On Friday October 12th, 2012 I truly saw (and heard) a treat at the Michigan theater. The movie which played was the Sarah Bernhardt silent film titled “Queen Elizabeth” and it was accompanied with live Elizabethan period music by the Newberry Consort. The consort consisted of 5 violins and one soprano. The film was thought to have been unusable, had it not been for an amateur collector.
The Adolph Zukor directed movie was about the love story of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex. Or rather it was a movie about the different love lives of the Earl of Essex. He loved Elizabeth but he also romanced the Countess of Nottingham. When the Queen finds out, he is sent to prison, and is eventually executed. I should add that a jealous Count Nottingham’s action is what ultimately orchestrates the Earl’s execution.
The movie was shown at angle, which would resemble that of a theater stage. This was after all the time period when theater was still prominent and much of early film heavily resembled the stage. The resolution of the film was rather grainy, but the main characters could be distinguished. They were especially distinguishable because of their baroque style acting.
A lot of the acting of that time was done in these grand gestures which would make soap operas and telenovelas seem subtle. A scene of worry would be signified by intense back and forth pacing. Being overdone was another quality of this acting style. A love scene might have the two lovers coiled more tightly on each other than two banyan trees branches and their faces look so nauseatingly sappy with ‘love.” But some of the gestures didn’t seem to make the acting believable. For instance, when (spoiler alert!) Queen Elizabeth dies of heartbreak; she rises from her throne and just falls onto some cushions below her throne. This is similar to what a 5 year old does when they collapse on their bed. In other words, it doesn’t seem believable.
A friend of mine pondered if such a film was deemed as a drama or comedy during the age of 1912. To us in 2012, we equate such gestures to a joke, but it is hard to say what audiences in 1912 felt. In the pre-lecture before the film, it was noted that this was the film which Sarah Bernhardt immortal. One has to wonder, what qualities of her acting or what qualities of the film made her so famous.
But perhaps the greatest gift in this event was the Newberry Consort; their music truly seemed to be renaissance like. They captured all the moods and emotions very well. The music also helped to connect the audience to this awkwardly silent movie at times. This music also connects us to the audiences of 1912, because silent films in those days were never really well… silent. They usually had some form of accompaniment, usually in the form of an organ. We were just lucky enough to get such a great consort.
