[1] The film also marked the debut of the Maciste character, who went on to have a long career in Italian sword and sandal films.

A restored version of the film screened on 27 May, 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival, featuring a filmed introduction by director Martin Scorsese and the film is now also available on DVD.

Controversy

Like Birth of a Nation, Cabiria has aroused its share of controversy because of the political nature of its subject matter. It was produced by Italian ultra-nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio and was released soon after the Italo-Turkish War, in which Italy conquered the North African Ottoman provinces of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. The film highlights Italy's Roman past and the "monstrous" nature of Carthaginian society (with especial focus on the temple of Moloch), which is contrasted with the "nobility" of Roman society.^[2]. Cabiria was therefore one of several films of the period that "helped resusitate a distant history that legitimized Italy's past and inspired its dreams" and which "delivered the spirit for conquest that seemed to arrive from the distant past", thereby presaging the "political rituals of fascism" (wars of conquest, the Roman salute, parades and the fasces itself).^[3]

Cast

• Teresa Marangoni - Croessa
• Umberto Mozzato - Fulvio Axilla
• Bartolomeo Pagano - Maciste
• Raffaele Di Napoli - Bodastoret
• Lydia Quaranta - Cabiria
• Italia Almirante Manzini - Sofonisba
• Dante Testa - Karthalo

References

External links

• Cabiria at the Internet Movie Database
• Cabiria at Allmovie
• Roger Ebert review
• Cabiria : Visione storica del terzo secolo A. C. at Project Gutenberg (Italian)